The Modi administration in India tried to unveil its novel Pakistan strategy a little before its general election last year. It began with a false flag operation that was blamed squarely on Pakistan, as usual, with the country’s belligerent media moving in lockstep with its hawkish government. All this was meant to set a series of events in motion that would take the BJP into the election with the kind of momentum it would have liked. The operation was followed by brief violation of Pakistan’s airspace, which was also accompanied by a false narrative in the Indian media; something about killing some thousand local jihadi at some camp even though all they achieved was burning a few trees and killing a couple of innocent crows in the middle of a forest somewhere in the mountains. But that was about as far as they could keep to their script. Pakistan Air Force (PAF) pilots returned the favour, and then some, the next day, shooting down two of their aircraft, killing one pilot and capturing the other. Since then, even though BJP won the election, the Indian narrative has been reduced to a number of comical episodes that much of the international media carries only for its fun value; indeed a lot of readers also mistake it for satirical content. Every now and then the Indian intelligence agencies seem to capture a number of birds that have allegedly been spying for Pakistan. Just the other day they caught yet another pigeon that was, according to the Indian government no less, caught carrying out Pakistani-sponsored intelligence and espionage operations deep inside Indian territory. No doubt New Delhi would have been proud of such intel work and somebody must have deserved a serious promotion for all this work. And just this last week, their prime news anchors – who are apparently so good because they can spew venom like nobody’s business – actually accused Pakistan of sponsoring all the millions of locusts that have invaded their country. That they couldn’t even notice that prior to moving to India these same pests had just caused unprecedented damage to Pakistani crops is not surprising at all, considering how they have been blinded by hatred for Pakistan. Things have become so intolerable for them now that they will stoop to whatever level necessary to score points that only they keep count of. This is clearly a new low, even for India. *