OPERATION ‘SINDOOR’/OPERATION ‘BUNYAN UL MARSOOS’

A DIALECTIC INQUIRY (Abridged)

“When faced with conflicting narratives in processing dialectic inquiry into ongoing hostilities, more truth may be gleaned from what is left unsaid than what the adversaries would state.” – Col RS Sidhu

 

This dialectic inquiry, a work in progress, is being composed in three parts as under: -

Part 1 – Backdrop

Part 2 – Flow of Events

Part 3 – Evaluation

It shall be shared in three parts for ease of assimilation by interested readers. 

Part 1 is shared below.

 

PART 1 – BACKDROP

“India, with its judicious deployment of strategic resources in the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean, has established itself as the geostrategic pivot between West Asia and East Asia, thus creating a pole position for itself in the ongoing Great Game unfolding in this region.” – Col RS Sidhu

 

Orchestrating ‘Fog of War’

Dissemination of false information to deceive the adversary of own strengths and weakness and spreading despondency amongst opposition ranks, to seek military advantage in battle, is an accepted norm in war fighting. The factor of surprise and deception, therefore, has a prominent role in planning and conduct of military operations.

As early as 7000 BCE, during the battle of ‘Mahabharat’, there is the narrated instance of the Pandavas employing psychological warfare on the battlefield against their adversaries the Kauravas. Under the general ship of Rishi Dronacharya, the Kaurav Army was wreaking havoc on the Pandav Army. The latter devised a strategy to weaken the resolve of the Kaurav general, by killing Ashwathama, a war elephant and spreading a rumour that Ashwathama, the formidable warrior son of Rishi Dronacharya has been killed. A distraught Rishi Dronacharya turned to Yudhishtar, the leader of the Pandav Army and the most renowned epitome of truth of his time, to know the veracity. Reluctant to state an outright lie, Yudhishtar nevertheless responded with a half truth, “Ashwathama mara gaya (Ashwathama has been killed).” A despondent Rishi Dronacharya, retired from the battlefield.

The ongoing rival army military operations ‘Sindoor’ by India, and ‘Bunyan ul Marsoos’ by Pakistan, are equally engaged in deepening the ‘fog of war’ to safeguard own information of military significance, and spreading disinformation for securing geopolitical, strategic, and tactical gains.

The Warring Neighbours

India and Pakistan, partitioned on religious lines by their erstwhile colonial masters the UK, have been militarily at loggerheads since getting independence in 1947. 

The Muslim predominant Pakistan went on to reinforce its religious identity as a theocratic Islamic state. Unfortunately for Pakistan, over a period of time its military usurped the constitutional process to become the de facto rulers of the country. For all practical purpose it is now a totalitarian state, with the democratically elected civil government reduced to the role of a puppet, a mere façade, to meet the ideological sensitivities of its international benefactors.

India, on the other hand, has developed as a secular and democratic republic, with robust constitutional institutions, and civil primacy over the armed forces.   

The primary dispute between India and Pakistan has arisen from the latter’s claim over J&K, which acceded to a union with India in 1947. The two neighbours, since gaining independence in 1947, have fought each other in four conventional wars, 1948, 1965, 1971, 1998; involved in three major military face offs, in 1984, 1986, 2001; and engaged in asymmetric warfare in J&K province of India for over four decades due to Pakistan sponsored cross-border insurgency, leading to several one-off cross-border retaliatory military strikes by India in 2016, 2019, and the latest in 2025.

Compulsions of Pakistan

Domestically speaking, the overarching ethnic dominance of the province of Punjab in all spheres of governance and the military, inequal economic development of the outlying provinces made more pronounced by a faltering economy, and religious bigotry, have led to deep fissures in the body politic of Pakistan. Political corruption, and the stranglehold exercised by the military over all organs of state machinery, has disenchanted the common citizen.

Fierce insurgencies raging in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, increasing growth of separatist tendencies in Sindh and Muzaffarabad, have stretched the state internal security apparatus to near collapse. The current government at the centre lacks political legitimacy, as it has come to power due to covert manipulation of the election process by the Army. Facing widespread, and often violent, political dissent it is unable to provide effective governance.

The external security environment of the country has become increasingly volatile. Pakistan always looked at Afghanistan to its west as providing it with strategic depth vis a vis India to the east. But with the Afghan Taliban dominated government developing an antagonistic attitude, the Pakistan Army is forced to deploy scarce military formations to safeguard its western borders. Pakistan finds itself hemmed in by a hostile and powerful India to its east, and a hostile Afghanistan to its west.

Pakistan lags far behind India in demographic dividend, strength of the national economy, and conventional military combat potential. The ever increasing asymmetry in Comprehensive National Power (CNP) against India to the detriment of Pakistan, and facing severe internal contradictions, is a clear indication to the Pakistan military leadership of time slipping by for enforcing a favourable resolution of its internal and external dilemmas.  

The Pakistan apex military hierarchy, the state within the state, looks at itself as the sole bulwark against a faltering state. The Pakistan military hierarchy looks at stoking religious fervour against an external enemy with a different religious identity, as the last resort to keep the country united. Armed with its own nuclear arsenal, the Pakistan military elite feels confident on taking on India in a limited military confrontation, and being bailed out from adverse consequences by strategic intervention of its geopolitical saviours.

