THE CONTEXT: Operation Sindoor (May 7-14 2025) marked India’s first full-spectrum response after the Pahalgam massacre. Pakistan’s simultaneous use of drone swarms, ballistic/cruise missiles and coordinated disinformation met a calibrated Indian riposte that combined kinetic, cyber and narrative tools. The episode signals a decisive shift from platform-centric wars to Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), where command of the electromagnetic, digital and cognitive spaces is as critical as territorial control.
THE BACKGROUND
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- Trigger: The Pahalgam attack (22 April 2025) killed 26 civilians; India unveiled Operation Sindoor to dismantle launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
- Escalation Ladder: On the night of 8–9 May, Pakistan launched ≈ 300–400 Turkish Asisguard Songar Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) across 36 sectors, probing Indian Air Defence (AD).
- Indian Response: Precision loitering munitions (SkyStriker), backed by Layered Air Defence (LAD) and real-time cyber counter-ops, neutralised the threat within minutes.
TECHNOLOGICAL MATRIX:
Drone Warfare & Loitering Munitions
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- Songar swarms reduced entry costs for attackers, exemplifying the concept of asymmetric warfare.
- India’s SkyStriker (jointly produced by Alpha Design-Elbit) offered a low-signature, recoverable strike option with a two-hour loiter endurance.
Layered Air Defence (LAD)
| Layer | System | Origin | Max Range | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Long-range | S-400 Triumf | Russia | 380 km | Exo-atmospheric intercepts |
| Area | Barak-8 Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) | India-Israel | 70 km | Cruise-missile & UAV kill box |
| Area | Akash (I, II) | India | 25–40 km | Saturation swarm defence |
| Quick reaction | QRSAM | India | 30 km | Mobile armour cover |
AKASHTEER & C4ISR BACKBONE:
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- The Akashteer Automated Air Defence Control & Reporting System integrates Army radars with IAF sensors, creating a joint single recognised air picture down to the regimental level.
Counter-Drone & Electronic Warfare
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- The indigenously produced BEL D4 Anti-Drone System provides soft-kill (GNSS spoofing, RF jamming) and hard-kill (directed-energy) options, augmenting passive radars like ‘Rajak’.
INFORMATION & COGNITIVE WARFARE:
Pakistan’s deep-fake videos, fake social-media handles and recycled combat footage targeted Indian morale and external diplomatic opinion. India employed:
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- Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact-Check Unit – issued 27 rebuttals within 72 hours, flagged fake Vyomika Singh and Sofiya Qureshi accounts.
- ‘Live Truth’ AI detector (MyGov Hackathon winner, April 2025) now integrated into Digital India stack for real-time social listening.
INDIAN POLICY & DOCTRINAL FRAMEWORK:
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- Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017 and Land Warfare Doctrine 2018 emphasise MDO and “cross-domain synergy”.
- Drone Rules 2021 liberalised imports up to 500 kg, created the Digital Sky single-window platform and reduced licence fees by 96 %.
- Defence Production & Export Promotion Policy 2020, Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) and Drone Shakti catalyse a ₹13-trillion drone ecosystem (projection for 2030).
- Project Kusha (₹21,700 crore) will field an indigenous Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LR-SAM) by 2029, rivalling S-400 performance.
GLOBAL COMPARATIVE LENS:
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- Russia–Ukraine: Low-cost Lancet loitering munitions changed artillery duels.
- Israel–Hamas: Dense Iron Dome meets saturation rockets, yet AI-enabled swarm tactics threatened radar resilience (Oct 2023).
- Nagorno-Karabakh 2020: Azerbaijani Bayraktar TB-2 and Harop drones demonstrated the cost-exchange advantage of UAVs over armoured formations.
THE CHALLENGES:
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- Technology Dependence: Despite a steady fall in the overall import ratio of major defence platforms (46 % in 2018 to 36 % in 2024, MoD data), India still relies on foreign suppliers for “chokepoint” sub-systems—seeker assemblies, Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) transmit-receive modules, and Gallium-Nitride chips. Until indigenous volume production stabilises, any CAATSA-style sanctions or export-licence pauses can create readiness gaps—a vulnerability exposed when replacement X-band seekers for the S-400 system faced a six-month delay during Operation Sindoor.
- Legal & Regulatory Vacuum:
- Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) Bill – recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs (2024) but still in draft—has left security forces dependent on ad-hoc approvals under the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and Code of Criminal Procedure Section 144 to deploy radio jammers and directed-energy weapons.
- Civilian Drone Rules 2021 focus on registration and geofencing for peacetime commerce; they do not confer interception powers or clarify Rules of Engagement (RoE) in kinetic scenarios. This gap risks’ legal fratricide”—the accidental neutralization of friendly or disaster-relief drones.
