Operation Sindoor Was Like a Game of Chess: Army Chief Dwivedi

Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi stressed that “victory is in the mind” while describing Pakistan’s narrative management during Operation Sindoor, which convinced its citizens they had prevailed in the recent conflict, NDTV reported.

He told a gathering at IIT Madras that such influence extends to domestic, adversary, and neutral audiences. “Narrative management system is something which we realise in a big way because victory is in mind. It’s always in the mind. If you ask a Pakistani whether you lost or won, he’d say, my chief has become field marshal, we must have won only, that’s why he has become field marshal,” said the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

“In Operation Sindoor, we played chess. We did not know what the enemy’s next move was going to be, and what we were going to do. This is called the grey zone,” he said as per Hindustan Times.  “Somewhere we were giving them the checkmate and somewhere we were going in for the kill at the risk of losing our own — but that’s what life is all about.”

The Indian forces responded with social media and other outreach, launching the message “justice done” as their first strategic statement. “Strategic messaging was very important, and that’s why the first messaging that we did was, justice done. That hit the maximum, I am told, in the world today, the number of hits which we received,” he said.

The strategic messaging was “simple” but travelled worldwide, the COAS underlined, pointing to the press conferences held by two women officers of the Indian Army and Indian Air Force.

“All three chiefs were very clear that something had to be done. A free hand was given: “You decide what is to be done”. That is the kind of confidence, political direction, and political clarity we saw for the first time. That is what raises your morale. That is how it helped our army commanders-in-chief to be on the ground and act as per their wisdom,” he said.

The operation was launched in response to the 22 April Pahalgam massacre, in which Pakistan-linked terrorists killed 26 tourists in Jammu and Kashmir, marking the deadliest attack in decades.