India has not just signalled its resolve, it has exposed Pakistan’s fragility. This moment is not just strategic but civilizational.
India’s actions have laid bare what it has long argued: that terrorism is not a rogue element of Pakistan’s state machinery but its central element. This isn’t just a claim, it is a fact, demonstrated on the ground and acknowledged across global capitals. The illusion of strategic parity has collapsed. India has executed precision strikes deep into Pakistani territory, dismantling terror camps, disarming military targets, and neutralizing strategic assets once believed untouchable. No military or terrorist target that India sought to attack was Pakistan able to defend. Be it Chinese patrons or recent Turkish ones, when the moment of reckoning came for it, Pakistan was lacking, and by extension, so were its patrons.
India has not just signalled its resolve—it has exposed Pakistan’s fragility. This moment is not just strategic but civilizational. For the first time, Pakistan finds itself confronted with an India that is no longer reactive or tentative, but a nation that is prepared, unafraid, and unyielding. Pakistan’s myth of strategic depth—the belief that chaos across its western border buys it leverage in the east—now lies in tatters. The unholy fusion of military ambition, religious extremism, and state collapse has been spotlighted in full daylight, and it is not a sight that evokes sympathy or respect.
What it evokes is disgust and alarm. While Pakistani generals are busy ranting on television, its ministers posturing themselves with their borrowed English, Pakistani citizens wait in lines, deprived of dignity and as instruments of Pakistan’s deep state military apparatus. A nation’s might is not just in its missiles but also in how it connects with ordinary citizens. In Pakistan, when even tea becomes scarce, it’s not deterrence but submission.
INDIAN RESPONSE
What has allowed such a profound shift is not just military capability but a synthesis of political clarity, strategic patience, and calibrated timing. India’s actions are not born of impulse but grounded in a deeper tradition that stretches back to Chanakya, who advised rulers to delay when enemies are strong, drain them when they are reckless, and dominate only when the balance irreversibly tilts. Under Prime Minister Modi, this ancient wisdom has been harnessed into contemporary statecraft with surgical precision. India waited. It observed that Pakistan was spiralling economically bankrupt, diplomatically isolated, and socially fractured. It did not jump to act but chose its moment to strike. And when that moment came, it struck with firepower and purpose. This is not a war of numbers or conquests. This is a campaign of erosion, steady, relentless, and psychological. Given India has the upper hand, Pakistan now bleeds not from bombs alone but from the knowledge that it no longer controls the tempo of conflict.
This doctrine of response is not merely about revenge but also about message. Every operation, statement, and movement by the Indian establishment has said one thing loud and clear—Bharat will no longer be coerced, mocked, or manipulated. Our country does not seek wars, but it will define its terms if drawn into one. It will choose not just the battlefield but the idea of what the battle means. It is this clarity that has unsettled the Pakistani deep state more than any airstrike or diplomatic snub.
SINDOOR AND NARI SHAKTI
Sindoor or Kunghumam or kumkum is a dharmic value of the feminist nature of our civilization state. It represents the Mother Goddess, an ancient practice since the Indus Valley civilization. All devotees wear it on their forehead. Sindoor stood for Strategic Initiative for Neutralizing Destructive Opponents with Overwhelming Retaliation. Over the last month, the moral and strategic clarity reflected in Operation Sindoor is perhaps the most consequential takeaway for historians, thinkers and strategists all around the world. The choice of name was deliberate and rich with meaning. Sindoor, the vermillion mark worn by married Hindu women, stands for commitment, continuity, and sacred love. However, as demonstrated by the response of the Indian Armed Forces, it became the symbol of resistance against the cowardly terror attack in Pahalgam, where jihadis killed a young groom on his honeymoon, turning a newlywed into a widow within days of her marriage. In honouring that woman’s pain, India responded not with mourning but with a mission. Operation Sindoor was more than a military success. Instead, it was a civilizational vow that every drop of innocent blood would be answered with precision, resolve, and honour. Not just the symbolism that stunned the world but the force behind it.
Prime Minister Modi has worked for the last decade to bring women into leadership roles in the larger spirit of Nari Shakti and womenled development. When it comes to armed forces, this drive to cultivate women leaders was on full display during Operation Sindoor. Not merely in posters and advertisements but in actual decision-making roles, making strategic decisions, and articulating India’s position to the public and the world. Nari Shakti, the idea of empowered womanhood that flows from India’s oldest scriptures, stood embodied during the conflict. It was Durga in uniform— calm, composed, and devastatingly effective.
BHARAT RISES
Through its actions, India has not merely asserted its right over its territory and borders but has reclaimed its soul and sense of righteous strength. The battlefield is no longer just a place of force but of moral clarity. The world is now witnessing this with the rise of Bharat as a power among nations and as a civilizational force that blends tradition with modernity, restraint with retaliation, and compassion with courage. Pakistan, once bold in its bluster, is now broken in spirit. China, unnerved by the clarity India now operates, watches warily from the wings. And the West, long used to lecturing India, now listens more carefully than ever before. This is not revenge but a reckoning. Some would like to tarnish this as a negative jingoism, but in reality, it is a manifestation of national confidence. Chanakya’s dictum—delay, drain, dominate—has found its modern interpretation.
The strategy is timeless, but its execution today is defined by drone precision, diplomatic finesse, and a resolve that does not blink. The world should take note. When the enemy is out of water, out of answers, and breath, Bharat does not gloat—it moves forward. Calmly, decisively, and unapologetically. We are no longer in the business of appeasement but in an age of assertion. And when a nation once mocked for restraint now holds the teacup, the treaty, and the trigger, all in steady hands, the message is unmistakable—Bharat has arrived.
Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit is the Vice Chancellor of JNU.