Exclusive Excerpt from Unfolded: India’s Air Defence from WWII to Operation Sindoor

Here’s an exclusive excerpt from Unfolded by Pankaj P Singh, offering a rare glimpse into the thinking behind India’s air defence in moments when uncertainty outweighed clarity.

Failure in air defence is never just technical. It’s political.

The Mi-17 friendly fire incident during Balakot became a national scandal—not just for its tragedy, but for what it suggested: confusion, fragmentation, vulnerability.

When Iran’s AD (Air Defence) mistakenly shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 in 2020, killing 176 people, it unleashed international condemnation, internal protests, and total loss of air defence credibility.

Such events don’t just kill. They undermine deterrence, damage public trust, and give adversaries propaganda ammunition.

Every war writes two stories: one for the moment, and one for history. Operation Sindoor will be no different. In real time, it played out in the skies, across command centres, on flickering television screens, and through cryptic press briefings. But as the smoke clears—literally and figuratively—it is but natural that the real contours of this operation will lie somewhere between fact and fog.

Both sides have claimed success. Interceptions tallied. Drones destroyed. Airspace violations thwarted. The numbers are there, but so are their shadows. Pakistan spoke of offensive superiority and radar penetration. India responded with a language of control and containment. And between these twin narratives lies a silent, shifting truth that neither side has fully revealed—and perhaps never will.

This is the nature of the fog of war: not merely confusion on the battlefield, but deliberate ambiguity in the information space. In Operation Sindoor, it manifested in timing lags, blurred footage, and carefully curated disclosures. Some radar tracks were made public. Others weren’t. Certain interceptions were proudly broadcast; others were never mentioned again. In a conflict where both the defence and the deterrent were digital, kinetic, and psychological, success could be shown, exaggerated, or concealed with equal ease.

The excerpt is not merely a recounting of incidents or operations; it is a warning. ‘Failure in air defence is never just technical. It’s political.’ That line frames everything that follows. For civilians, such failures may appear as tragic errors—misidentification, radar glitches, human mistakes. For the state and those in uniform, the consequences are far wider: shattered credibility, weakened deterrence, and intensified scrutiny.

The Mi-17 friendly fire incident after Balakot and Iran’s 2020 shootdown of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 underline this reality. In both cases, the loss went beyond lives. Air defence credibility was compromised, domestically and internationally, with long-term strategic consequences.

Turning to Operation Sindoor, the excerpt reflects on how modern conflicts unfold through competing narratives. Claims of interceptions, penetrations, control, and containment shaped public perception on both sides. Yet between these statements lay a deeper truth obscured by the fog of war—delayed disclosures, selective releases, and carefully managed information.

Unfolded does not promise certainty. Instead, it draws attention to how air defence today operates across kinetic, digital, and psychological domains, where success can be revealed or concealed with equal intent. For readers on civvy street, it offers a rare, unsentimental look at how modern warfare is fought—and how history eventually separates fact from fog.

In giving us this glimpse, the book invites civilians into a conversation usually held behind secured doors. It asks us to look beyond claims and counters, to understand why air defence failures echo so loudly, and to recognise that in war, the most decisive battles are often fought in the spaces between fact and fog.

Also read: Exclusive Excerpt from India-Pakistan: The Intractable Conflict and The China Factor