Description
In 2020, all Indian Army (IA) personnel were ordered to delete all their social media accounts and apps, extending this ban to 89 apps. The IA justified this to prevent leakage of sensitive information and other security considerations. This was matched by an increase in activity on IA’s official social media channels, such as X and Instagram. This pointed to the IA’s desire to maintain a singular narrative on social media. This was hypervisibilised in the most militarised region of the country, the Kashmir Valley. In a region with very low levels of political freedom and civil liberties, the IA social media channels demonstrate the state’s discourse and leave little space for dissent. In this paper, we focus on two IA accounts on X: Chinarcorps_IA and northerncommand_IA to bring forth the narrative tools deployed by the IA to normalise militarism in the Kashmir Valley between 2019-2024. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conduct a quantitative analysis of recurring words followed by qualitative discourse analysis to draw out the key narrative strategies used by the IA. Our study notes the following themes: glorification of military and related officials, IA as a benevolent benefactor for Kashmiris and Kashmiri culture, Hindu-isation of the Kashmir valley and the use of Kashmiri women and children, these themes are then collectively deployed to normalise the militarisation of Kashmir valley and its peoples. This paper highlights a shift in the IA’s colonial strategy of ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’ to a different platform. As the IA has now been granted direct authority to ask for removal of social media posts by the Central government, this points towards the IA’s impunity in the Kashmir Valley and showcases the generation of consent for its policies amongst the wider populations (both national and international) for its illegal occupation of the Kashmir Valley.
