On Monday, October 2, the Indian Air Force (IAF) took to X (previously known as Twitter) to bust fake news circulating on social media. The misleading claim suggested that a significant number of Sikh pilots and personnel were declining their duties due to alleged continuous derogatory treatment from their Hindu seniors.
“The information is not true and has been posted to spread rumours. #IndianAirForce,” the official X account of the Indian Air Force tweeted along with a picture of a claim being made that Sikh officers in the service have refused to perform their duties on account of insulting behaviour from their Hindu seniors.
The clarification from the Indian Air Force came in the wake of viral social media posts that claimed that Sikh officers were refusing to perform their duties because their Hindu seniors treated them with disrespect and hurled insults at them.
A social media user claimed that a source from inside the Indian Air Force claimed that a majority of Sikh pilots and personnel are refusing to perform their duties because their Hindu seniors were insulting them on a routine basis.
Many other social media users also shared and reposted the tweet that raised aspersions on the loyalty of Sikh officers serving in the Indian Air Force.
Indian Air Force and other streams of the Indian military have often been subjected to hitjobs by people and organisations with vested interests, most notably from neighbouring China and Pakistan—two countries that continue to harbour pathological animosity for India and have strategic incentives to undermine the Indian Air Force by enmeshing it in non-existent conflicts and fuelling religious divisions within its ranks.