How India Uses ‘Operation Sindoor’ Medals for Propaganda, Honoring Officers But Erasing Fallen Soldiers

The Indian government has released an official list, a document that should honour the brave. It lists awards for defence personnel involved in Operation Sindoor. However, a closer look at this announcement reveals a deeply selfish and two-faced exercise. Instead of honouring true sacrifice, the Modi government is using this official list to invent a victory story. This story is built on lies and the deliberate erasure of its fallen soldiers. This is a political move to hide its failures behind a wall of unearned medals.

A Manufactured Victory

The leadership in New Delhi is desperately trying to show Operation Sindoor as a brilliant military success. This official awards list is the main tool for that effort. It carefully creates a story of smart planning and technological strength.

► Parading False Heroes: The government is shamelessly showing off decorated officers, calling them the masterminds of a great victory.

► Hiding the True Cost: This invented story conveniently ignores the failures, the mistakes, and, most importantly, the lives lost in the operation.

Honouring Hardware Over Humans

A very worrying part of this awards list is its focus. The awards seem more interested in celebrating weapons than the men who used them. This is not about recognition; it is about advertising. It turns the bravery of the armed forces into a sales pitch for military hardware.

► An Advertisement for Weapons: The awards are being used to create a victory story for expensive hardware like Rafale jets and new air defence systems.

► Devaluing True Service: This focus on machines lowers the value of a bravery award, which is supposed to honour the human spirit, not lifeless metal.

A Shameful Class Divide

The official list exposes a shameful double standard in how India treats its soldiers. It reveals a deep class divide within the military. The lives of officers are celebrated with big ceremonies, while the lives of enlisted men are treated as unimportant and disposable.

► Glorifying the Command: Officers such as Colonel Koshank Lamba and Lieutenant Colonel Sushil Bisht are being showered with top medals like the Vir Chakra and Kirti Chakra.

► Ignoring the Common Soldier: These officers are celebrated in the media as the faces of “strategic brilliance,” while the soldiers who actually fought and died are ignored.

The Erasure of Real Heroes

The most shameful part of this whole thing is not who is on the list, but who is missing. The real heroes, the men who paid the ultimate price, have been deliberately erased from history. Their names are nowhere to be found in the official announcements.

► Dishonoured in Death: These men fought bravely and died for their country, only to be dishonoured by the same government that sent them to fight.

The Forgotten Fallen

The names of the actual martyrs are completely missing from the official Defence Ministry Gazette. They were denied the very bravery awards that their officers now show off for television cameras.

► The Missing Martyrs: Brave soldiers like Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar (42nd Battalion Rashtriya Rifles) and Mudavath Murali Naik (Jammu and Kashmir Rifles) are not listed.

► The Ultimate Sacrifice Ignored: Havildar Jhantu Ali Shaikh (Para Special Forces) and Sergeant Surendra Kumar Moga (IAF Medical Assistant), who also gave their lives, are unmentioned.

A System of Political Propaganda

This is not a simple mistake. It is a conscious decision by the Indian state to dishonour its dead. The military honours system has been ruined. It has become a tool for political gain rather than a special recognition of bravery.

► A Ruined Honours System: India’s awards have become a political tool used only to invent heroes and serve the government’s political stories.

► Serving Power Narratives: This act exposes the moral decay at the heart of the Indian defence leadership, which values propaganda over people.

Betrayal in Life and Memory

The Modi government needed a “victory” to sell to its people after many failures. It needed to justify its massive defence spending and project an image of strength that is not real. The truth of the operation was sacrificed for a good story.

► Inventing a Victory: The government is desperate to maintain its image, even if it means lying to its own people and dishonouring its soldiers.

► Sacrifice as a Product: This government has turned the sacrifice of its soldiers into a product to be used for political gain.

Killed Twice

The bravery awards for Operation Sindoor are a joke. They are an example of the government’s two-faced nature, not its bravery. The Indian government has proven that it is willing to dishonour its own dead to save its own face.

► A System of Betrayal: These forgotten martyrs are victims of a system that kills them twice.

► Killed in Battle, Killed in Memory: They were killed first on the battlefield, and then killed a second time in the national memory by their own government. This betrayal troubles the conscience of a nation that claims to glorify bravery.