Operation Safed Sagar: Netflix’s Kargil series brings Indian Air Force’s untold story to screen

In his university days Siddharth had heard about Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose character the actor essays in the series, but he did not know much about Operation Safed Sagar. So, when he met director Oni Sen and the show’s co-creator Abhijeet Singh Parmar for the first time, he found the story “moving and relevant”. “I knew it’s always going to be relevant because it’s a story of a nation going to war and we are seeing it through the lens of the Indian Air Force. But when I heard the script, I believed, it could really move young people,” he said.

That sense of discovery and the desire to share the untold Air Force story of Kargil are at the heart of the series.

Created by Parmar and Kushal Srivastava, Operation Safed Sagar grew out of latter’s own experience with the Indian Air Force. Srivastava joined the force in 2000, shortly after the Kargil war, and served for six years. During that period, he came across the story of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja as well as the experiences of the Air Force personnel who had served during the conflict. The idea stayed with Srivastava. In 2018, when he met Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, he proposed making a series around Operation Safed Sagar.

Years of research followed before the series was released on Netflix on August 7. The series tells the story of Operation Safed Sagar, the iconic Indian Air Force mission that was carried out at higher altitudes. The high-stakes drama about the Kargil war also shines a light on the political machinations beyond enemy lines as well as the maverick fighter pilots of the Air Force’s Golden Arrows squadron who put everything at stake to defend the nation.

Detailing the Air Force Life

For Tanya Bami, series head at Netflix India, the scale of the historical event came with an equally large responsibility. Authenticity, she says, was central to the process. The makers researched not only the larger events but also the details of Air Force life — from protocol, uniforms and body language to the technicalities of flying. “Consultants were involved from the earliest stages of the story and screenplay, and pilots from the Golden Arrows squadron advised the makers on everything from how the characters walked and talked to how they saluted and interacted with equipment. Consultants were also present on set throughout the shoot,” shares Sen.

The series, however, is careful not to present itself as a comprehensive account of the Kargil war. Instead, it focuses on the Air Force’s role in it, particularly the young members of the Golden Arrows squadron. They are introduced as a photo-reconnaissance unit, trained to fly into hostile territory and gather intelligence. But as the war unfolds, their role changes.

Operation Safed Sagar: The operation is termed as a ‘little-known’ aspect of the 1999 Kargil conflict.

“This is not a war series. It is actually about the people in the war,” Bami says. So, instead of creating the spectacle of war, the series devotes its time to presenting the young pilots as they go about their lives, preparing for a conflict they did not know was coming.

Shooting with MIG-21s

The makers were among the last to shoot with MiG-21s before the iconic fighter jets were decommissioned. The production had to accelerate its schedule to ensure the aircraft would still be available. While the ground footage involving the MiGs was shot in real, the flying sequences combined VFX with an elaborate physical setup. The production built a photorealistic cockpit on a computer-controlled hydraulic platform. Every button, meter, texture and seat was recreated, while the hydraulic system was programmed to replicate the movement of a MiG during flight. “The pilots, who flew the aircraft for us, flew it exactly the way we wanted them to fly. They not only understood the MiGs, but also cinema. Some of them decided to take their cameras up on smaller aircraft to shoot aerial views for us,” shares Sen.

For the actors, however, creating authentic feel posed a physical challenge. Siddharth recalls spending a week sleeping in a G-suit and learning the cockpit console by heart. But knowing the mechanics was very different from actually experiencing the movement of the aircraft. Once inside the hydraulic cockpit, he found himself getting dizzy as the machine replicated the movements of a fighter jet. “You’re controlling it, but you have no control over it,” he says.

The actors also had to synchronise their performances with the programmed movements. A line had to be delivered at precisely the right moment before the cockpit banked. A mistake meant starting the sequence all over again. Shergill found the experience equally demanding. Before filming, he spent two days in Chandigarh with the retired Air Marshal Dhanoa, listening to his stories and trying to understand the man behind the character. “I realized what an intelligent man he is. He could make quick complex calculations,” he says.

Another major challenge for the team was shooting in sub-zero conditions. “The Army sees everything at eye level. The Air Force is everything from above,” says Siddharth. In that sense, Operation Safed Sagar offers what Siddharth calls a “bird’s-eye view” of the Kargil war — one that shifts the focus from the familiar images of soldiers on the mountains to the pilots flying above them, preparing to enter a war they never expected.

Twenty-seven years after the Kargil war, the makers hope that the series can add another layer to a story Indians thought they already knew.