India’s Learning Curve

India has been at the receiving end of cross-border insurgency fuelled by Pakistan, for more than four decades. Constrained to a certain extent by the dictates of vote bank politics, inevitable in a democratic setup, the Indian state has been restrained in effectively combating the asymmetric threat. The favourable asymmetry in CNP against Pakistan too made the Indian state complacent.

After the Kargil war with Pakistan, India’s Kargil Review Committee Report in 1999 emphasised “…a declaratory policy that deliberate infringement of the sanctity of the LOC and wanton cross-border terrorism in furtherance of proxy war will meet with prompt retaliation in a manner, time and place of India's choosing.” However, the policy recommendation was not implemented due to lack of political will, and a ponderous defence architecture.

In the first instance, in the aftermath of the Pakistan sponsored terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, the Indian military was mobilised under ‘Operation Parakaram’. However, a cumbersome military mobilisation over 30 days, followed by nine months of eyeball to eyeball confrontation, ended in a stalemate without any decisive action.

In 2016 in retaliation to Pakistan backed terrorist attack at Uri in J&K on an Indian military formation headquarter, eleven days later India launched a ‘surgical strike’. It employed its Special Forces teams to target terrorist infrastructure 3-5 kilometres across the LC.

Thereafter, in 2019, India responded to a terrorist attack on its paramilitary force convoy at Pulwama, J&K by launching air strikes twelve days later, on terrorist infrastructure at Balakot in POJK. However, loss of its aircrafts in Pakistan Airforce retaliatory action, and fratricidal fire, took the sheen off this military response.     

This was followed by several half-hearted attempts at reforming the higher defence architecture, which got scuttled due to bureaucratic resistance and inter-service rivalry. Finally, the political hierarchy of the day forced through major reforms in the defence architecture of the country, with the Prime Minister publicly announcing the same on 15^th of August 2019 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi. The short timeline of four and a half months to formulate and implement such vital reforms by 1^st of January 2020, is indicative of the political push to force through these reforms.

These were followed by major reforms in the defence procurement policy, modernising the public sector defence research organisations, launching the ‘Atamnirbhar’ policy to become self-reliant in manufacturing defence weapons and equipment, and undertaking government to government route for procuring critical weapons platforms as an interim measure. Simultaneously, reforms at the grassroots level of the military were enforced by pushing through the highly controversial ‘Agniveer’ entry scheme.

As of 2025 the Indian military is in the throes of major reorganisation both at the apex and grassroots level, and in procuring high technology weapons platforms and equipment. It needs a 3 to 5 years window of relative peace to reorganise, re-equip, and assimilate new weapons and equipment for fighting wars of the future. With India’s economic growth also factored on peaceful borders and a stable maritime trade environment, India is currently at a crucial juncture.

Overview of Prevailing Geopolitical and Regional Dynamics

The rise of China as a global power house and its joining hands with a resurgent Russia has upended the global geoeconomics and geopolitical power equations. The contest for global supremacy between the US led established world order and the joint challenge by China and Russia is well under way.

Russia and China have joined hands with Brazil, India, and South Africa to form BRICS, a geoeconomic bloc, that aims at developing an alternative international trading, banking, and finance system. This would strike at the very roots of the US global power edifice based on the supremacy of the US Dollar. Without the choke hold on the international trading, banking, and finance system, the US led West Bloc is unlikely to survive the economic and financial challenge from the BRICS. This is being countered by the US, in concert with European Union and G7 nations, with widespread economic sanctions against Russia, China, Iran, and Korea.   

Geopolitically, the ongoing wars in the Rus region of Europe, and the Levant region of West Asia are a direct challenge to the military supremacy hitherto enjoyed by the US since the breakup of the USSR in early 1990s. Russia is directly engaged in the war in Ukraine, with military support from China and Korea. In the Levant, Iran is orchestrating the military confrontation against Israel, through its extensive network of state and non-state proxies, the major ones being Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Houthis in Yemen.     

The US is actively countering this challenge through its own alliances. It is engaged in an indirect military confrontation against Russia in the region of Rus, by actively backing Ukraine militarily and economically in conjunction with NATO. In the Levant, it is openly assisting Israel to secure an overarching dominant position in the region.

Simultaneously, the US is also engaged in challenging China at its doorstep in the South China Sea and adjoining maritime regions by actively backing Taiwan and Philippines, and orchestrating the Quad Alliance with India, Japan, and Australia. Covert footprints of the US are also discerned in provoking instability in Bangladesh and Myanmar in South Asia region to disrupt the sensitive China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and warn off India from the BRICS.

China, with a long history of aggressions against India, looks at the latter as a threat to its predominance in Asia, with a strong potential to impede its path to geopolitical pre-eminence. For China, a nuclear armed Pakistan is the perfect catspaw to tie down India. 

In the emerging scenario, the geographical space occupied by India, coupled with its demographic mass, growing scientific and industrial base, huge consumer market, and increasing military heft, give it unique advantage. It is now the only country which has the ability to act as the pivot for the US led West Bloc against the overwhelming dominance of China in Asia, the new epicenter of wealth generation.

Interestingly, a rising India is also viewed as a potential threat by the US led West Bloc. India on its part is reticent to fully embrace US alliance owing to the latter’s geopolitical unreliability. We have to just look at the Indian participation in BRICS and SCO organisations, where it partners China against US interests, and its membership in the QUAD, an unstated anti-China grouping.  The only firm cementing factor for the US and India is the current need of the two countries for a joint front to counter the threat from China to safeguard their respective national interests.