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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Britannia Adrift

After years of Conservative infighting, Brexit-induced turmoil and the brief farce of Liz Truss’s premiership, Labour’s landslide victory under Keir Starmer appeared to herald a return to calm government in Britain. Now, less than two years later, Starmer has resigned, becoming the sixth British prime minister in a decade to leave office before completing a full term. The immediate trigger is the return of Andy Burnham to Westminster. His emphatic victory in the Makerfield by-election...

Britannia Adrift

After years of Conservative infighting, Brexit-induced turmoil and the brief farce of Liz Truss’s premiership, Labour’s landslide victory under Keir Starmer appeared to herald a return to calm government in Britain. Now, less than two years later, Starmer has resigned, becoming the sixth British prime minister in a decade to leave office before completing a full term. The immediate trigger is the return of Andy Burnham to Westminster. His emphatic victory in the Makerfield by-election electrified sections of the Labour Party, many of whom view the former Greater Manchester mayor as a more compelling and politically resilient figure than Starmer. Labour’s disappointing performance in local elections had only sharpened those doubts. But Britain faces a larger question. Why has the office of prime minister become so precarious? Starmer’s departure is further evidence that Britain has entered an age of political restlessness in which governments struggle to survive long enough to solve the problems they inherit. For much of the post-war era Britain was governed by two broad churches. While Labour and the Conservatives alternated in power, both accepted the legitimacy of the political system and possessed enough internal discipline to absorb dissent. Governments rose and fell at elections, not through a perpetual leadership crisis. That consensus has steadily frayed. The financial crisis of 2008 shattered faith in economic management. Brexit fractured both major parties and exposed profound divisions within British society. The years since have produced a succession of leaders who promised national renewal but found themselves overwhelmed by structural realities. David Cameron gambled on a referendum and lost. Theresa May tried to reconcile irreconcilable factions and failed. Boris Johnson mastered electoral politics but struggled with government. Liz Truss discovered that markets could be more ruthless than party rivals. Rishi Sunak inherited a depleted administration. Now Starmer joins the procession. The striking feature is that Britain’s instability has survived changes of both party and ideology. The Conservatives were punished for appearing incompetent. Labour is now being punished for appearing ineffective. Part of the problem lies in a political culture increasingly addicted to instant gratification. Governments are expected to deliver quick solutions to problems decades in the making. Starmer won office promising pragmatism and competence. Yet once in government, Labour often appeared less interested in confronting difficult truths than in managing headlines. Faced with pressure from different constituencies, it oscillated between technocratic caution and populist gestures. The result satisfied nobody. Voters seeking change found incrementalism. Voters seeking stability encountered drift. Meanwhile, Britain’s political landscape has fragmented. The Greens have chipped away at Labour’s progressive flank. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has transformed itself into a potent force among disillusioned voters. The old two-party duopoly looks increasingly fragile. Electoral volatility has become the norm rather than the exception. The real challenge now is not who governs Britain. It is whether anyone can govern it effectively anymore.

Censorship and the Moral Arithmetic of War

From Bletchley Park to Pahalgam, governments have long walked the tightrope between truth and silence. But history teaches that in wartime, censorship is a necessary strategy to ensure victory.

Following the deadly night skirmish between India and Pakistan after the latter launched multiple attacks using drones and other munitions along our western border, a deluge of disinformation has flooded social media in form of fake videos and posts that threatens to outpace even the jets scrambling on both sides of the Line of Control.


There has been a deluge of dubious videos, chest-thumping and bizarre claims and counter-claims from both sides. That said, there is a real war in all but name raging out there, the result of a barbarous strike carried out by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists who massacred 27 civilians in cold blood on April 22 in Kashmir’s scenic Pahalgam.


For India, this has been a ‘moral crusade’ to bring the perpetrators to book and prevent once and for all the murder of innocents as well as Army men by a hostile neighbour. When the Indian Army fired precision missiles across the LoC and in terror camps within Pakistan as part of ‘Operation Sindoor,’ it did so under a shroud of deliberate silence.


