India is fighting a war most citizens don’t even know exists — not with missiles, but with weaponised information, psychological manipulation, and carefully engineered narratives.
In this incisive conversation, Dr. Sonali Chittalkar, Professor of Political Science at Miranda House, Delhi University, dissects India’s information warfare vulnerabilities with host Sabarish. Opening with Sun Tzu’s warning — “if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” — she maps the ideological roots of Pakistan’s terror ecosystem back to the 1979 Mecca Masjid seizure and the transnational jihad network documented in Pakistani journalist Arif Jamal’s book The Call for Transnational Jihad. She argues that the Pehalgam attack — where victims were identified by religion before being shot — was not an isolated tragedy but part of a broader, Pakistan-state-backed psychological operation, and that India’s mature societal response prevented the intended communal fallout.
Dr. Chittalkar reserves her sharpest critique for India’s universities: China studies, Pakistan studies, information warfare, and military history are absent from undergraduate curricula, leaving citizens unarmed against fifth-generation warfare. She calls for mandatory security-oriented curriculum reform under the NEP, greater civil-military fusion modelled on Israel and China, and urges every citizen — teacher, journalist, vice chancellor — to become a “warrior in national interest” in the information domain.
About The Speaker:
Dr. Sonali Chitalkar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Miranda House, University of Delhi. Her academic interests include international relations, conflict resolution, and strategic studies, with a focus on Jammu & Kashmir and South Asian geopolitics. She is also a vocal commentator on national security and education policy.
Dr Sabareesh P.A. is a writer and author of ‘A Brief History of Science in India’, ‘Our Hindu Nationhood’ and a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi with wide academic interests.
