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The Indo-Pak War After Pahalgam: AI Propaganda and the Sri Lankan Algorithm

Following the Pahalgam attack in April 2025, which claimed 26 lives and reignited tensions in Kashmir (BBC News, 2025), the online landscape of propaganda and misinformation in South Asia experienced a dramatic escalation. In this volatile environment, India and Pakistan, engaged in their most significant stand-off since the 1999 Kargil conflict, began using misinformation and disinformation as crucial strategic weapons, alongside traditional military assets like drones and missiles (Deccan Herald, 2025). These sophisticated online tactics quickly spread beyond their borders to Sri Lanka, where social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok became channels for an overwhelming influx of militarised misinformation and propaganda related to the Indo-Pakistan conflict. 

Users in Sri Lanka, aware of local sentiments, carefully tailored this content to amplify existing grievances, further intensifying communal anxieties. These narratives exploited historical tensions among Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim communities, connecting the Kashmir conflict to domestic issues. This article explores notable instances of social media activity in Sri Lanka that likely used AI, examining the intricate connections between these narratives and the country’s complex ethnopolitical dynamics.

The Visual Language of Conflict

Figure 1:Meme posted on April 28, pairing Krishna guiding Arjuna’s chariot with a modern Indian naval fleet. Captioned “Same energy,” it links mythological warfare to current military power, promoting nationalist pride through cultural symbolism.

Social media has evolved into a platform for symbolic conflict. In a highly shared Facebook post by the “Indian Right Wing Community” (Fig. 1), a split image juxtaposes contemporary Indian navy warships slicing across the seas with the fabled chariot of Arjuna and Krishna from the Mahabharata. “Same energy”, the caption makes a clear distinction between modern military might and religious imagination. It’s a powerful illustration of how nationalist identity is reinforced by visual analogies, portraying India’s current military as a continuation of its mythological past.

Despite being created with an Indian audience in mind, this type of content frequently gains popularity in nearby nations like Sri Lanka, where there are historical, religious, and cultural parallels. It has two ramifications: it influences how people view India’s place in the world and contributes to a regional mentality that is centred on mythology and militarism.

When Romance Meets Propaganda

Figure 2: TikTok post titled “Operation Sohagrat” shows a Pakistani male officer applying sindoor to a female Indian officer amid war imagery. With tags like #LoveHasNoBorders, it blends romance and conflict for emotional or humorous effect.

Conversely, multimedia producers are using satire and irony to reinterpret the war. In a TikTok post called “Operation Sohagrat” (Fig. 2), a Pakistani Air Force officer parodies a romantic Bollywood cliché in a military context by applying sindoor on an Indian female Air Force officer. Fighter planes and what looks to be post-conflict destruction make up the background, which combines aspects of satire, forbidden love, and nationalism.

Because of its ridiculousness and subversion, this TikTok gained over 90K views and thousands of comments. While some Indian viewers viewed the gesture with cynicism or outrage, others found it humorous or even hopeful. Comments such as “I’m from India, support Pakistan because I’m Muslim” highlight the sharply divided ideological landscape and how identity politics can be tested by such content.

AI-Generated Conspiratorial Content

Figure 3: A Facebook post published on May 10th claimed that the Indo-Pak war was a “high-budget distraction.”  This suggests a conspiracy by using an AI-generated image of world leaders (Trump, Netanyahu, Modi, and a military chief)

Outright conspiracy was one common topic. A Facebook post posed the question, “Was the Indo-Pak War Just a Big, Fat Distraction?” as seen in Fig. 3. They responded with a fanciful scenario: the battle was reportedly created by world forces (the U.S., the BJP in India, etc.) to deflect attention from other objectives. To emphasise its points, the text uses strong language and emoticons (“BOOM, Indo-Pak tensions erupt”, “cue applause”). Importantly, the poster clearly states that the accompanying image is a phoney composite, with Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, a military chief, and Narendra Modi holding champagne. This is a crucial strategy: utilising AI-generated graphics and memes to lend narratives a visual impact. 

To put it another way, this post replicates the same AI-supported narrative that was observed globally. In this instance, the content incites nationalist sentiment by implying that the US and the BJP “got what they wanted”. It capitalises on scepticism about reliable information: fact-checkers caution that too much of this type of content might cause a “boy-who-cried-wolf” effect, in which people start to reject even legitimate news or photographs (Kang & Sheen, 2025)

Figure 4: A Facebook meme posted on 13 May shows leaders (Erdogan, Xi, Trump, Macron) observing a bloodied, caged man surrounded by lab rats. The caption describes the war as a “laboratory experiment” and an open-air weapons exhibition.