No media access. Only government briefings. No theatrics. The only sound was the muted thud of retribution. The deception was complete as it caught Pakistan completely napping. However, critics within India, namely a section of the so-called ‘secular’ press, have decried the Modi government’s unwarranted censorship. Well, they ought to re-visit their military history.


The hoary maxim “In war, truth is the first casualty,” is generally attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus, who perhaps drew this observation from his experience in the Persian wars two millennia ago.


However, India has learned hard lessons from being too transparent. In the 1962 war with China, media leaks about India’s ill-equipped, outnumbered troops hurt morale and helped Chinese propaganda. Chinese sympathies with Indian leftist parties further aided our wily opponent.


Today’s information wars are even more dangerous, given that an AI-generated video can spark riots. Now, information control is no longer about merely concealing facts but managing perception. Pakistan, of course, has institutionalised deception. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistan’s military media wing, has long functioned as a full-bodied propaganda directorate - equal parts Orwell and Bollywood. Its operations would be comical were they not so calculated: slick montages of missiles, recitations of dubious ‘truths’ and a pipeline of lies pumped into domestic and international circuits.


For India, the task is harder. It must balance democratic transparency with operational discretion. The Indian media must understand that wartime censorship is not about muzzling dissent or massaging egos but about outsmarting the enemy and shielding civilian populations from panic.


Ancient Egyptian ideology emphasized the importance of observing and understanding the enemy to score strategic advantages in warfare. The famous ‘Amarna Letters’ dating back to the 14th century BCE, offer some of the earliest glimpses into diplomatic espionage and the collection of information from foreign rulers.


Secrets, after all, are not mere concealments but shields and traps. They can mean the difference between triumph and catastrophe. As Winston Churchill eloquently put it, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”


Modern commentators, soaked in the warm bath of peacetime liberties, scoff at such measures. But they must have the maturity to realize wars are not fought with hashtags. History is unambiguous on this count. Censorship, though distasteful to civil libertarians, has saved lives, misled enemies and turned the tide of battles.


Consider Operation Fortitude, the elaborate British deception that convinced Hitler the D-Day invasion would land in Calais rather than Normandy. Fake radio chatter, dummy tanks, and a masterful news blackout led German forces to concentrate in the wrong place. Without such secrecy, the beaches of Normandy might have become a bloodbath, not a launching pad for European liberation. The most controversial aspect about this operation was that Britain’s MI6 fed falsehoods to the Nazis while letting agents of their own sister service, the SOE, die brutally at the hands of the Germans. Proof that, in war, lives of compatriots are sometimes bartered for a greater lie that helps win it.


In World War II, both sides weaponised censorship. But none perfected the art of denial like the Soviets during the Cold War, whose ‘dezinformatsiya’ tactics still inspire modern troll farms in Islamabad and beyond.


During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, President Kennedy had imposed a near-total media blackout for the first six days, thus buying time to explore diplomatic options and military contingencies without triggering panic or Soviet escalation. The world finally edged away from nuclear war in silence.


India has had its disinformation challenges. But they are more often the product of overzealous patriots and partisan actors than orchestrated state doctrine. While some Indian media outlets do succumb to the temptations of clickbait and jingoism, they operate in a competitive environment where fact-checking exists. In contrast, Pakistan operates with near-total state-media symbiosis. During the 1965 and 1971 wars, Radio Pakistan issued daily bulletins of fictitious victories. Today, the medium is different, but the message remains the same: Pakistan, perpetually the victim, never the instigator. That all terrorist attacks on Indian soil since the 1990s trace back to Pakistan-sponsored groups is rarely hammered home in the manner


In war, truth may be the first casualty, but silence is a strategic weapon. States cannot afford to treat information like oxygen, freely available and unfiltered.

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