Pakistan-sponsored terrorists attacked innocent Indian tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, challenging India’s integrity and sovereignty. India gave a fitting reply to that through Operation Sindoor. This is not the first time that India has attacked terrorist camps in Pakistan. The Army entered Pak-Occupied Kashmir and destroyed terrorist camps in 2016. But Operation Sindoor is significant in the context of the hue and cry all over India over the Pahalgam incident.
India moved as one and threw its entire weight behind the government, pressing for strong action against the perpetrators. The demands from the opposition, hostile sentiments against Pakistan, and the worldwide condemnation led to Operation Sindoor.
The name of the operation caught the attention of many in the country. Usually, army operations are named in English. Sometimes Hindi names are also used. Words like Parakram, Thunder, Sourya, and others have been chosen to name military operations.
But this time, the Indian Army chose a different name, ostensibly as per the suggestion of Prime Minister Modi. It decided to name the military action as Operation Sindoor.
Probably, the Prime Minister came up with this idea keeping in mind the way the terrorists behaved during the massacre of tourists in Pahalgam. It may be recalled here that the terrorists segregated women from men, Hindus from Muslims, and slaughtered them.
The diabolic and dastardly act of the terrorists was a direct challenge to India. By killing only Hindus, they lay bare their fundamentalist nature and abhorrence towards Hinduism. During previous attacks, the terrorists never discriminated between Hindus and Muslims.
Operation Sindoor, the imagery, and its symbolism are as devastating as the aerial attacks on the terror infrastructure to the enemy’s psyche. This is no ordinary symbolism. For an Indian woman, the Sindoor signifies love towards her husband. It exhibits the seven vows being taken up between two souls, binding them heart to heart.
For the Indian man, the is a seal, and is his spiritual and physical existence. It is his shield and his prayer for her eternal reign over his life. And so when it is wiped or smudged or rubbed off, it makes the world collapse for the wife. It crushes her soul. It becomes a requiem for the promise of a beautiful life unlived.
The barbarians killed men in front of their women. They taunted them, mocked them, and wiped off their Sindoor right in front of their dying partners. The Pahalgam terror attack evoked a molten tide of anguish and hope. Raw emotion, not blood, must surge through a nation’s veins if its slumber is to be shattered.
India has been a victim of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism for decades. Pakistan lost to India in all wars and opted for a proxy war against our motherland by sheltering and training terrorists on its territory.
Pakistan intends to disturb India, which is moving along the path of development. On the other hand, it has become a pauper state with high inflation, unmanageable debt and is also facing violent internal struggles.
Pakistan’s attempts to destabilise India through proxy war have not yielded any results. India continues to grow and is now competing with even developed countries like Japan and Germany.
The leaders and the military establishment of Pakistan are continuing their proxy war against India to appease their nationals and to provide some legitimacy to Pakistan’s existence. They know very well that a full-scale war with India would be devastating and would cut the ground from under their feet.
So, it has adopted a different strategy now to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims so that India gets destabilised. That’s why they have chosen Hindus only to shoot down.
They knew very well that Indians value sentiments and give a lot of importance to religious symbols. If the husband dies, his widow would remove Sindoor from her hair. The removal of Sindoor is the most dreaded thing in the life of any Hindu woman.
It seems the terrorists wanted to hurt the sentiments of Hindus as deeply as possible so that the nation erupts in flames. They hoped for a reaction against Muslims, particularly against Kashmiris, so that they would turn anti-Hindu and anti-Indian.
Prime Minister Modi understood the hidden message of the terrorists and decided to pay them back in the same coin. By naming the action as ‘Operation Sindoor,’ he sent a strong message to the terrorists and Pakistan about how India would react to such barbarity.
It is an open secret that the Pakistan Army has become a mafia, involved in supplying narcotics, is part of the Golden Triangle, and its brass have been amassing money with the help of terrorists. Terrorists pay huge amounts to Pakistan Army officials for cover, shelter, training, arms, and ammunition.
The Pakistan Army provides cover to the terrorists to enter India by opening fire at the Line of Actual Control. The terrorists return to Pakistan after carrying out their barbaric acts in India. It is difficult for Indian security forces to trace and eliminate them.
Operation Sindoor has sent a strong message to Pakistan that India would no longer ignore such tactics and would retaliate decisively. India is no more in a mood to tolerate terrorists and wants an end to their savagery.
