A Year of Operation Sindoor

I was in Mumbai in our Powai campus, on 26th November 2008, preparing for my B.Tech project presentation. I was following the online news of the Pakistani terrorist attack on the Taj, Trident, CST, Chabad House at Nariman Point, Madam Cama Hospital, Leopold Cafe–pretty much all the places that make Mumbai Mumbai. I remember being slightly concerned and only mildly frustrated by it. I had been more or less desensitized to Islamic terrorist attacks in India and the consequent loss of innocent lives. There had been a rash of Islamist terrorist bomb attacks in India in the first decade of 2000s and somehow we seem to have had normalized them. In 2006, I was at home for summer break when multiple bombs exploded in the Western Railway suburban local train in Mumbai, killing 209(!) & injuring 700 and more. I used to take that local quite often from Dadar to Churchgate when going to South Mumbai. As I recall, even then my reaction was rather phlegmatic. “This shit just happens and we Indians just have to live with it” was the prevailing societal–and probably even my own–attitude.

Maybe it is the age (39 vs 21) or maybe it is parenthood that has changed it, but my reaction to the Pahalgam attack last year was far more intense. The medieval way in which the Pakistani terrorists specifically questioned, verified, separated, and shot Hindu tourists was shocking.

Two men from my own neighbourhood in Pune were also murdered. The stories told by their families were heartbreaking. These were utterly normal people enjoying their vacation when their lives were brutally cut short and the lives of their families changed forever. The thought that these could have been me or my family just could not escape my mind. I was truly surprised by how much anger I felt, and I think most Indians felt the same way. Innocent Indians–Hindus in particular–have long suffered at the hands of Pakistani terrorists, supported by the Pakistani government, with no real pushback from our side except recently with the surgical strikes in 2016 & the Balakot air strike in 2019.

So when I woke up to the news on May 7th that India struck nine Pakistani terrorist targets with airstrikes, I felt tremendous relief. It was the clearest signal that we were no longer willing to sacrifice innocent Indian lives for nothing in this covert war. I am happy that we were willing to send missiles in response to terrorist bullets. I, and most ordinary Indians, hope we continue doing that.

What was disappointing, however, was that most Western media do not recognize these well-justified sentiments. It is no wonder that they have lost legitimacy even in the West. I was a fan of the New York Times–I had even subscribed to the physical copy of the paper as a grad student with meager pay in Baltimore. But their coverage of the Pahalgam murders was truly appalling. I saw exactly one article that talked to the wife of one of the victims, and most of the article ended up as a soft justification of Islamic terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. I read similar articles about the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel. Thomas Friedman wrote a column in NYT advising Israel to NOT take military action after the October 7 attacks, exactly like Manmohan Singh bravely did after the Mumbai attacks–when all we wanted was for the government to avenge them. Had I been in the US, reading this deluded coverage, I would have had no idea what the Indian public sentiment was then–or is now.

I am truly grateful to our brave armed forces who took part in and defended India in Operation Sindoor, and continue to defend us from our violent neighbour. I am also grateful to the Indian government for finally taking actions that give some dignity and justice to our innocent fellow citizens who lost their lives, and furthermore, strongly deter the Pakistani terrorists and the state. I remember reading on a plaque somewhere in Washington DC the quote “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. Long may we be vigilant and long may we remain free.