Social media has been taken over by warmongers in the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Pakistan and India, two nuclear armed states, have fought many wars since our partition in 1947. Our militaries have faced off in 1947,1965,1971 and 1999. Between those wars, there have been numerous skirmishes, cross-border strikes and accusations of covert support for terrorism.
I have never seen my country at peace with its neighbor. But never before have I seen a war played out between two nuclear-armed states with Twitter accounts.
On Feb. 14, a suicide bomber hit a convoy of paramilitary forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group based in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack. India accused Pakistan of orchestrating the bombing. Pakistan denied the allegation and maintained that it would act on intelligence shared but that none had been given.
On Tuesday, India flew fighter planes across Pakistani territory, engaging the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces in dogfights for the first time since 1971. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, up for re-election in two months time, claimed to have hit a terrorist training camp in the Balakot area in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, killing 300 militants. Pakistan’s military spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, denied the claims, saying that Indian war planes dropped their payloads without causing any casualties or damage to infrastructure.
On social media, Indian journalists celebrated the strike with glee; Bollywood stars who have only play-acted in wars sent their Twitter congratulations: “mess with the best, die like the rest,” tweeted Ajay Devgn. “What an explosive morning!” Raveena Tandon cheered. Kangana Ranaut, promoting a film, weighed in that barring Pakistani artists from Bollywood “is not the focus, Pakistan destruction is,” and any voices calling for peace and restraint were immediately labeled anti-national traitors.