Another common digital motif was cynicism about superpowers. Fig. 4 shows a post that describes South Asia as a “guinea pig” for world weapons testing. The image (a Photoshopped composite) shows a tortured civilian in a cage beneath world leaders, a clear metaphor that the general public are “lab rats” in geopolitical games. By detailing how China’s jets and missiles “made their combat debut” without shooting, Turkey’s drones served as live commercials, and Pakistan’s economy received IMF money, the story suggests that the parties “profited” by orchestrating or exaggerating the conflict. Electioneering is the term used to describe India’s response, Operation Sindoor, since “military glory translates to ballot power”. This post uses real names of fighter jets (Rafales, Bayraktars) and inferred statements (“Nationalism will be repackaged, election-ready”) to seem authoritative. The trend that analysts have recognised is very similar: during the first crisis, “an overload of misleading information” proliferated, increasing scepticism of governments. The effectiveness of this digital propaganda is demonstrated by the fact that both of the previously stated examples were widely disseminated on Sri Lankan forums—the second piece, for example, received over 100 shares and hundreds of comments. 

Algorithmic Amplification on Sri Lankan Platforms

Figure 5: A viral pro-Pakistan Facebook image (“Long Live Pakistan Indus River,” 24 Apr) showing an F-16 jet over a burning dam. The dramatic, militarised scene garnered thousands of reactions.

These stories were significantly amplified by social media algorithms. As of 2025, 12.4 million Sri Lankans, or 54% of the country’s population, are online, and 8.2 million of them have social media profiles, demonstrating how connected the country is (DataReportal, 2025). Sensational combat photos and conspiratorial postings are frequently promoted on platforms like Facebook and TikTok because they customise content feeds to maximise engagement (Kim, 2017). In reality, a dramatic post such as Fig. 3, which purports to be a “photoshopped” attack on Pakistan’s Indus Dam with the slogan “Long Live Pakistan,” can go viral very quickly (it received over 2.3K likes and hundreds of shares). In particular, short-video apps have the potential to produce echo chambers by continuously presenting users with information that corresponds with their prior interests. For instance, it was recently noted that TikTok’s recommendation engine frequently presents “content deeply aligned with a user’s niche,” even when such content is deceptive. A de facto “algorithm” favours populist types of content among certain user groups, as frequently noted by observers (Rădulescu & Bogdan, 2024); this means that posts about Indo-Pak events in Sinhala or Tamil would proliferate easily among Sri Lankan feeds. Additionally, people are encouraged to post the most exaggerated interpretations of events due to algorithmic incentives such as likes and shares. Since involvement is fuelled by military spectacle (jets, explosions, and confined civilians), the posts above obviously trade in it.

However, conventional information checks have flaws. Fact-checking is uncommon in closed or semi-closed channels (such as WhatsApp chains and Facebook groups), where a large portion of this content circulates. Generative AI memes often spread on platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp in Sri Lanka. This is largely due to limited digital literacy and a lack of reliable fact-checking mechanisms on these channels. As a result, misinformation—whether in English, Tamil, or Sinhala—can be easily amplified by algorithms and quickly disseminated across the country’s highly connected online population.

Ethno-Religious and Geopolitical Context

These stories did not appear in a vacuum; rather, they reflected the long-standing ethnopolitical differences in Sri Lanka. With recorded Tamil persecution beginning in the 1950s and continuing into the 1980s, the Sinhalese-majority state has long propagated anti-minority discourse. In addition, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists have attacked Christians and Muslims, portraying them as foreign enemies. Misogynistic, nationalistic, and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories are common in Sinhala-language social media feeds. These regional perspectives were frequently used to reinterpret content from the Indo-Pak conflict that appeared online. One example of rephrasing a foreign conflict to reflect Sri Lanka’s own fears is the usage of Indo-Pak war imagery as a metaphor for domestic anxieties in a Sinhala influencer’s video (Fig. 6).

Figure 6: A Sinhala-language AI-generated video clip posted on 27 April shows Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake watching explosions. The caption suggests the Pahalgam attack was a staged event, referring to it as part of a “secret plan” linked to the president’s decisions. This illustrates how local media repurposed the Indo-Pak conflict to fit Sri Lankan political narratives.

Figure 6 shows footage of ship explosions with menacing captions that suggest President Dissanayake’s actions were responsible for the attack being “orchestrated.” The images recite propaganda from within the country, depicting outside nations, such as India, as false dangers. Researchers have observed how Bodu Bala Sena and other Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist organisations use Facebook to propagate anti-Muslim and “anti-out-group” narratives (Ivarsson, 2018), portraying crises as existential dangers. Such posts combine local anxieties with regional fighting by associating the Indo-Pak conflict with mysterious “operations” and dramatic port imagery. Images of Indian missiles or Pakistani jets bolster the concerns of Sri Lankans already suspicious of foreign meddling or Islamic radicalism, entangling far-off conflicts in their own identity-driven worldview.

Perceptions are also coloured by strategic alignments. China and India, two important South Asian nations, are separated by Sri Lanka. With cultural links spanning millennia and billions of dollars in bilateral trade each year, India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour and longstanding partner. Local audiences are both proud and concerned about China’s significant investments in Sri Lanka’s ports and infrastructure (such as Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City) as part of the Belt and Road initiative (Wignaraja et al., 2020). Many Sri Lankans view Indo-Pak events through a lens that pits India against China, asking questions such as, “Is China supporting Pakistan this time?” They also remember that during Sri Lanka’s civil war, Pakistan was a significant supplier of weapons. Pakistan actually pledged in 2006 to supply Sri Lanka’s military with “one shipload of equipment every ten days”(Business Standard, 2009). Pakistan’s military image resonates in Sri Lanka because of this legacy: some Sinhala hardliners view Pakistan as a useful ally in the fight against the LTTE. Posts that exalt Pakistan’s military effort (such as Fig. 3) thus contribute to both Muslim and Sinhalese narratives.

