India and Pakistan have pulled back from the edge. After four days of airstrikes, drone attacks and cross-border fire, the two nuclear-armed neighbours have agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”. Dozens of people lost their lives in the escalation as both sides moved closer to full-scale hostilities.
The fighting began on Wednesday when India carried out strikes on "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and inside Pakistan, two weeks after 26 people were killed in an attack on tourists in Pahalgam. Pakistan denied the accusations.
In this issue of 바카라, titled "Is It War?", we look at the tense four-day standoff that brought India and Pakistan to the edge of open war.
A war is a scary thing. It turns people into lifeless numbers and destroys properties, infrastructure and livelihoods. But for the media, especially TV news channels, it became a spectacle. Anchors shouted jingoistic hyperboles at the top of their voices, with computer-generated images and animations mimicking fighter jets flying on the screen. With breathless urgency, they declared Pakistan to be on the brink of collapse. In this issue, Snigdhendu Bhattacharya writes about media propaganda during this confrontation.
Former Ambassador Gurjit Singh writes that India's missile-based response to the Pahalgam attack—Operation Sindoor—was not merely retaliatory. The message, he argues, is clear: cross-border terrorism will no longer be tolerated in silence.
Iftikhar Geelani, a journalist based in Turkey, argues that the subcontinent should step back from its living-room war fantasies and learn the lessons history has screamed at us. War is not a television spectacle or a Twitter thread. Real war means real deaths, real loss and real consequences— none of which can be undone by bravado or armchair strategy, he writes.
Read these and more in the latest issue of 바카라.
