Dr Satya Narayan Misra in Bhubaneswar, August 12, 2026: The Kargil war was a watershed moment for India as it exposed the diabolical nature of General Mushraf, the then Army Chief of Pakistan & the dismal complacency of security apparatus to track insidious moves of intruders on mountain peak. After sustaining grievous fatalities, the valiant soldiers of the Indian Army captured back those peaks, with Tiger Hills the ultimate post captured with Major Vikram Batra laying down his life.

Indian cinema has tried to capture these incredibly brave moments by the Indian army in films like LOC Kargil (2002), Dhoop (2003) and Karan Johar directed well remembered movie Lakshya in 2004. However, the role played by the IAF to support the Indian army by tracking these intruders and bombing these posts and in the process losing a Mig 21 & Mig 27 aircraft through shoulder fired missiles & merciless killing of Squadron Leader Ajaya Ahuja who para dropped on the Pakistan side of LOC has remained in the realm of ignorance.

Oni Sen has tried to fill up this void in cinematic journey through the Neflix mounted magnificent series ‘Safed Sagar’, which is breath-taking in terms of visuals of aerial warfare, juxtaposing it with the political drama that engulfed both these two countries from May to July 1999.

The entire operation carries very high credibility as it had the benefit of being advised by ACM (retd) B S Dhanoa (Air Chief from 2016-2019) who was the linchpin of the operation as Commanding Officer of Golden Arrow flying squadron. Such a coalescence of reel life and real life is rather very rare in Indian cinema. Operation Safed Sagar gives the perspective of the Kargil war from the skies.

A Ring Side View of the Operation

The IAF officers are shown to be a lively bunch with their individual issues, guided by Ajay Ahuja (Siddharth) who is called in by the CO BS Dhanoa (Jimmy Shergill) to train the young officers in special complex formation of the fighter jets, which involves team coordination and alignment. The conflict intensifies as armies from both countries hammer bullets, with Pakistanis having the benefit of being perched at a height of 18000-20000 feet and fortified by bunkers inflicting heavy casualty on the Indian side.

That’s when the role of Air Force comes in as the Golden Arrows Squadron assembles to conduct some extraordinary aerial attacks. The show avoids overstyling the aerial sequences and focussing on the IAF made use of Mig 21 in such high altitudes in the absence of Mirage 2000 not ready to engage in the absence of laser guided bombs denied by the USA.

The risk and precision required for such bombing on mountain peaks at night successfully ideated by Wing Commander Dhanoa and executed by the team is the real high point of this operation. The complex special formation perfected by Ajaya Ahuja with the team was a perfect complement to this most breath-taking air attack by IAF in the summer of 1999. No wonder Siddharth & Jimmy as the CO & training guide instil a charming, lived in touch to their characters, bereft of any dramatics. Amongst the IAF team Abhay Varma embodies feelings of arrogance & guilt with equal sophistication. Mihir Ahuja excels in bringing out the nuances of an officer without overplaying the exteriors.

The Kargil Committee

A Committee under defence strategist K Subramanyam in 2001, identified several intelligence deficiency as key groups like RAW, IB and military intelligence worked in silos, lack of joint military coordination, inadequate high altitude surveillance, no single point military advice. DIA was created in 2002 for centralised military intelligence, NTRO in 2004 for technical intelligence, and a CDS has finally been positioned in 2019 to render single point military advice to the political executive.

A large number of UAVs and satellites have been purchased to improve our air surveillance. Drones have become the new toasts in air warfare as evidenced in OP Sindoor. India, despite these substantive improvements in our intelligence infrastructure, countenanced a heinous attack in Mumbai in 2008, Uri in 2016 and Pulwama in 2019, all at the behest of Pakistan by supporting terror organisations.

The Watershed Shift

The Balakot airstrike in 2019 by India through its Mirage aircrafts crossing the LOC to destroy terror camps is a watershed moment in India’s strategic position under Mr Modi. In doing so, he has upended the political posture & inertia of Vajpayee who did not allow the troops to cross LOC at any cost, while Pakistan crossed the LOC, occupied Indian posts and mercilessly killed Flight Ltn Ahuja by flagrantly flouting the Geneva Convention. Compared to the pusillanimity of Nawaz Shareef in 1999, Imran Khan as PM showed magnanimity and returned Air Force pilot Vartaman who was captured inside the Pakistani side LOC side as a peace gesture in 2019 keeping up the Geneva Convention. Our embracing multi alignment in lieu of Nehruvian non alignment is proving to be more prudent diplomatically.

High Points

Safed Sagar has several highpoints& nuggets to savour. It scrupulously eschews all temptation for loud jingoism. The trend was started by Aditya Dar in Uri The Surgical Strike (2019). It was repeated in Dhurandar 1 and Dhurandar2 by Dar, where standard patriotism was supplantedby aggressive jingoism. Similar criticism is being voiced by Veteran actor Nasirudddin Shah for films like Kerala story and The Kashmir Files as they rely on jingoism.

While Modi may be faulted with fomenting polarisation on religious lines, he must be complimented for using hard power to defend national interests and his action in Balakot represent India’s determinate shift from reactive to proactive deterrence, supported by military modernisation and standing by strategic partners like Israel and Russia, who unlike Clinton in 1999 or Trump in 2025 became fence sitters during India’s gravest security crisis, post Pakistani mayhem in Karghil and Pahalgam.

The series also bring out the deep bonding between offices and their families, both during war and peacetime, a heart-warming sight and a lesson in community comradery. The mercurial nature in Indo Pak relations buttress the old age: Friends can be changed but not neighbours!

• Dr Misra was closely associated with the IAF as their Financial Advisor, Ministry of Defence View are personal