(GEO MILITARY AFFAIRS) — India’s already strained civil-military discourse has been rocked once again by a fresh political firestorm, as the Congress Party levels grave accusations that the Modi government “misled the nation” by concealing the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) reported loss of five frontline fighter aircraft during the high-stakes Operation Sindoor.
This stunning allegation comes on the back of candid remarks by India’s own Defence Attaché to Indonesia, Captain (Indian Navy) Shiv Kumar, who, during a closed-door regional seminar in Jakarta, openly acknowledged what New Delhi’s official channels have long refused to confirm.
At the centre of this brewing controversy is Operation Sindoor — a covert cross-border air campaign launched by the IAF on the night of 7 May 2025 to strike terror-linked sites inside Pakistan, a move that was meant to deliver a strategic jolt to militant networks operating along the volatile Line of Control.
Yet what was sold domestically as a surgical success is now mired in allegations of half-truths and opaque disclosures that critics argue have undermined both public trust and operational credibility.
Congress general secretary in-charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, did not mince his words when he amplified the explosive media report across his official X (formerly Twitter) handle, accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of systematically burying the truth from the Indian public.
In a post that instantly went viral among India’s chattering defence circles, Ramesh pointed to the specific revelations by Captain Shiv Kumar that the IAF suffered fighter jet losses at the hands of Pakistan’s air defences — an admission that, if fully corroborated, would mark one of the most significant air combat setbacks for India in recent memory.
Pawan Khera, Congress’ combative head of media and publicity, further turned the screws on the Modi administration, alleging that the government “misled the nation from the start — failing to disclose the aircraft losses during Operation Sindoor.”
Khera’s statement underscored that vague references to aerial attrition had first surfaced during a carefully worded briefing by DG Air Ops, Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti, who had remarked, “we are in a combat situation and losses are a part of combat.”
But according to Congress leaders, this sanitized phrasing fell far short of an honest reckoning with the scale of the loss.
It took the intervention of India’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, to reluctantly acknowledge India’s air combat attrition in an off-the-cuff statement to Bloomberg TV, delivered on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore — a move that critics argue was both belated and strategically tone-deaf.
What has further inflamed the opposition’s accusations is Captain Shiv Kumar’s forthright account delivered to Indonesian defence academics and military strategists at Universitas Dirgantara Marsekal Suryadarma on 10 June 2025.
The seminar, titled “Analysis of the Pakistan–India Air Battle and Indonesia’s Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power,” became the venue for a revelation that has since sent shockwaves through South Asia’s tightly knit security community.
In his presentation, Captain Kumar declared, “I may not agree that we lost so many aircraft, but I do agree we did lose some aircraft.”
According to leaked slides obtained by regional defence analysts, the losses reportedly include three Rafale fighters — India’s crown jewel of air dominance procured from France at a cost of around USD 8.7 billion (approximately RM40.8 billion) — along with one Su-30MKI and one MiG-29.
The financial and operational implications of such losses are profound.
Each Rafale, conservatively estimated at USD 240 million per unit (roughly RM1.1 billion), represents not just cutting-edge avionics and BVR missile capabilities, but also a major pillar of India’s deterrence posture against both Pakistan and China.
Defence watchers note that the Rafale’s prized combination of AESA radar, Meteor air-to-air missiles, and advanced electronic warfare suites were intended to tip the regional air power balance firmly in India’s favour.
Yet these assets, Congress argues, were left exposed by restrictive rules of engagement imposed by the Modi government’s civilian leadership — constraints that, critics allege, fatally undermined the IAF’s ability to neutralize Pakistan’s integrated air defence network.
Captain Kumar did not shy away from highlighting this uncomfortable reality.
As he pointed out, “The Indian Air Force lost fighter jets to Pakistan on the night of May 7, 2025 only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack the military establishment or their air defences.”
Defence analysts familiar with the air battle confirm that Indian strike packages were ordered to surgically hit terror-linked compounds while scrupulously avoiding Pakistani military installations — a decision aimed at containing escalation in a nuclear dyad but which, paradoxically, gave the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) a free hand to mount an aggressive counter-response.
Senior PAF officers have since claimed that their fighters, operating under high-readiness protocols, swiftly transitioned from deterrence to a “shoot to destroy” posture once Indian jets penetrated domestic airspace.
Unofficial estimates circulating in Islamabad claim as many as six Indian fighters were downed during the brief but intense engagement — a claim that New Delhi has neither confirmed nor denied, fuelling a vortex of speculation and information warfare.
For its part, the Indian government continues to stonewall requests for precise loss figures, citing operational secrecy, troop morale, and diplomatic fallout.
Yet this opacity has only deepened suspicions that the public was misled about the true cost of Operation Sindoor, which had been touted as an unqualified success.
Pawan Khera’s broadside against the ruling coalition was scathing.
“They know they’ve compromised national security, and they’re terrified of what the Congress Party will expose before the people of India,” Khera charged, vowing to press for a full parliamentary inquiry into what the opposition sees as a deliberate cover-up.
The revelations could not have come at a more awkward moment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, which faces heightened pressure over its stewardship of India’s high-value defence procurement programmes and its management of the fragile security balance with Pakistan.
Regional analysts warn that India’s perceived loss of five frontline fighters — some of which cost upward of USD 240 million (RM1.1 billion) each — risks eroding the deterrent credibility of the IAF at a time when China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) continues to expand its own fifth-generation fleet, while the PAF is actively integrating the J-10C and ramping up BVR combat drills.
Defence experts say the fallout from this controversy may reverberate far beyond New Delhi’s political corridors.
With upcoming regional air exercises, including India’s Gagan Shakti and Pakistan’s Shaheen series, observers are watching closely to see how both air forces recalibrate their kill chains, electronic warfare postures, and tactical doctrines in the wake of the Sindoor episode.
In a region bristling with rival air combat capabilities — from Chinese J-20 Mighty Dragons to Pakistani J-10C, JF-17 Block III and Turkish drone swarms — India’s credibility hinges on transparent and resilient air power narratives.
As the Congress Party vows to keep the issue alive ahead of key state elections, the Modi government faces a stark choice: risk prolonged political damage by stonewalling further, or come clean with an honest account of what truly transpired in the skies above Pakistan on that fateful May night.
For India’s national security apparatus, the lesson is equally sobering.
In modern air warfare, where the speed of information can rival the speed of missiles, strategic ambiguity is a double-edged sword that can just as easily wound the hand that wields it.
— GEO MILITARY AFFAIRS