Nationalism and Digital Populism

Digital populism—emotionally charged, straightforward messaging designed for broad appeal—was the fuel that allowed these tales to flourish. The aforementioned posts are glaring examples of how they simplify complicated crises into “us vs. them” narratives, such as “stupid common men are guinea pigs” against “powerful hands clinking glasses”. Such material is polarising by nature. Importantly, these strategies have already been adopted by Sri Lankan political culture. The 2024 parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka were characterised as a constant campaign using memes and viral imagery even prior to the Indo-Pak conflict (Hashtag Generation, 2025). Analysts cautioned that parties would frequently utilise cheap or free AI-generated memes to make fun of opponents or “launder” reputations without conducting fact-checks. Also, according to observers, generative AI will be employed in Sri Lanka to distract, decry, deny, and deceive through sophisticated influence campaigns. Put another way, the coordination effort for digital propaganda was already in place, ranging from a lack of media literacy to extensive usage of social media. In order to promote domestic narratives, supportive actors may appropriate conflict memes, and the Indo-Pak disinformation wave merely became a part of that ecosystem.

This traction is seen in engagement statistics. For instance, the conspiracy meme in Figure 1 received hundreds of likes and shares on Sri Lankan Facebook groups, whereas the “laboratory experiment” in Figure 4 received more than 100 shares. Even further, the image of the Indus dam (Fig. 5) accumulated thousands more reactions. Similar videos received millions of views on TikTok. Although the specific ethnic composition of these audiences is unclear, the following trends can be deduced: Posts that promoted Buddhist-nationalist or Sinhalese-patriotic viewpoints were probably shared by Sinhala-majority networks, particularly those focused on young people. In contrast, Muslim Sri Lankans were drawn to stories that portrayed Pakistan in a positive light (the caption for Fig. 5’s green flag symbol suggests Muslim pride). Given their long history with India, Sri Lankan Tamils might have been more cautious. At the same time, some Tamil community pages did post contradictory information regarding India’s actions (typically critical of Modi’s government), and Indo-Pak messages were generally less common in Tamil-language forums.

Geopolitical Implications of AI Propaganda

The rise of AI-generated misinformation poses significant geopolitical risks, particularly in already fragile regions like South Asia. When AI is used to create deceptive content—such as fabricated images, videos, or emotionally charged memes—it does more than just distort information; it actively influences how people perceive national security, foreign relations, and internal politics. 

In Sri Lanka, where historical ties to both India and Pakistan shape public sentiment, the spread of narratives about the Indo-Pak conflict through AI-generated content can further exacerbate domestic divisions. These narratives often glorify militarism, promote conspiracy theories, or align with existing ethnonationalist ideologies. They gain traction when tailored to local contexts. As Sri Lankan users absorb and share this content, they may unknowingly reinforce geopolitical agendas or divisive rhetoric, turning the digital space into a battleground for regional power struggles.

Moreover, the continuous exposure to AI-generated misinformation can gradually undermine trust in institutions, media, and official accounts of events. Given that political narratives in Sri Lanka have long been contested, the presence of false or misleading content risks deepening public cynicism and weakening democratic engagement. As people encounter more conspiracy theories or manipulated media, they may begin to doubt the credibility of even legitimate information (Ognyanova et al., 2020). This creates a dangerous feedback loop where scepticism replaces informed debate, and polarisation undermines consensus.

Without stronger digital literacy, effective content moderation, and public awareness campaigns, Sri Lanka risks becoming increasingly vulnerable to influence campaigns that exploit uncertainty and fear—threatening not only online discourse but also the foundations of democratic governance itself.

Conclusion

The digital aftermath of the Indo-Pak conflict, particularly following the Pahalgam attack, highlights how AI-generated propaganda and algorithm-driven content are swiftly reshaping the information landscape across South Asia, with Sri Lanka serving as a notable example. As memes, deepfakes, and conspiratorial narratives circulate across borders, they are absorbed and reframed through local perspectives, fuelling ethno-religious tensions, political populism, and distrust in institutions. 

These narratives are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern where emotional, divisive content is favoured by social media algorithms, often outpacing accurate reporting. In the context of Sri Lanka—where digital literacy gaps, historical grievances, and youth-driven online engagement intersect—this creates a ripe environment for disinformation to flourish. 

The challenge ahead lies not only in identifying falsehoods but also in developing regional responses that promote media literacy, demand accountability from platforms, and foster critical thinking. While the Indo-Pak war may have unfolded in Kashmir, its algorithmic repercussions have made the conflict disturbingly local, indicating that the next crisis may manifest not at a border but across the screens of millions.

_Article by Dulanjaya Mahagamage_

 

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