How the media lost the war the air force won

The IAF’s strikes crushed Pakistan, but the media’s myth-making undermines the victory

On the night and early morning of May 6/7, the Indian armed India launched a series of attacks on nine selected targets deep in Pakistan territory, and took them all out. In the process, India too suffered some losses of material, including but not restricted to an unspecified number of aircraft.

The leaders of the armed forces studied their losses, reassessed their tactics, regrouped, and “then went back on [May] 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defences with impunity, carried out precision strikes, flew all types of aircraft with all types of ordnance on the 10th.”

The series of successful attacks, hitting at military targets despite Pakistan’s defensive arsenal, created sufficient worry within the establishment to prompt Pakistan to ask for a ceasefire.

This is how the leaders of the armed forces have encapsulated what happened in the brief post-Pahalgam retaliation termed Operation Sindhoor. This narrative is pieced together from two sources: A May 11 press briefing where Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti, then serving as the Director General of Air Operations (DGAO) for the Indian Air Force, said when asked if India had sustained any losses: “We are in a combat scenario, and losses are part of combat”; and Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan who, late last week was interviewed by Bloomberg and later, by Reuters.

The military’s calm professionalism, articulated by Air Marshal Bharti (“losses are part of combat”) and CDS General Anil Chauhan, showcased a force confident in its victories and honest about its costs.

Read recap of Operation Sindhoor, above, and answer a question for me: In what way does any of this show India’s military in a poor light? In what way does this entail India losing the “narrative war”?

Those calm, measured, professional recaps by the military leaders are in stark contrast to the total meltdown of the media — or at least, that section of the media that is firmly, visibly, embedded within the ruling party. The military’s restraint reflects a confidence born of competence; the media’s hysteria, as seen below, betrays a desperation to mask political missteps.

Aditya Raj Kaul has “uncomfortable questions” for the communications wing of the Indian security apparatus. The most important one: “Why not talk and focus the narrative about the losses of Jets, Command Control Centres and Airbases on the Pakistan side as success of Operation Sindhoor?”

Why? Because the army doesn’t see itself as an adjunct of the ruling party’s propaganda arm, perhaps?

Kanwal Sibal wants to know what the point is, of giving interviews to foreign media and, further, he asks “What purpose is served to give international publicity to our losses?” (Sibal is a former Foreign Secretary; he has been an ambassador — he surely must know that foreign countries have their own ways of accessing information, and that hiding facts is counter-productive?)

Shiv Aroor sly-tweets to undercut the CDS. He is not too enamored, either, of the CDS telling Reuters that “During this op, I found both sides displaying a lot of rationality in their thoughts as well as actions”. Aroor’s problem is clearly with “both sides”.

Barkha Dutt, meanwhile, boldly summits the high moral ground through this and similar posts.

And then there are the embedded “influencers” who are even more unequivocal in their condemnation. As in the example below, that asks for the CDS to be “disciplined”:

(The above is a sampling only — there is much more in similar vein, from the usual suspects.)

These aren’t journalists seeking truth. They are propagandists guarding a narrative, ready to pillory a reporter, or a decorated CDS, for daring to pierce the myth of invincibility.

The military’s calm, transparent communication, as seen in Bharti’s and Chauhan’s statements, contrasts sharply with the media’s refusal to accept any narrative that includes losses — which refusal paradoxically undermines the military’s credibility by demanding an unrealistic portrayal of invincibility.

So that is where we are now: in a world where the media will tell the armed forces how to conduct a war, how to behave in the aftermath, who to talk to and what can be said and cannot be said. Because the media thinks it is its Vishwaguru-given responsibility to set the narrative — which the rest should docilely follow.

And what is that narrative? Not merely that India clearly had much the better of the exchanges, but that India’s superiority is so overwhelming that we cannot even countenance — or worse, admit — the possibility that in sustained combat, India too could have suffered some losses.

This hyper-nationalistic denialism does nothing to strengthen India’s image; rather, it weakens it, signaling to allies and adversaries alike that we’re more concerned with propaganda than reality.

The question — why did the CDS speak to foreign media — is simply answered: Because there was no point speaking to mainstream Indian media, which would not carry anything that ran counter to their own narrative.

A case in point: In the May 11 briefing by DGMOs of the three wings of the armed forces, The Hindu’s deputy editor Dinakar Peri asked if India had sustained any losses, particularly to Rafales. AK Bharti, representing the air force, gave a calm, measured response as detailed earlier, acknowledging that combat can entail losses, but that mid-operation was no time to do such stock-taking. Despite the fact that the question was perfectly reasonable during a military briefing, Peri and more particularly, Hindu deputy editor Vijaita Singh, was viciously attacked by sections of the media, and by blue-tick trolls.

Given this, why would anyone in his right mind speak to Indian mainstream media? And here is the thing: Several of the media bigwigs listed above have been informally briefed about the losses India suffered — if not the exact numbers, at least the fact that losses were sustained. They chose not to talk about it because it militated against the narrative they had been tasked to set.

Then there is this: there is no way the hyperventilating chickenhawks in our television studios and on social media would have gone after an army officer — the Chief of Defense Staff, no less — if they had not got the go-ahead from the ruling party.

Why would the government/ruling party ok an attack on a senior army officer? And not just any officer — the Chief of Defense Staff, no less? The CDS is first among equals among the three service chiefs, and serves as the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), which includes the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. In this capacity, the CDS acts as the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and is responsible for fostering jointness among the services, overseeing tri-service agencies, and heading the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) within the Ministry of Defence.

No matter how powerful a media house is, you don’t attack a CDS unless you are sure the ruling party has your back.

