Changing Landscape of Information Warfare from World War II to Operation Sindoor

If there is a war, there are two battlegrounds - one where bullets are fired and one where narratives are shaped. In short, as the shift in information warfare is happening, from World War II to the Kargil War and now to the most recent Indo-Pak conflict, Operation Sindoor (2025), it has been finally accepted that information is as crucial as control of territory.

From leaflets behind enemy lines in WWII to hashtags creating waves within seconds during the ongoing operations, the war of information has now transformed into the most sophisticated and strategic arm of military conflict. As modern weapons have evolved, so have the war of words and images and perceptions. The media, once seen as a neutral observer, is now both a participant and a battlefield in its own right.

In the Second World War, governments perceived that shaping public opinion was at least as important as winning military confrontations. Propaganda was increasingly used as a tool. In Nazi Germany, Goebbels perfected methods to control the narrative through posters, films, and radio broadcasts to build a mythic image of the regime while demonizing its enemies. The Allied forces did their part, too: leaflet dropping over enemy lines, wartime documentaries, and patriotic songs telling tales to make morale buoyant and to keep the war effort afloat. The information was blatantly one-way and heavy on censorship. It was State-propaganda; so the citizens had no alternative narratives by which to question or oppose official versions. 

With the Kargil War in 1999, this equation was altered by the advent of independent electronic media. For the first time, television news channels such as NDTV and Aaj Tak brought the war visuals in real time into the living rooms of millions of people. Journalists, usually embedded close to the frontlines, reported the action with patriotic fervor. These live transmissions humanized the soldiers, revealed the war's true cost, and bridged an emotional link between the military and the people. While the government kept issuing official communiques, the media had its own voice and became the most powerful driving force of national sentiment. While some propaganda was still present, especially in showing Pakistan to be the only aggressor, the availability of several news sources brought with it a degree of openness and criticism never before witnessed. Nevertheless, misinformation was fairly restricted and contained. There wasn't as yet an infestation of fake news in public consciousness as would happen twenty years down the line.

Fast forward to the year 2025, and from Operation Sindoor, we realize how the digital age has converted information into a confused and weaponized weapon. Unlike in former wars, this conflict was much more than air warfare and border skirmishes coupled with acts of cyber sabotage. Most of the battle took place on phone screens: fake WhatsApp forwards, Instagram reels, and manufactured Twitter trends. It was a new kind of war-an engineered abnormal situation where misinformation is not only spread but purposely brewed and released to create confusion and delay processing. One term that has come to characterize this category of digital warfare is ‘Info-Clogging’. It is the art of clogging-communication platforms with a mixture of fake, real, and irrelevant information intending to overwhelm, disorient, and alienate the audience towards the truth. This is a far more sinister form of poisoning public perception than classical propaganda because it renders the average individual confused even on whether to believe anything.

Through Operation Sindoor, there were thousands of videos going viral—some purported to be Indian airstrikes, while others revealing Pakistani counter-attacks. These were later refuted to be old footage from previous conflicts recycled or AI-produced deep fakes. Alleged voice messages by Indian military officials concerning escalation were subsequently discovered to be deep fakes produced by bot networks. Pakistani media aired statements that were subsequently refuted by Indian sources, and the same applies vice versa. In this information-overloaded environment, even trusted news sites were unable to confirm facts. The average citizen, bombarded with constant updates, was left confused—never knowing which stories were real and which were a part of some grand psychological operation.

The media's role in Operation Sindoor became more than ever confusing. On the one hand, it continued to play the role of a bridge between the masses and the army, dramatizing the bravery of Indian soldiers, tactical successes, and the ethos of national concord. On the other hand, in competition for clicks and breaking news, many in the quest for the same traded off journalistic integrity. False reports were published without fact-checking, clickbait headlines instigated alarm, and evening debates mostly touted the most extreme and unsubstantiated opinions. A number of news outlets, knowingly or unknowingly, were caught up in the digital disinformation game. Algorithms on social media, programmed to encourage engagement, favored sensationalism over factuality. Consequently, the difference between journalism and propaganda became perilously thin.  

However, in the midst of this tempest of contradictory reports, there was one truth that remained unscathed—the unshakeable bravery of the Indian Army. During Operation Sindoor, our military forces showed remarkable expertise, restraint, and determination. Regular press briefings by the Indian Armed Forces top brass from the Army, Navy and Air Force helped common citizens to know the latest happenings. The accuracy of their operations, their dedication to keeping civilian casualties to a minimum, and their capacity to react tactically in a difficult environment proved the real mettle of our military. Their sacrifices—some of them still being recorded—bring home the true cost of peace and security. Throughout the nation, citizens rallied around the soldiers, holding vigils, recounting tales of heroism, and praying for their return. This solidarity provided a strong counter-narrative to the whirlwind of misinformation.

However, as the fighting starts to fall from the headlines, a worrisome uncertainty lingers. With so many variations of the events making it to the Internet, it is becoming almost impossible to piece together a coherent, comprehensive account of what actually took place. Did a large Pakistani airbase come under attack, as some accounts on social media sites would have us believe? Were India heavily incurring casualties, or was this part of a scare campaign? Are ceasefire treaties real or just temporary holding actions? We find ourselves in a position where all pieces of information are suspect, all videos are questioned, and all official communications are picked apart for underlying meaning.

In this age of info-clogging and narrative-war, no longer is the question merely a matter of who has the  control of the media—but whether the media can be trusted or not. As citizens, we need to question ourselves: are we being fed truth, or just exposed to someone else's version of truth? In a world with so many competing stories, we need to ask ourselves if the war is over, or if the real conflict—the one for our minds—is only just beginning.