Finepoint | How Modi Got Inside Pakistan's Head And Scripted Its Public Humiliation
Operation Sindoor is the answer – a response as deliberate as it is devastating, to remind Pakistan that the price of butchery will be paid in full
Gauging Pakistan’s obsessive focus on him and leveraging his own reputation as the decisive leader with the will to strike back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got inside Pakistan’s head by controlling its gaze: dictating both what it saw and what it didn’t.
This was followed by a skilfully executed communications strategy that not only left Pakistan scrambling to cover up its demons, but rendered it bruised, battered and exposed for the world to see. For Pakistan, it began with a sense of perception dominance and ended with humiliating defeat on all counts.
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OPERATION SINDOOR: STRATEGY, SURPRISE AND SPECTACLE
When Islamist terrorists – bred by Pakistan’s terror machine – singled out male tourists and executed them in front of their wives and children, they embodied the darkest, most grotesque face of evil. That day, every married woman in India instinctively clutched her mangalsutra and looked at her husband with tear-filled eyes.
The terrorists knew exactly what they were doing – they weren’t just taking lives, they were targeting symbols of love, stability, and faith. They wiped the sindoor off our women’s foreheads. India couldn’t stay silent.
Operation Sindoor is the answer – a response as deliberate as it is devastating, to remind Pakistan that the price of butchery will be paid in full.
The Pahalgam attack was a direct assault on India’s idea of security, on its religious identity, and on its psychological equilibrium. Pakistan’s terror playbook was in full swing: hit hard, provoke outrage, escalate tensions, and trap India into a reaction that could be globally condemned. But the script did not unfold as Asim Munir, his terrorist cohorts and his government minions may have expected.
On May 7, midnight between 1.28 am and 1.44 am, Pakistan’s night sky lit up with Indian missiles. India struck Pakistan’s terror infrastructure, as deep as Bahawalpur obliterating Markaz Subhanallah, Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar’s den. Eight other sites were targeted in Five locations are in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, and four are deeper inside Pakistan. Each of them a terrorist haven, breeding grounds of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Muhammad. Pakistan was caught napping in its 25 minutes of humiliation.
And this time, India didn’t leave it to speculation. It released videos, impact visuals and before-after shots. This wasn’t about ambiguity — it was about messaging. Clean. Controlled. Clinical. The follow-up came within hours and was equally strategic. The government’s first official word came not from a politician, but from two women officers — Wing Commander Vyomika Singh and Colonel Sofiya Qureshi. They read out the facts and played out Pakistan’s public reckoning in front of the world’s glare.
The message was — You strike at our women’s dignity? We send women in uniform to calmly explain the scale of retribution you were just subjected to. Their very presence there must unsettle the bigoted Islamist regime of Pakistan.
The attack caught Pakistan completely off guard. India struck all its intended targets— its scale and precision still being assessed— but this was no Balakot, it was far bigger. India’s messaging kicked in with clockwork precision. If the mission’s name, Operation Sindoor, evoked the grief of Pahalgam’s victims, the operation itself embodied India’s ‘Shakti’ — its divine wrath.
The press conference— executed by decorated women officers of the Indian military — was timely, swift and well-planned, and the video footage made it clear: Indian forces had gone to great lengths not just to punish Pakistan, but to document its humiliation. It wasn’t just about punishing Pakistan — it was about capturing it on camera in all its misery. This was a masterclass in war-time communications from beginning to end, managing the narrative skilfully while delivering the intended blow, both physical and psychological, on Pakistan.
HOW DID INDIA MANAGE THIS SURPRISE?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not rush to retaliate, but he did not wait too long either. In war, timing is a weapon. Silence is a tactic. And sometimes, victory begins before the first shot is fired.
If Pakistan had learned anything from the surgical strikes of 2016 and the Balakot airstrikes of 2019, it was this — New India will strike back. Pakistan tried to weaponise that very doctrine — one defined by Modi himself — against India.
The Pahalgam massacre was especially designed to be psychologically crippling, where terrorists told women and children to go tell Modi why their husbands and fathers had been slaughtered point-blank. This was psychological warfare. The target was Modi’s psyche. And the hope was that India would act in haste and stumble along the way giving Pakistan what it wants.
In the hours and days after the terror attack on 22nd April, Pakistan appeared curiously ready. It deployed incendiary rhetoric with speed, invoked the nuclear threat, and rushed to paint India as the aggressor in global forums. Ceasefire violations spiked. Infiltration attempts surged. Military buildup was evident. The choreography was clear — provoke India into an all-out war, then shift the blame.
India had to respond to establish deterrence but it had to do so without falling for Pakistan’s script. The core question wasn’t whether to strike, but how, when, and where. A misstep — especially one that risked high civilian casualties — would have played straight into Islamabad’s hands. Modi was faced with a real dilemma: act predictably and risk failure, or be too inventive too quickly and risk the same.
Instead, sensing the obsessive fixation of both Pakistan and its proxies on him, Modi weaponised his reputation as the all-powerful fountainhead of India — he controlled their gaze. Every move, every meeting, every public word became part of a broader psywar strategy.
He leveraged his image as the decisive strongman. Every visible step — from Cabinet Committee on Security meetings to consultations with opposition leaders and military chiefs — was telegraphed for maximum impact. Messages were sent not only to the Indian public but across the border as well.
The decision to expel Pakistani nationals and suspend the Indus Water Treaty among other serious measures showed that economic action had been taken, which soothed some anger in India against Pakistan. Soon, the meetings turned hazier and hazier, and it may have seemed for a moment that India was content with economic action and would wait it out.
An announcement on the caste census, a highway development package for the northeast and civil defence mock drills announced across India diverted attention. In fact, just hours before launching the attack, Modi was celebrating the historic signing of the India-UK trade deal. That evening, PM Modi was delivering a speech at a press conclave. Who would’ve imagined that the final item on his day’s agenda was to launch the largest peacetime military strike the subcontinent has seen?
Pakistan’s leadership may have thought they were winning the perception war — giving interviews to international media, shedding crocodile tears at the UN Security Council, painting India as the aggressor, all while whipping up the Kashmir bogey and threatening to trigger a nuclear war. Only this time, Modi had gotten inside their heads.
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