Why Pak Spin Doctors Are Zooming In On Gen Rawat newsclick.in

The Indian Army chief’s lack of restraint is key to a worse-off region. On 25 October, the Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan Army, went overboard. As it attempted to take the Indian Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat, down a peg or two, it issued a strongly worded statement-making three claims. one, that Rawat is provoking war by over-hyping fire assaults as surgical strikes. Two, that he is providing the Indian political rulers with fodder for electioneering. And three, that Rawat has upended the professionalism of India’s military, turning it into a “rogue” force.

Last week, the Indian media, influenced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spin doctors, on the eve of elections in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana, was advertising assaults by the Indian army on Pakistan as “surgical strike 3”. Rawat waded into this developing story, claiming that the fire assaults were on Pakistan’s terror launchpads, in which the “Pakistan Army and the terrorists have suffered heavy casualties.” He pegged the casualties at “six to ten” Pakistani soldiers and three terror camps destroyed.

Rawat’s claims prompted an otherwise sympathetic journalist of a quasi-nationalist website, The Print, to caution against the Indian Army aping the Pakistan Army’s “lying” public relations wing. He also drew a connection between the upcoming state polls and Rawat’s intervention—though he is not alone in seeing this.