When the Left echoes Rawalpindi: How The Wire’s Arfa Sherwani, Siddharth Varadrajan parroted Pakistani narrative soon after ‘Operation Sindoor’
A little past midnight on May 7, the Indian Armed Forces carried out one of the most audacious counter-terror operations in recent memory. Codenamed “Operation Sindoor,” the mission struck nine terror camps entrenched in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, including the Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters and a Lashkar-e-Taiba facility used to launch the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Within hours, videos of explosions, smoldering infrastructure, and Pakistani panic flooded social media. The Indian Army, in a rare public statement, confirmed its role, proudly proclaiming: “Justice is served.”
As the rest of India erupted in patriotic pride and collective catharsis, another response emerged—not from Pakistan but from the drawing rooms and editorial offices of India’s Left-liberal intelligentsia. If the Pakistani state was fuming, its apologists in Indian media circles appeared equally perturbed. What followed was a spectacle of intellectual subversion, with self-styled progressives rushing to cast doubt, question the government’s intent, and parrot the propaganda of India’s sworn enemy.
It is difficult to ignore the galling irony. Just days earlier, following the Pahalgam massacre where terrorists slaughtered unarmed Indian pilgrims, the Modi government faced flak from this very cohort. With performative outrage and righteous indignation, these commentators took swipes at the Centre, accusing it of being all hat and no cattle. Demands for “decisive action” and lamentations about India’s “strategic paralysis” filled their op-eds and primetime slots. But when that decisive action came, the same voices performed a swift volte-face.
Take Arfa Khanum Sherwani of The Wire, for instance. Within hours of Operation Sindoor, she began echoing the Pakistani establishment’s line that India had attacked unarmed civilians, conveniently brushing aside the Indian Army’s statement and years of intelligence inputs from international agencies about terror camps operating in plain sight in Pakistan. According to her, no terrorist was killed. Her entire premise rested not on independent verification or journalistic investigation, but on statements released by the very state that has made terrorism an instrument of its foreign policy.
Sherwani didn’t stop there. In a telling moment that exposes the ideological roots of such narratives, she described Kashmir as being “sandwiched” between India and Pakistan. This framing is not just inaccurate; it’s dangerous. It erases the very real role of local terror networks, underplays the radicalization fostered by Pakistan, and presents the Indian state as the oppressor—a narrative lifted straight from the ISI playbook.
At one point during her conversation, Sherwani even appeared to mock the infographic of ‘Operation Sindoor’ shared by the Indian Army. ‘Sindoor’ holds profound cultural and symbolic significance, for it a marker of a married woman’s husband’s wellbeing. The Armed Forces had chosen the name presumably to honour the dead—men segregated by terrorists for being Hindu and shot dead in cold blood in front of their families.
Siddharth Varadarajan, founder of The Wire and a man who rarely misses a chance to question India’s security policies, joined in with a similar narrative of manufactured doubt. Speaking with Sherwani in the early hours after the strike, he fretted over the government’s initial reluctance to disclose the exact locations of the strikes. He insinuated that the government was forced to confirm the operation only because social media had already gone viral with videos and images of the destruction. The implication was clear: the state was hiding something.
The Wire panelists were busy pushing Pakistani talking points hours after Army conducted ‘Operation Sindoor’
Varadarajan went on to claim that the success of the strikes was unverifiable. It is a tactic we’ve seen before—most notably after the Balakot airstrikes in 2019, when the same cabal demanded GPS coordinates, photographic evidence, and death certificates of terrorists. They conveniently ignore the operational realities of airstrikes, the need for secrecy, and the tactical advantage of withholding evidence for the enemy to get insights into the operation.
Perhaps the most bizarre contribution came from another Wire journalist, Rahul, who spoke at The Wire Live on YouTube, pushing an entirely fabricated story, presumably birthed in an ISI war room. According to this tale, the Pakistani Air Force had shot down five to six Indian fighter jets, including advanced French-made Rafales. Without a shred of evidence, Rahul amplified the claim, even as the Indian Armed Forces released no such confirmation and foreign defense analysts dismissed the story as fanciful fiction.
What this reveals is a disturbing reality: that a section of India’s commentariat has become indistinguishable from enemy propaganda. Their knee-jerk skepticism, selective outrage, and intellectual gymnastics are no longer about holding power to account; they are about sabotaging national morale and shielding Pakistan from international scrutiny.
This is not journalism. This is psychological warfare.
Fifth column in action, aiding and supporting Pakistani propaganda machinery
One might be tempted to attribute this to political bias—after all, the Modi government has always been the Left’s bête noire. But the pattern here is far too consistent, and the stakes far too high, to dismiss this as mere opposition politics. What we are witnessing is a textbook example of the Fifth Column in action—a segment of society that functions within a country while actively or inadvertently promoting the enemy’s objectives.
These intellectual mercenaries traffic in doubt and fear. Their aim is not truth, but paralysis. Their messaging always follows the same trajectory: first, deny the presence of terrorists; then, question the authenticity of the strikes; and finally, stoke fears of an apocalyptic retaliation by Pakistan.
The last point is particularly insidious. Every time India strikes back, these voices emerge from the woodwork to warn of war, escalation, and international fallout. They scream “recklessness” and “warmongering” while ignoring the decades-long pattern of Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism. This fear-mongering is not a coincidence—it is a calculated narrative designed to dissuade India from retaliating, to preserve the illusion that peace can be bought through passivity.
But the Modi administration has proven, repeatedly, that it no longer governs by the whims of these performative outrage merchants. The days of Track II diplomacy, dossiers, and strategic restraint are long gone. This is a new India—one that responds, not just reacts; one that won’t hesitate in crossing the international border for bringing the perpetrators of terrorism to justice. One that is not content with candlelight vigils after every terror attack, but seeks to ensure that such attacks responded with military might and not just diplomatic blitzkrieg.
Performative outrage merchants from Delhi’s Khan Market gang clings to fading relevance as India embraces strategic clarity
It is this transformation that rattles the old guard. Having lost their clout, their relevance, and their ideological grip over national discourse, they now resort to amplifying enemy narratives to remain in the spotlight. Their fear is not just of war; it is of irrelevance.
Operation Sindoor was not just a tactical success; it was a statement. It told the world that India will no longer tolerate terror sanctuaries across the border. That India’s response will be swift, precise, and unapologetic. And if it bruises some egos in Karachi—or in Delhi’s Khan Market circuit—so be it.
In the end, the real story is not just about the missiles that found their targets in terrorist camps. It is about the intellectual missiles fired by India’s own Fifth Column, aimed not at the enemy, but at the morale of its own people. And it is about time we called them out for what they are: enablers of terror, cloaked in the garb of dissent.
India has chosen to walk on a path of self-respect, strategic clarity, and zero tolerance for any form of terrorism. Thos who find it difficult to stomach it are welcome to wallow in their irrelevance. But India will march on unbothered, obliterating anyone and everyone who dares to cast evil eyes on its sovereignty.
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