So why? That goes to one of the facets of Operation Sindhoor that the media is keen to bury. An officer (and member of my extended family) pointed out a basic tenet of military strategy: When launching any air assault, the first principle is to neutralize the adversary’s air defenses.

Left to itself, that is how the Indian Air Force would have begun Operation Sindhoor. However, the political leadership had other ideas. It wanted to make a limited statement by hitting designated terrorist targets.

The idea was to chalk up a “win” — humne ghar mein ghuske maara V2 — that could yield political dividends, without embroiling the country in a sustained military operation.

This was stagecraft masquerading as strategy. The ruling party’s script for a headline-grabbing ‘win’ ignored the IAF’s playbook, risking lives and material for propaganda brownie points and, eventually, votes. (It is this thinking, by the way, that prompted S Jaishankar to tell Pakistan, ahead of time, that India would be launching a limited attack, and Pakistan should not retaliate.)

The political establishment’s obsession with a quick, camera-friendly ghar mein ghuske maara moment forced the IAF into a tactically flawed opening salvo, costing lives and material before the professionals took charge.

The CDS in his interview and earlier, Air Marshal AK Bharti in course of his briefing, hinted as much; both spoke of having to “reassess” tactics after the initial losses.

And that is how it played out on the ground. After the initial strike on nine designated terrorist camps, when Pakistan retaliated by downing Indian aircraft and launching drones and missiles at Indian military bases, the service chiefs overruled the political establishment and began to conduct the war the way they wanted to from a tactical point of view.

On May 7 through May 10, the air force focussed on precision strikes using missiles, drones, and loitering munitions. The strikes hit at least 11 key Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bases, including Nur Khan (Chaklala), Sargodha, Bholari, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Rahim Yar Khan, Shahbaz, Skardu and others, causing quantifiable damage to runways, hangars, and administrative buildings and rendering several bases non-operational for a period.

The attack on Bholari resulted in severe damage to hangars and structures, as also the death of Squadron Leader Usman Yusuf and four airmen of the PAF.

The strategically important Sargodha suffered two large craters on its runway (one approximately 15 feet in radius), damaging transport vehicles and rendering the runway non-operational.

A massive crater on the runway of Rahim Yar Khan air base resulted in the PAF having to suspend flight operations for a week.

In Nur Khan (Chaklala), a strategically crucial base due to its proximity to Pakistan’s military and political centers, a large crater on the runway disrupted flight operations.

Consider the above in totality: The attacks targeted with pinpoint precision runways (which render flight operations impossible), hangars, and administrative buildings — calibrated strikes that were aimed to degrade the PAF’s ability to counter the Indian attacks.

And, notably, after those initial losses, India did not lose any more planes whereas Pakistan sustained losses to their F-16s, the JF-17s, the C-130 Hercules, the IL-78 refuelling tanker, the SAAB-2000 AWACS and many drones were destroyed, not to mention radar systems.

This was the IAF unbound: a relentless, calculated onslaught that left Pakistan’s air force grounded and its defenses in ruins.

The tactical mistakes of the first strike — not knocking out the PAF’s capacity to counter-attack — were rectified by the air force in the hours and days immediately following. And this was possible once the political establishment let the armed forces conduct the war the way they wanted to, as opposed to what would be politically expedient.

The armed forces, in particular the air force which was on point, acquitted itself admirably in the recent conflict. There is nothing in the above recap of events that casts negative light on the forces’ capabilities.

But the ruling party, and therefore the captive section of the media, needed a different narrative — of India rampant, of the armed forces inflicting massive damage without in turn suffering any damage to its own capabilities.

Such a narrative was needed because if India admitted to losses, the natural question would be why? Why did India lose material? And the answer would have pointed the finger at the establishment’s misguided directive regarding the original attack of the night of May 6.

That is why the media is in a tizzy. For political purposes, it wove a narrative that serves the interests not of the country, but of the party — and it can’t run the risk of that narrative unravelling.

The Indian Air Force fought with precision and professionalism, recalibrating after initial losses to decimate Pakistan’s air defenses. Meanwhile, the ruling party’s media allies waged a louder, messier war — one of narratives, not facts— projecting a flawless victory to prop up a political myth.

The incident should tell you something: that for the ruling party, it is all about propaganda; about projecting a particular image of the strong, invincible, all-conquering leader who is, always, flawless, faultless.

You can understand the political compulsion. What is not as easy to comprehend is why mainstream electronic media should, at the risk of further eroding its already fragile credibility, be so willing to carry the water for the political class.

PostScript: Last week, India's Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh criticised the delays plaguing major defence procurement projects, particularly those involving indigenous manufacturing.

“Many times, we know while signing contracts that those systems will never come. Timelines are a big issue. Not a single project I can think of is completed on time. Why should we promise something that cannot be achieved?” the Air Chief stated. He pointed out that “Deliveries of Tejas Mk1 are delayed. The prototype of Tejas Mk2 is yet to roll out. There is no prototype yet of the stealth AMCA fighter.”

That is the head of the air force, which decisively won the recent short-term conflict, bemoaning that its requirements are not being met.

Meanwhile, also last week, the Prime Minister went to Bhopal to address a rally. Ahead of the event the BJP machinery, which has limitless amounts of money to work with, went into action, procuring ‘sindhoori saris’, distributing them to party workers and women willing to attend, and creating the appropriate backdrop for the PM to strut his stuff. As below:

Look closely at the posters carried by women in the front row and elsewhere. “We salute the Indian army,” they proclaim. And the accompanying image? Modi, cosplaying an air force pilot.

“Sindhoor is the new color of valor,” the PM declaimed from the stage.