​​Narrating the nation abroad

Context

India needing to engage in diplomatic clarification shows a concern that its actions might be misunderstood, misrepresented, or overlooked amid the noise of global crises.

Introduction

India’s move to send diplomatic envoys and delegates to different countries to explain its side of the story on the recent clashes with Pakistan and the terrorist attack that started them brings up a key question: is this proactive diplomacy a sign of strength or a way to offer reassurance?

India’s Diplomatic Outreach and Narrative Legitimacy

• On the surface, India’s move is a strategic effort to:
  • Manage international perception.
  • Prevent misrepresentation.
  • Reinforce India’s image as a responsible global actor.
• Beneath this, there is a more complex issue of narrative legitimacy:
  • In today’s world, perception often matters more than facts.
  • International sympathy cannot be assumed or taken for granted.
• Much public debate focuses on:
  • The government’s domestic strategy.
  • Political calculations behind choosing delegation members.
• However, more important questions include:
  • The necessity of this diplomatic move.
  • Its effectiveness.
  • The expected outcomes.
• In the modern global order:
  • States must perform legitimacy for an audience of allies, media, and institutions.
  • India’s outreach is part of this performance.
• The outreach aims to:
  • Show that India’s military response is:
    • Measured and targeted at terrorists.
    • Aimed at defending sovereignty.
    • Not a pretext to escalate old rivalries.
• From this perspective, the move shows:
  • Calculated strength.
  • Confidence that India can take the moral high ground.
  • Ability to secure international support if communicated well.
• However, the need for such diplomatic efforts suggests:
  • An underlying legitimacy deficit.
  • If India’s position were universally accepted, such explanations would not be needed.
• Therefore, India’s diplomatic clarification indicates:
  • Concern over its actions being misread, misframed, or ignored.
  • A recognition of the fragility of international opinion.
  • Desire to control the narrative but also awareness of its vulnerability.

Misinformation in the India-Pakistan Conflict Era

• Speed of misinformation now outpaces official briefings, amplifying public vulnerability.
• Recent conflicts demonstrate how easily falsehoods become accepted as facts.
• Examples include:
  • Old video footage misrepresented as current.
  • Unrelated disaster clips falsely linked to conflict.
  • Scenes from digital war games circulated as real military operations.
• Such misinformation is not just state-sponsored, but largely generated and shared by ordinary social media users.
• Motivations include:
  • Nationalist fervor
  • Emotional reactions
  • Digital mischief

Actor	Role in Misinformation	Examples
Ordinary Users	Share and amplify false content	Viral sensational videos
Social Media Users	Spread fabricated content on both sides	Indian & Pakistani users
Technology (AI)	Generate deepfakes and AI images	Harder to detect misinformation

Impact on Credibility and Public Perception

• India’s efforts to clarify facts are like swimming upstream due to:
  • Pre-formed opinions based on viral, emotional content.
• Key questions arise:
  • Does verifiable information still matter as a public good?
  • Has news become a tool of affect and performance rather than truth?
• The erosion of trust represents a philosophical crisis:
  • Traditionally, “truth is the first casualty of war” referred to state secrecy.
  • Example: WWII Japanese emperor’s euphemistic surrender speech.
• Now, distortion is bottom-up, lateral, and participatory:
  • Citizens produce and share falsehoods aligned with their beliefs.
  • Blurs line between truth and illusion.

Philosophical Context: Simulation and Reality

Concept	Explanation	Implication
Jean Baudrillard’s claim	“The Gulf War did not take place” — war consumed as spectacle and simulation	Reality displaced by mediated images
Modern context	Simulation now overrides real events in public perception	Public sees illusion as reality
Humanities perspective	Loss of shared facts leads to loss of meaningful argument and debate	Results in disorientation, not discussion

India’s Diplomatic Campaign: A Battle for Credibility

• Effort is not just persuasion, but restoring conditions for meaningful dialogue.
• Could signal either:
  • Admission of vulnerability, or
  • Reassertion of national strength based on historical authenticity (e.g., Non-Aligned Movement legacy).
• Failure to restore trust risks:
  • Military precision and moral clarity becoming irrelevant.
  • Audience losing ability to distinguish justified actions from manufactured illusions.

Conclusion

So, the bigger question is not if India can explain itself to the world, but whether the world still has a way to hear these explanations as truth and not just ignore them as one more version of the story. Losing that means losing more than just credibility — it means losing our last chance for a politics of authenticity.