Operation Sindoor and the Enduring Contest of Narratives

“The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness.” ~ General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

Illustration by The Geostrata

The concept of warfare has been evolving, from ancient times to the current state of advanced technology-driven warfare. In the past few decades, however, the nature of warfare has undergone a significant shift. The battle of perception and narrative is as important as that of the battle of missiles. Operation Sindoor makes a good example of the fact that, despite non-hostilities on the ground for almost a year, the battle continues in the narrative and information domain.

Last year, on the fateful day of May 7, 2025, the Indian Armed Forces overwhelmingly dismantled multiple terrorist training camps at nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK). Operation Sindoor, as we now remember it, was a response to the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 innocent people.

Militarily, Operation Sindoor marked the doctrinal shift in India’s counter-terrorism strategy, where we have gone deep inside Pakistan to destroy key terror launchpads by means of precision strikes. While the military conflict only lasted for 88 hours, it continues, now on a different battlefield. In the battlefield of narratives and information space. 

Unlike the era of the world wars, modern warfare pays equal importance to the non-contact methods of waging the war. In today’s time, one can only ignore the development of the cognitive and information warfare capabilities at one's peril. Operation Sindoor is a good example of it. 

India practically made Pakistan handicapped with its air defence systems destroyed, along with its interception proving to be pointless. However, in the aftermath of the battle, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has waged an information war, projecting Pakistan’s abysmal defeat as its victory.

By means of coordinating with international think tanks and media houses, ISPR has indulged in orchestrated information operations to boost Pakistan’s image. Lt. Gen. Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon (Retd.), in his book, Operation SINDOOR: The Untold Story of India's Deep Strikes Inside Pakistan, emphasised the information element during the Op Sindoor. He writes in this context, “By flooding the information space with fake narratives, Pakistan sought to portray itself as a victim of unprovoked Indian aggression… These narratives were designed to rally domestic audiences, deflect criticism from the international community and delegitimise India’s military response to terrorism.”

Be it a misleading report from the Pakistani agencies or some news organisation claiming the US Congress’s confirmation of Pakistan’s victory over India, these operations are part of the larger game of trying to outwit military battlefield losses. For example, in its 2025 Annual Report to Congress, the U.S.-China Economic AND Security Review Commission highlighted how Chinese equipment was instrumental in Pakistan’s military defence and its claimed victory.

Many media organisations portrayed this as "the US Congress report claims Pakistan’s victory", which is highly misleading. In reality, the US Congress flagged China's involvement in the conflict and how Pakistan’s claimed victory had been supported by Chinese military equipment. These falsified claims need to be countered. They not only help Pakistan but also China. With the bolstering of the claim of Pakistan downing India’s Rafale by the Pakistani Air Force’s J-35s, which are Chinese-made, China had its vested interest in it. Later, French intelligence reports highlighted how China initiated a disinformation campaign to hinder sales of French Rafales in favour of its own J-35s.

China also used fake social media accounts to propagate AI and video game images of supposed “debris” of destruction by China’s weaponry. Chinese diplomats went to the extent that Chinese Embassy officials tried to convince Indonesia to halt a purchase of Rafale jets, which were already in process.

With the whole of the government approach, India’s information warfare capabilities need to be strengthened not only for defensive purposes but also for the offensive impetus. As India is in the process of theaterisation of the military commands, the integration of narrative in the information space is equally important. On its part, the government has taken many possible actions to control the spread of fake and misleading information. During Operation Sindoor itself, it was observed that Pakistan was involved in massive fake news, misinformation and propaganda campaigns.

The government made threefold efforts: first, by providing authentic information to the public by means of regular media briefings; secondly, by means of interdepartmental coordination by means of establishing a centralised control room; and finally, by establishing a fact-check unit to counter online disinformation. 

While these steps are enough to fight surface-level propaganda, they are not enough to fight the coordinated information warfare that Pakistan’s ISPR executes. India has to move away from the conventional reactive nature of information warfare towards a proactive, offensive-driven strategy.

Operation Sindoor necessitated the coordination among the armed forces, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that had to be blended in India’s strategic posture. For that to operationalise the existence of a National Security Strategy is a sine qua non that facilitates greater strategic coordination among civilian, political and military actors.

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BY DARSHAN GAJJAR

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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