- Information-Operations (Info-Ops) Resilience Gaps:
- During the eight-day standoff, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) debunked 27 viral falsehoods—ranging from a fabricated “Hazira port strike” to a mythical female pilot capture—but most clarifications were issued after narratives had already trended.
- Deepfake proliferation: Sumsub’s Q1-2024 study recorded a 245 % year-on-year jump in AI-generated videos across election-bound countries, with India among the top five targets. Vernacular detection remains a blind spot; only five of India’s 22 scheduled languages are currently covered by PIB’s automated tools.
- Policy response is still reactive—MeitY’s July 2024 Guidance on Deepfakes makes platforms “endeavour” to label manipulated media but stops short of statutory takedown timelines or financial disincentives.
- Jointness & Theatre-Command Lag: The Defence Ministry told Parliament that “complex issues” remain before rolling out Integrated Theatre Commands—especially joint logistics, cyberspace integration, and cadre harmonisation. Without a legislated command-and-control charter:
- Real-time sensor fusion stops at the Corps level, limiting the promise of the Integrated Air Command and Control System unveiled during Operation Sindoor.
- Service-specific procurement pipelines complicate life-cycle sustenance when an Air Force platform must cue an Army effector via Navy satellite links.
- Absence of a unified Joint Logistics Command inflates costs by ≈ 25 % (CAG audit 2023) and delays spares flow in crisis spikes.
GOVERNANCE & CIVIL-MILITARY IMPLICATIONS:
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- Whole-of-Government Approach: MDO blurs lines between internal security (MHA) and external defence (MoD), necessitating an apex National Security Doctrine (NSD) statutorily vetted by Parliament.
- Economic & Industrial Policy: Defence export target of USD 5 billion by 2028 will hinge on dual-use drone technologies; ‘Make-for-World’ incentives must extend beyond capital-intensive PSUs to start-ups.
- Digital Literacy: National Education Policy 2020 rollout should include Media & Information Literacy (MIL) modules to immunise citizens against narrative warfare.
THE WAY FORWARD:
1. Enact a National Information-Warfare Strategy and elevate the Defence Cyber Agency to a tri-service Defence Cyber & Information Agency (DCIA)
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- Task DCIA to draft a whole-of-government doctrine that integrates cyber defence, psychological operations and legal counter-measures—mirroring the United Kingdom’s “National Cyber Force” model.
- Finance the strategy through a dedicated Information Warfare Fund inside the Ministry of Defence (MoD); cyber-security allocations already jumped 90 percent in Budget 2024-25 to ₹759 crore, proving fiscal headroom for ring-fencing.
2. Deliver Theatre Commands and Joint C4ISR by Budget 2026
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- Use the Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control & Discipline) Act 2023—as the legal spine to delegate disciplinary and budgetary authority to Theatre Commanders.
- Channel at least 15 percent of the capital head under “C4ISR” in the 2025-26 Demand for Grants (₹6.81 lakh-crore defence budget) for shared satellites, cloud data-lakes and software licences instead of service-wise duplications.
- Adopt Australia-style joint promotions: mandate at least one theatre-level tour for all flag-rank officers as a pre-requisite for Chief of Defence Staff eligibility.
3. Launch Mission Swarm-Shakti to dominate the “Drone-Swarm vs. Counter-Swarm” competition
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- Allocate ₹3,000 crore under Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) for tiered “challenge grants” in three verticals—edge-computing chips, electromagnetic-pulse payloads, and autonomous target-allocation algorithms.
- Fast-track Technology Development Funds for public-private clusters in Hyderabad and Bengaluru that link Defence Research and Development Organisation Young Scientist Laboratories (Artificial Intelligence, Quantum and Cognitive Technologies) with start-ups.
4. Stand-up a Narrative Command Centre (NCC) for pre-bunking and deep-fake forensics
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- Merge Press Information Bureau Fact-Check, Prasar Bharati Social Media and Ministry of External Affairs Public Diplomacy desks under NCC for 24×7 multilingual monitoring.
- Deploy the award-winning “Nexus of Truth” AI tool—capable of frame-by-frame manipulation scoring—in all scheduled languages by December 2025 (pilot for five languages completed in April 2025).
THE CONCLUSION:
Operation Sindoor underlines that India’s Credible Deterrence in the 2020s will be judged less by headline platforms and more by its agility across the kinetic, digital and cognitive domains. Embedding atmanirbhar technologies, robust narrative control and seamless jointness into national doctrine is therefore not optional but existential.
UPSC PAST YEAR QUESTION:
Q. How is S-400 air defence missile system different from any other system presently available in the world? (2021)
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTION:
Q. Operation Sindoor has been termed a paradigm shift in India’s approach to modern warfare. Analyze the key technological and strategic transformations evident in this operation and discuss their implications for India’s national security doctrine.
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