Narrative Defeat

On the battlefield, India’s armed forces often emerge triumphant. In the skies over the subcontinent during Operation Sindoor, the Indian Air Force (IAF) downed at least five Pakistani fighters and a high-value airborne platform, either an ELINT or an AEW&C aircraft, at a staggering range of around 300 kilometres. Much more than a tactical success, it was, by all available accounts, the longest-range surface-to-air kill in recorded combat.

And yet, in the war of words, the perception is that India lost the narrative.

The reason is brutally simple. Pakistan, long practised in the dark arts of narrative manipulation, seized the first 24 hours to broadcast its own version of events rife with half-truths, distortions and outright inventions included. Credulous and devious western analysts, eager for a tidy story, amplified Islamabad’s claims. In contrast, India said little. The tri-service chiefs insisted they were still collating data. That professional caution, admirable in a pre-Twitter age, left the field open to the opposition.

It took months before the IAF revealed the scale of its achievement. But by then, the damage was done. Pakistan’s fiction had become the default version. In the information age, such a delay can be a self-inflicted wound.

India’s restraint stems from the commendable instinct of not claiming something that cannot be verified. Electronic kill confirmation takes time and militaries are understandably reluctant to trumpet successes that may later be challenged. But restraint is no substitute for speed when perception shapes diplomacy, morale and deterrence. In the modern battlespace, information is a weapon. India has yet to master its deployment.

The delayed revelation also punctures Donald Trump’s boast that his intervention secured the ceasefire. It was a battered Pakistan, which frantically scramble to the US to intervene with India to halt Operation Sindoor. India, for its part, had stopped because it had achieved its objectives, not because Washington leaned in.

By publicising its ability to destroy Pakistani aircraft, including a prized surveillance platform, at unprecedented ranges, India signals to Washington that F-16 sales to Islamabad will not tilt the balance in Pakistan’s favour. If this message lands, it will matter more in the corridors of the Pentagon than in the court of Twitter.

Yet the strategic point is broader. Pakistan’s agility in spinning a crisis narrative is not an incidental skill but an entrenched part of its conflict doctrine. It has been giving such spins on its losses in the 1965 and ’71 wars as well. In future confrontations, India will again be faced with this adversary adept at flooding the field with gross misinformation. The challenge is to match that speed before the lie becomes lore.

It is undeniable that Operation Sindoor was a clear military win for India. But in the contest of perception, Pakistan seemed to have gained the upper hand. Modern conflict is waged as much in the realm of perception as on the battlefield; to win one without the other is to leave the job half-done.