Operation Sindoor : Did The Pak Lies Win The War For Them?

Editor's Note

MVI has been covering the events and happenings in the country that were triggered by the Pahalgam attack on 21 April 2025, followed by Operation Sindoor launched by India on 27 April 25. In this Indo-Pak conflict, although the cease-fire on the LoC has come into effect, the war of narratives, propaganda lies and deceit continues unabated between the two countries.

In this piece, Brig Neil John highlights the causes for India's poor performance in this 'war of narratives '. It concludes with a positive advocacy for winning this war, for which there is no cease-fire!

We earnestly request our readers to convey their positive views, suggestions and strategies for winning this war. Your collective efforts and contributions will surely enable and propel our military and nation towards our goal of Victory India!

Editor, MVI

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We won the war and sent a clear message of the reaction dimensions and India’s threshold of tolerance.

What we lost is a narrative cause we endowed ourselves with making this war about a nation taking revenge through its people, using military means for the same and yet not finding the symphony that synchronises actions with the art of story telling. We played to the gallery and thought Bollywood would ring well with our masses while actually enmeshing a growing culture of populism with military operations still believing that it would be within the realms of discipline and honour.

The very name 'Operation Sindoor' was chosen to depict what happened in Pahalgam and our revenge. But India and its imaginative intelligence with the masses, relied on images from a scripted story they might have watched in a theatre. The theatrics were demanded through X, you tube, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. Most wanted a nach gana wala movie starring Sri devi and Anil Kapoor, a little dishum here and a little dishum there, with muscles winning the battle at the end of the day.

What was quite a paradox is the two lady officers on the podium who I am sure had their moment of pride and are part of folklore now. But they wouldn’t have known the W of real war cause the army lady officer was from signals a communication branch of the army and the Air Force lady from helicopters flying Chetak and cheetahs. Their exposures wouldn’t make them experts on war fighting. Yet they were on the podium, as us Indians wanted to showcase respect for our women of all faiths and religions, giving them a pedestal of honour and showing Pakistan that our women are stronger then their intent. Colonel Qureshi a Muslim and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh a Jat but with a singh as sirname, so presumably with punjabi anticednets.

We didn’t do justice to our action in narrative consistency. We built the hype but didn’t put adequate effort to sustain it. It was like we were playing to a local gallery of people who were waiting to be consumed and wanted a dose of action in their monotonous life styles.

I am sorry to say, that a strong decision like what was taken in Op Sindoor needed to be appreciated and respected, but the propagation of a national narrative failed cause we lost focus. We started catching on to the Pakistani media propoganda and lies and tweaking it. Infact we fell for the old school method “tell a lie, it will catch attention of a million, cause a lie travels faster than the truth”.

Let’s try an exercise, post a picture of one famous action hero Mr Kumar the Bollywood star going to the congress and shaking hands with Rahul Gandhi. In minutes there would be a million comments calling him a traitor. Some would even ask for his blood. His family would be attacked. His pictures boycotted. He wouldn’t even have a clue, as to who did it. They would even find a family tree that connects him to Pakistan and make him a spy.

We fell for the gimmick of lies. Pakistan played well. They are born liars, they manifested that lie and stole a social media victory from right under our nose. Infact our people handed them that victory.

Let’s compare the approximate Twitter followers of Pakistan vs India.

According to the Digital 2022 report, Pakistan has 71.7 million active YouTube users, 43.55 million Facebook users, 13.75 million Instagram users and only 3.4 million users that is 1.5 per cent of the total population on Twitter, which is the most important app in political terms. Compare this with India.

There were 806 million individuals using the internet in India at the start of 2025, when online penetration stood at 55.3 percent.

India was home to 491 million social media user identities in January 2025, equating to 33.7 percent of the total population. Approximately 28 million Indians are on Twitter.

The ratio of difference in our favour in our usage of digital media platform is more than 50% larger. This is a medium of war propagation and propaganda which 1 billion Indians failed to exploit. Cause Pakistan played the negative through lies, not forgetting the Chinese help and they were played, re tweeted and posted.

We as Indians only started poking holes into our own narratives. Cause we are a country of imbeciles. We lap up everything as the truth without even doing a fact check.

Later when our DGMOs briefed the media with military like precision. We gained some of the face that we had lost back. But it was late. Even the western media started believing in Pakistan’s lies.

But what was the truth? India even in the DGMOs briefing, did not give any figures. It spoke a very diplomatically tuned language. Giving the process and some of the post strike damage assessment. Avoiding own losses in numericals.

The figures will come out some day. The story of three Rafaels being brought down along with a MIG will always be interesting and speculative. Will make for agressive debate on prime time and on the table with a drink. The DGMOs said all pilots returned home and are safe. How much did India hit and destroy will be hidden below the carpet by Pakistan. After all Pakistanis even claim 1971 as a victory to their local population. Some even belive that the 97000 prisoners were made up by India.

Today a war can be fought in the physical dimension. But if you don’t narrate it well and don’t play the story in a manner that it can be consumed and circulated by a billion positively. You would have still lost the war. Cause history is written by a historian. And historians are paid by the governments. The governments would like to tell the story the way they perceive it was played. This Pakistani government is controlled by their military. So you already know the story.

In this operation both sides won. Atleast that’s what the local populations believe.

After all Munir the ass became a field Marshall. Just because Pakistan is considering Op Sindoor of India named “Bunyan al Marsoos" by them, that translates to "a structure made of lead" or "a solid wall of lead" in English. It's a phrase from the Quran, specifically Surah Al-Saff (61:4), which describes the unity and strength of those who fight for the cause of Allah. In the context of the Quran, it symbolizes unwavering faith and solidarity. Since they are playing this as a victory bigger than 1971, where General Manekshaw was conferred the rank of a field Marshall after the war. So Pakistan decided to ape the same and thought they would also celebrate with Munir the ass being awarded a rank for leading his country to lies and doom. But they will write their own history and preach the gospel of Munir in their text books. A lie if told 10 times, makes the subconscious mind believe that it’s actually the truth. So, did the Pakistani fabricated lies win the war for them ? I don't think so! 

The war of narratives and perception continues as there is no ' ceasefire ' for it . India can surely win this war . For this it needs to target and silence those sources , people and agencies from which it is emanating . More importantly, we must identify and neutralize the enemy within that has been targeting their own country and assisting and enabling our adversary to win the war !