Operation Sindoor and a ‘new normal’: A tragedy seared the nation, response united it

The terrorists made it a point to kill only men after ascertaining their religion. They shot them point blank in front of women and children, forever wiping their “sindoor”, the vermilion powder many Hindu women apply in their hair parting and which, for many, is more than a visual marker of their marital status. The sindoor is accepted all over India as the foundation of family life and holds deep cultural resonance. In Bihar, at the time of the Chhath Pooja, the sindoor is even longer, and the red line comes right down to the woman’s nose, for the husband’s long life. In West Bengal, too, the sindoor has an importance of its own. Even in the South, where turmeric is more the symbol of marriage, Tamil women apply a dot of vermilion on their foreheads.

There are, of course, women who view the “sindoor” as a symbol of patriarchy, but that is not how a large number of women see it. After the Pahalgam attack, the nation saw the image of a newlywed woman, Himanshi Narwal, sitting stoically beside the inert body of her husband, Navy Lt Vinay Narwal. It was an image that got seared into the nation’s memory, striking a deep emotional chord. The brutality and the pathos of the killings would have touched every family in the country, as the women in the families of the 25 slain tourists were deliberately spared.

The sindoor found a mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Monday night, when he said that “every terrorist, every terror organisation knows the consequence of wiping out the sindoor of our sisters and daughters”.

Following the attack, Opposition parties closed ranks with the government, Kashmiris stood in solidarity with the rest of the country, and the communal polarisation the attackers would have hoped for did not materialise. As Operation Sindoor was initiated, the military, in a move of powerful symbolism, fielded two woman officers to brief the media: Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh. This signalled the country’s multi-faith, pluralist credentials, contrary to what Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir spoke about in his April 16 speech: that it was not possible for Hindus and Muslims to co-exist.

“I wept when I saw those two women military officers address the nation together on Operation Sindoor,” a woman from Chennai told me. To many around the country, the officers represented India’s strength and India’s “answer” to the Pahalgam killings.

Though it is early days to talk about this, by doing what he talked about and striking deep into Pakistan territory — among them, Bahawalpur, Muridke, and Rawalpindi — and by avenging the women who lost their husbands and sons in Pahalgam, the PM may well have ensured the support of a large constituency of women for his future political battles.

The Trump test

Like the line of “sindoor”, the government has also drawn a new red line militarily, sending out the message that Pakistan would have a price to pay for terror attacks in the future and that the government would see them as an “act of war”. This is what ordinary Indians wanted — that an appropriate message be sent to Pakistan. Talk to ordinary people, and they do not want a prolonged war that would only lead to loss of lives and bring hardship on all.

Apart from the successes of the armed forces, what really worked for India was its soft power: the supportive Kashmiri voices, the resilience of women, and Hindu-Muslim unity. And now politicians will have to resist playing that card for political ends and desist from equating Pakistan with Indian Muslims.

This is not to say that Operation Sindoor has not thrown up challenges for the government. It has to now contend with its supporters, particularly those on social media, who feel let down by the pause in military action when they thought Pakistan would be brought to its knees. The PM appeared to address these sections as he did not bring up the word ceasefire. He emphasised that the military had only suspended its “retaliatory action against Pakistan’s terror and military camps”.

Then there is US President Donald Trump who has claimed that his administration brokered the ceasefire and would be willing to help the neighbouring countries resolve the Kashmir dispute. The government will now have to navigate a tricky terrain and maintain its ties with the Trump administration while countering the charge on the domestic political front that it has allowed third-party mediation on Kashmir and brought it back on the table, allowing India and Pakistan to be hyphenated once again.

However, Modi, in his speech, pushed back on this, saying in no uncertain terms that terrorism would continue to be at the centre of the government’s agenda. He was emphatic that the “new normal” means that “terror and talks cannot go together, terror and trade cannot go together, water and blood cannot flow together”. The PM said talks with Pakistan from now on would only be on terrorism and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Most importantly, the government will have to imaginatively re-engage with its neighbourhood, while also moving to acquire a clear and definite lead over Pakistan’s military capability, backed as the neighbouring country is by China’s support and the latest generation of fighter planes and missiles.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)