Is establishing the truth a problem during a conflict?

Parallel to the recent escalation of military tensions between India and Pakistan, misinformation and disinformation surged online, making it increasingly difficult for the public to distinguish fact from fiction. Many media outlets published sensational stories riddled with unverified claims, and disseminated fake pictures and videos. Jingoism often drove the public response. Is establishing the truth a problem during a conflict? Nirupama Subramanian and Pratik Sinha discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Mandira Moddie. Edited excerpts:
Are there any rules for reporting during times of military conflict? How do we balance national security implications versus the public's right to know?
Nirupama Subramanian: Indian media houses have not framed rules for coverage of conflicts. This is particularly sad given that independent India has had so many military conflicts with Pakistan and China. We have also had internal conflicts — Maoist insurgencies, secessionist movements, and the militancy in Kashmir, which has elements of war because of the cross-border nature of the violence.
The only rules we have are the basic rules for journalism — your responsibility is to inform the public with accuracy, verify your information from the government and the adversary, and collect information from multiple sources. These are all ways to get as close to the truth as possible. In other words, this is what is meant by being objective. Many people understand objective to be the same as neutral. You can take sides and still be objective, right? And these are all pathways to that. Then, of course, the commitment to your viewers and readers that you don't spread misinformation — at least not knowingly. You have to know the difference between propaganda and real (information). During a conflict, there is an element of national security — you're not supposed to give out troop movement.
But during conflicts, especially in those that involve your own country versus another, these rules are the first casualty. In India, we have seen this loss of objectivity even when the government battles sections of its own citizens — in Kashmir or in the north-east or in the Maoist insurgency-hit States. Journalists become instruments through which the government wants to keep the national morale up. And they just drop their commitment of informing the public. Loyalty to the nation is demanded by the government. The danger is that this can also become loyalty to those in power.
Pratik, how did Operation Sindoor play out on social media?
Pratik Sinha: What I have seen over the last few years is that while there may be some amounts of misinformation happening unknowingly, most of it is fairly strategised across multiple layers. The communication strategy also depends on who needs to set the narrative. On day one (of Operation Sindoor), when the strikes happened, there were videos from Pakistan, even before we all woke up, of people being injured and of broken buildings. Compare this to 2019 when the Balakot strikes happened. Some (in India) claimed then that (a former Pakistani diplomat had stated that) 300 terrorists had been killed in the strikes (but his comments were misreported). Not one image of an injured or dead person was spread then. But this time, it was Pakistan which got into the race of narrative-building first, because it was Pakistan which felt the need to set a narrative.
On day two, things started to change. In India, when propaganda happens, it is not just on social media; many mainstream media channels said that we have attacked Karachi port or reached Islamabad. Then social media began amplifying that by saying we have gone far inside Karachi. By day three, there was just a crazy amount of misinformation on Indian social media and (sections of) the mainstream media.
When someone says Karachi port has been attacked, no one in Karachi is watching this because Indian channels are blocked there; it is Indian viewers who are reacting to this. Almost all war propaganda is directed at a country's own citizens.
We saw a lot of dramatic representations of war from the TV studios. What are the pressures for journalists these days?
Nirupama Subramanian: Actually, this should be the best time for journalists, for journalism. But unfortunately this is also the worst time for journalism. There was some really cringe stuff we got to see on TV. Channels have discovered that demonising Islam and Muslims garners good TRPs. So a military conflict with Pakistan is like a halwa for them.
I don't think TV channels are able to present the horrors of war as such. For instance, I would have liked to know what actually happens in a nuclear conflict. Nuclear weapons are discussed like firecrackers. People do not understand that these are weapons of mass destruction. I don't think I saw anything on TV that could explain to me what the nuclear threshold is, what escalation means, what deterrence means, or what may happen if there is a nuclear conflagration. There was no discussion on the cost of war either. They were presenting this conflict as some kind of entertainment in the skies and people seemed happy to watch this because they felt that it didn't affect them.
The other pressure is external. The government demands loyalty by using punitive measures such as filing cases, shutting down news organisations, blocking online news organisations, and threatening mainstream media with a loss of advertisement revenue. Journalists are getting the message that they should not try to find out what is happening on the other side. But what is happening with your adversary is important to understand. What are the people in Pakistan thinking? I am learning that there will be consequences if you keep contacts with people there.
The other thing is the power differential in a military conflict. With China, we saw during both the Doklam crisis and in Ladakh in 2020 that the the media was very restrained, very well behaved. With Pakistan, it's open season because of that power differential.
The normative role of media is to ask questions to power. But even asking questions is seen as a problem sometimes. Doesn't the public have the right to know?
Nirupama Subramanian: I think there is an expectation that in these kinds of situations, journalists must suspend their questioning of the government because all that matters is that you boost the war effort. Even citizens don't want journalists to question the government, and governments are only going to give out information that is favourable to them. Governments will justify this as something to do with troop morale. I can imagine that for a soldier hearing about losses when he is in the middle of a war can be really crushing. But why is the government not providing information about losses even now? We still don't know the full extent of what we lost when China made incursions into Indian territory in 2020. Because if this is made public, questions will be asked of the government, the government will be made accountable, and that may impact on the politics of the country. This is why they want to control the information.
During Operation Sindoor, X announced that it had received orders from the Union government to block some 8,000 accounts in India, including those of news organisations and prominent X users. How can the public hope to understand any issue when differing viewpoints are suppressed?
Pratik Sinha: The simple answer is that we cannot and the reason for blocking is that we should only get a selective view. This has been in the making for a very long time. It's just that during this conflict, we saw an extreme version of it. For example, Hindutva Watch, which does critical work in documenting hate crimes and hate speech, has been blocked in India for the longest time. Conflict time makes it convenient to suppress criticism. Under the garb of nationalism, anyone who is critical is being termed anti-national.
The Indian media is in a time of crisis. I'm talking about the entire ecosystem, which includes social media, YouTube, and all other platforms. The way our Foreign Secretary got trolled depicts what we have become as a society. And on top of that, there is no access to well-rounded information.
Nirupama Subramanian: To imagine that by blocking people on X you block out news completely is absurd. Yes, you may block out some actors, but the fact that India suffered some losses was in every respectable news report across the world. There was no way that the government could control all that. There is a limit to which it can control the narrative; it can't control it entirely.
Listen to the conversation in The Hindu Parley podcast

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