Parliament Security Breach: Don't Ignore The Threat Of Psychological Warfare
Do we need arms to defeat our enemies' incoming generation? Or do we need to fight every war with Arms? Consider the following line: "Those Who Can Make You Think the Way That's in their Interest enjoy the real power"- Ajit Doval KC. As India's solid and steady BJP-led government enters into the election mode, so-called hawks and corporate and media lobbyists in various geographies of the world, often backed by anti-India elements and consume anti-India narratives, are desperate to destabilise the environment and tarnish the reputation of the government around the globe. For our forever enemies and subverted anti-national elements have so far attempted to wage psychological warfare, the first brush was the Delhi Riots and farmer riots and so on, which profoundly impacted our social and institutional fabric. Therefore, it is essential to understand that unconventional threats will soon dominate the global threat matrix. What happened in Parliament is concerning and somewhere points towards psywar in the offing. Even in the past, especially in the 1980s-1990s, there were reports of few breaches in the parliament but all of them were quite civilian and political in nature unlike the recent one where a canister acting as a potential smoke bomb gone off in the parliament.
Though the committee is investigating it and more clarity would be needed, from security and strategic lenses, a preliminary view suggests about psychological warfare aimed under the garb of anarchism. According to reports and sources, they were not poorly-read people, but they were distressed and frustrated with poor household conditions. On one fine day, things changed for them; their thinking got upside down, coloured with manipulated facts and they gaslighted about the situation and dared to carry out such activity. Who is doing all these is subject to investigation by the Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau. A report says that one accused sent a video of a protest outside the parliament to an NGO; what does it indicate? An organised gang and conspiracy to disturb the nation's political and societal environment. In past countries, especially the US and its infamous intel agency CIA, masters of psywar- in Iran and Ukraine by organising colour revolutions to topple governments. At the same time, it is essential to know how psywar works-
Psychological warfare aims to colour the population of the targeted state psychologically. Often, enemy states and their Intelligence agencies subvert anti-government elements in NGOs, Media organisations and various other social organisation which is close to civil society. These subverted elements mobilise people, stir sensitive issues, manipulate, and gaslight them (majorly misguided youth) to provoke riots and hatred against the government; if not controlled, this can take the form of bloodshed. In the recent past, our Intelligence agencies have been under heavy-running commentary from the West, and therefore, OSINT also needs to be discussed. Open-source Intelligence(OSINT) is the most effective way to organise psywar in any country. There are three types of PsyWar: A-White Propoganda, Where the news is truthful, and whistleblowing to embarrass the enemy. B-Grey Progoganda, Where the Information or News is truthful but the source is unknown. C-Black Propoganda: Where the Information is fake and misleading to push the population in some direction, and usually people don't know they have been misled. Here, the source is also not known and is sometimes deceptive or attributed to some other sponsor that is not real. As New Delhi continues to rise in global order, its security and intelligence agencies must watch for an evolving threat landscape significantly ahead of the 2024 elections.
