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For years, Kaun Banega Crorepati wasn’t just another TV quiz show — it was a shared cultural space for audiences across Pakistan and India, who tuned in to watch Amitabh Bachchan quiz contestants under the bright lights. In its latest Independence Day special promo, the show has traded that universal appeal for a front row seat to India’s nationalist spectacle, featuring the two women who became the faces of Operation Sindoor.

The promo sees Big B warmly welcoming Colonel Sofiya Qureshi of the Indian Army, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh of the Indian Air Force and Commander Prerna Deosthalee of the Indian Navy to the hot seat.

They’re in full uniform, recounting the May airstrikes on six sites in Pakistan, including Sialkot, Bahawalpur and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, as part of India’s Operation Sindoor launched in response to the deadly Pahalgam attack for which India blames Pakistan — an accusation Pakistan has repeatedly denied.

“Pakistan had been doing this for years. A response was necessary, which is why Operation Sindoor was planned,” said Qureshi with dramatic flair. “From 1:05am to 1:30am, we ended their game,” added Singh, according to The Indian Express. Deosthalee assured viewers that “targets were destroyed and no civilians were harmed,” before Qureshi closed with the punchline: “This is a new India, with a new mindset.”

The audience answered with chants of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” (Hail mother India).

Missing from the promo, of course, is Pakistan’s side of the story. According to the ISPR, the strikes killed 31 people and injured 57, including women and children. Pakistan not only denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack but also condemned the violation of its sovereignty. The ISPR said it shot down 25 Indian drones in the wake of the strikes, and celebrities here slammed the loss of civilian life and the insensitivity of celebrating it on TV and social media.

The backlash to the promo in India has been loud. Many questioned why serving officers were appearing in uniform on a quiz show and whether this was in line with military rules.

Others accused the Modi government of using the armed forces as props, turning the country’s most recognisable TV stage into another platform for political messaging.

“This BJP-led GOI has managed to ruin everything this country took real pride in,” one X user wrote. Another called it “beyond cringe”.

Others saw it as tokenism dressed up as empowerment. “Why is the Defence Ministry permitting this?” one poster asked. Another suggested the women had little to do with the operation itself — “save reading out notes given to them” — and accused the government of selling “imaginary victories” 90 days after the fact.

The show’s decision to air the episode on August 15 leaves little doubt about its symbolic timing, just as the Modi regime leans harder into anti-Pakistan sentiment to cement its nationalist narrative.

As a political move, it’s quite funny and, as many critics have called it, “cringe”. Why in the world are we seeing serving military officers on a game show to defend the armed forces’ actions?

For years, Kaun Banega Crorepati stood apart from the noise of politics — a quiz show where knowledge was the star, not the state. Now, it’s a reminder that under the current climate, even cultural spaces that once crossed borders with ease can be pulled into the service of power.

The battlefield may be hundreds of miles away, but in Modi’s India, propaganda finds its prime-time slot.