Indian-Pakistan Conflict: Uncover the importance of shifting narratives and their impact on civil unrest, war and civilian control.
06/03/2025

Author: Armaan Hindocha

On May 22^nd a deadly terror attack consumed Pahalgam in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, claiming the lives of 26 civilians. India responded by launching Operation Sindoor which targeted opposition infrastructure. The mission led to retaliatory actions and a rise in civil unrest alongside regional instability.

Digital channels in these critical moments become the epicenter for updates. Civilians share their perspectives and content whilst interpreting the rapidly unfolding events. Public perception is crucial and narrative influence can been used to manipulate civil perception through coordinated activity.

To understand how the situation unfolded throughout May 2025, we used Vision3 Intelligence to ingest open-source conversations to determine narrative shifts, threats, misinformation and sentiment live.

 

Sudden Heightened Online Activity:

Each platform's social data provided hints towards the imminent outbreak. Content was published immediately to YouTube, whereas existing Reddit posts were progressively filled with public opinion. Live feeds from Mastodon provided geolocation and timings of airstrikes and updates whilst the News tried to keep up with events.

The surges in each respective source highlights how quickly narratives can scale during a high-profile conflict alongside how discourse intensifies in lockstep with developments on the ground.

As seen in Figure 1 below, this sharp increase offers a glimpse into how volatile the information environment becomes during crisis moments.

Sentiment data was also monitored over the period, allowing us to visualize civilian and news sentiment shifts over the month.

What Shaped the Online Discourse?

Using Vision3's AI-enabled narrative monitor we dissected the events that shaped spiking online activity around this conflict.

Narrative Shift Monitor shifted 19 times in May alone.

-          The Narrative 2^nd 3^rd: Focus on a landmark white paper incorporating sports into the IndiaAI mission. However, this was short lived.

-          3^rd 4^th: Pakistani troops continued unprovoked small arms firing in different sectors along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, prompting effective retaliation by the Indian army on the same day Avg Sentiment declined from 72 to 59.

-          4^th 5^th: Cybersecurity threat, detailing how Pakistani-backed cyber attackers compromised defense websites, including Indian military and defense manufacturing entities, thereby exposing sensitive military data. Avg Sentiment declined from 59 to 48.

-          5^th 6^th: Pakistan's claims of launching counter-strikes in response to Indian missile attacks targeting terrorist sites within Pakistan.

-          6^th 7^th: Precision strike weapon systems from the Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force, including loitering munitions, were employed in Operation Sindoor, which successfully targeted nine terror camps.

-          7^th 8^th: In a show of intent, India launched a series of targeted military strikes under Operation Sindoor, marking a significant response to the recent terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians.

-          8^th 9^th: Amid heightened hostilities between India and Pakistan, unverified claims of an Indian naval strike on Karachi Port have flooded social media. The Karachi Port Trust quickly discredited the reports. Avg Sentiment hit a low of 36.3 on this day.

-          9^th 10^th: New Delhi: The government today accused Pakistan of "targeting places of worship" In India and said several "gurudwaras, convents and temples" along the border in Jammu and Kashmir were damaged. However, this narrative shifted quickly to India s government has just signed a deal with the United Kingdom that allows more Indian graduates to take more white-collar jobs from British graduates. The deal is truly appalling, said Nigel Farage , which spiked the Average Sentiment to 72.

-          10^th 11^th: Pakistan and India launched strikes and counter-strikes against each other s military installations on Saturday, prompting US calls for the nuclear-armed neighbors to begin talks and defuse their escalation. Trump steps in.

-          11^th 12^th: After four days of intense hostilities and concerns that India and Pakistan would engage in an all-out war, the US played a decisive active role in mediating a ceasefire between the two countries

-          11^th 12^th: After four days of intense hostilities and concerns that India and Pakistan would engage in an all-out war, the US played a decisive active role in mediating a ceasefire between the two countries

-          13^th 17^th: NEW DELHI: Supreme Court's Justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai will take oath as the next Chief Justice of India later today. He steps into the shoes of Justice Sanjiv Khanna US President Donald Trump urges Apple to stop moving iPhone manufacturing to India and boost domestic production as it pivots from China.

-          17^th 18^th: Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will brief a parliamentary committee on Monday on the India-Pakistan military conflict that happened in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack

-          29^th 31^st: Singapore: Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan on Saturday said India's Operation Sindoor has drawn a "new red line" of intolerance against terror.

 

A word cloud of trending hashtags, alongside the flagged entities and their Arialconnection.

Figure 3, 4 & 5 Hashtag and Entity Word cloud showing the most frequently used hashtags and involved entities during the May 2025 escalation. Entity Relationship Map showing the relationship between entities. Vision3 Intelligence.

 

VISION3 Agent

We employed our Vision3 agent to inspect the social media payload and geolocate the completed airstrikes in real-time.

Figure 6 VISION3 AGENT locating existing airstrikes. Vision3 Intelligence.

Our agent is also predictive and provides the next 20 airstrike targets based on recent conflict patterns, military activity and intelligence signals:

Figure 7 VISION3 AGENT locating future airstrikes. Vision3 Intelligence.

 

This overview examines how online narratives unfolded from April 15 to June 3, 2025 immediately after the Pahalgam attack through the day the ceasefire took effect. Although hostilities formally paused on May 10, by June 4 the situation remains unstable: diplomatic tensions persist, digital influence campaigns continue unabated, and sporadic skirmishes along the Line of Control signal that the crisis is far from over.

Rather than opining on real‐time events, this report aims to illuminate how narrative cues appeared and shifted during the conflict s critical early weeks.

The value of these insights lies not in pronouncing judgment but in snapshotting the rhythm, volume, and complexity of online discourse amid a geopolitical flashpoint. We see what messages gained traction, which actors drove the conversation, and how networks coordinated to amplify certain frames.

In scenarios like this, narrative intelligence doesn't provide certainty it delivers clarity. It surfaces early warning signs, exposes coordinated influence efforts, and tracks how the reverberations of conflict ripple outward often well beyond the contested terrain.