On the night of May 6-7, 2025, India’s armed forces executed Operation Sindoor, a meticulously planned tri-service offensive targeting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). Launched in response to the brutal April 22 Pahalgam massacre, which claimed 26 lives, mostly Hindu tourists, the operation was a resounding military success.
With precision strikes on nine terrorist camps, the elimination of over 100 terrorists, including Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Abdul Rauf Azhar, and the destruction of key Pakistani airbases, India showcased its strategic evolution and military prowess. Yet, despite this decisive victory, India has stumbled in the global arena, ceding the narrative to Pakistan’s propaganda machine and a skeptical Western media.
This paradox—winning the battle but losing the story—demands a hard look at India’s strategic communication failures and their implications for its global standing.
Operation Sindoor was no mere reprisal; it marked a paradigm shift in India’s counter-terrorism doctrine. Unlike the 2016 surgical strikes or the 2019 Balakot airstrike, which were limited in scope, Sindoor was a multi-domain offensive, blending air, land, cyber, and informational warfare.
The Indian Air Force’s Rafale jets, armed with SCALP missiles, and indigenous BrahMos cruise missiles obliterated terrorist strongholds in Muridke and Bahawalpur, while loitering munitions dodged Pakistan’s air defenses. The operation’s precision was staggering: 40 priority targets, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen headquarters, were reduced to rubble in a 25-minute blitz.
Pakistan’s retaliatory drone strikes and shelling were met with devastating counterstrikes on May 9 and 10, targeting 11 airbases and crippling their radar systems. By May 10, a rattled Pakistan sought a ceasefire via the DGMO hotline, which India pointedly called an “understanding,” signaling its readiness to escalate further if provoked.
This was India at its strategic best—assertive, calibrated, and unapologetic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s declaration that “India will not tolerate nuclear blackmail” underscored a new doctrine: deterrence by punishment, not denial. By targeting sites deep in Pakistan’s Punjab heartland, India shattered the myth of geographic safe havens for terrorists.
The operation also exposed the vulnerabilities of Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied J-10 fighters and Turkish drones, reinforcing India’s technological edge. As West Point’s John Spencer noted, Sindoor was an “objective victory,” redefining deterrence in a nuclear shadow. Domestically, it galvanized bipartisan support, with Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi and regional heavyweights like M.K. Stalin rallying behind the government.
The operation’s gendered framing, named after the vermilion powder symbolizing Hindu marital fidelity, resonated deeply, casting India as the avenger of widowed women like Himanshi Narwal, whose husband was killed in Pahalgam.
Yet, for all its military and domestic triumphs, Operation Sindoor has been a diplomatic and narrative disaster. The global perception, shaped by Western media and Pakistan’s relentless propaganda, paints India as the aggressor, not the victim of terrorism.
Outlets like The Washington Post framed the conflict as a “border crisis,” sidelining the Pahalgam massacre and equating India’s defensive strikes with Pakistan’s retaliatory shelling. Pakistan’s unverified claims of downing five Indian jets, including Rafales, were amplified by Chinese and Western media, despite no evidence. This narrative inversion—casting the victim as the provocateur—is a textbook case of information warfare, and India has been woefully outmaneuvered.
The roots of this failure lie in India’s sluggish and reactive public diplomacy. As geostrategist Brahma Chellaney pointed out, India’s focus on domestic sentiment has come at the cost of international narrative-building. While Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) swiftly flooded global media with claims of victory, India’s response was tardy and bureaucratic.
It took two days to counter US President Donald Trump’s boast of brokering the ceasefire—a claim India denied but failed to decisively rebut. By then, the narrative of a US-mediated end to hostilities had hardened, portraying India as yielding to external pressure. The decision to send seven all-party parliamentary delegations to explain India’s position was a classic case of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. These belated efforts, led by figures like Shashi Tharoor and Kanimozhi, have struggled to pierce the fog of misinformation.
Western media’s bias has compounded the problem. Outlets like The New York Times fixated on the gendered symbolism of “Sindoor,” framing it as a sop to Modi’s Hindu nationalist base rather than a response to terrorism. This selective lens ignores the operation’s strategic clarity and India’s restraint in avoiding Pakistani military targets initially to prevent escalation.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s narrative of victimhood, backed by its history of sheltering terrorists like Osama bin Laden, has found traction. The West’s reluctance to call out Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism reflects a broader geopolitical calculus: a desire to balance India’s rise against China’s influence and maintain Pakistan as a counterweight. This “re-hyphenation” of India and Pakistan in global discourse threatens to undo decades of Indian diplomacy aimed at decoupling the two.
India’s own media hasn’t helped. Sensationalist outlets like Zee News, claiming Islamabad’s capture or Pakistan’s surrender, fueled misinformation that undermined credibility. Regional papers like Eenadu published unrelated images from Turkey, further muddling the narrative. This domestic overreach, coupled with a lack of proactive international engagement, allowed Pakistan to portray itself as the underdog, despite its military drubbing. The irony is stark: India’s strikes exposed the fragility of Pakistan’s Chinese-backed defenses, yet the global story is one of Indian aggression and Pakistani resilience.
This narrative defeat carries long-term costs. India’s ambition to be a global power hinges on its ability to shape perceptions, not just project power. Operation Sindoor’s success in degrading terrorist infrastructure and signaling resolve risks being overshadowed by a perception of recklessness. The international community’s calls for “restraint” from both sides, as voiced by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, equate India’s defensive actions with Pakistan’s provocations, diluting the moral and legal clarity of India’s stance under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Moreover, the failure to counter Pakistan’s narrative risks emboldening its military-terrorist complex, which thrives on the perception of invulnerability.
To reclaim the narrative, India must overhaul its strategic communication. First, it needs a rapid-response media cell, staffed with multilingual experts, to counter misinformation in real-time. Second, it should leverage its diaspora and global think tanks to amplify its perspective, bypassing biased Western outlets. Third, India must engage proactively with allies like the US, UK, and France, briefing them before, not after, operations like Sindoor. The briefing of 70 Foreign Service Attaches on May 13, excluding China and Turkey, was a step in the right direction but came too late. Finally, India should harness its soft power—its pluralistic democracy and cultural heritage—to frame operations like Sindoor as a defense of universal values against terrorism, not a Hindu nationalist vendetta.
Operation Sindoor was a masterclass in military strategy, proving India’s ability to strike hard while maintaining escalation control. But in the 21st century, battles are won not just on the ground but in newsrooms and on social media. India’s failure to match its military dominance with narrative dominance has turned a triumph into a cautionary tale. As Modi’s doctrine of decisive retaliation takes root, India must learn to wield the pen as mightily as the sword. The next crisis is inevitable, and the world will be watching—not just India’s actions, but the story it tells.