The India-Pakistan conflict that kept the world on tenderhooks this past week may have abated with the ceasefire, but the optics were not limited to military operations alone. Unlike previous conflicts, the Indian establishment invoked not just patriotism but the emotive symbolism of Indian womanhood.
More specifically, it was Hindu womanhood that was invoked with the Indian military strikes being officially named Operation Sindoor by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sindoor is the vermilion powder that Hindu married women wear as a symbol of their matrimonial status.
“Terrorists dared to wipe the ‘sindoor’ from the foreheads of our sisters. That’s why India destroyed the very headquarters of terror,” Modi said in his address to the nation after the ceasefire.
The Indian air strikes on May 7 were in retaliation for the deadly attack on tourists in Pahalgam on April 22, in which 26 men, including one Muslim and a Nepali national, were killed. Pakistan-based terrorists reportedly singled out Hindu men and shot them brazenly in front of their wives and daughters.
One of the victims, Himanshi Narwal, the wife of a 26-year-old Navy officer, Lieutenant Vinay Narwal became an evocative symbol of the Pahalgam tragedy. Visuals of a stunned six-day-old bride, wearing traditional red bangles and sitting beside the slain body of her husband moments after he was shot dead, went viral on social media. The couple was on their honeymoon in Kashmir.
This “sindoor” symbolism was lauded by the ruling Hindu supremacist BJP and its rightwing supporters. The official graphic of the Indian defense establishment announcing the operation on X was a red container of vermilion, i.e., sindoor, that had been spilled. It certainly assuaged the angry sentiments of Hindu right-wingers, who perceived the Pahalgam attack as an Islamic terror act against Hindus. The religious symbolism of the ‘sindoor’, therefore, cannot be overemphasized.
However, several feminist observers found it “reeking of patriarchy.” Such symbolism reduces women to “victims who need saviours to avenge them and fight for them,” Saumya Baijal wrote in an article in the newsmagazine Outlook. “Why must India in 2025, in a military operation, evoke a name with such heavy patriarchal imagery in its presence and absence?” she asked.
In a carefully strategized move, the first official media briefing of the military operation was delivered by two women officers jointly with the Indian foreign secretary. This, incidentally, was replete with symbolism. Not only did the briefing project Indian women military power before an international audience but also, the two stellar officers Col Sofia Quraishi of the Indian Army and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh of the Indian Air Force, presented a picture-perfect image of Indian secularism — Quraishi is a Muslim and Singh a Hindu.
However, in the days following the Pahalgam attack, there were several incidents of Muslims and Kashmiris in particular being violently targeted by Hindu right-wingers.
Unsurprisingly, Narwal, who emerged as the face of the tragedy, soon found herself being viciously trolled. Even amidst her grief, Narwal spoke out against the religious and hateful targeting of Muslims and Kashmiris. “People going against Muslims or Kashmiris—we don’t want this. We want peace and only peace,” she said.
This raised the hackles of Hindutva trolls and right-wingers, who labelled her a Muslim sympathizer and even resorted to character assassination, concocting stories about her friendships with men while in university. Narwal’s call for peace was at odds with the right wing’s jingoistic demands for revenge for the majority Hindu community.
This swift change from sympathy to hateful trolling of Narwal must be understood in the context of the right wing’s concept of women. For the Hindutva right wing, women are to be pedestalized and revered so long as they ascribe to the patriarchal notions of the ideal tradition abiding Hindu woman — the obedient daughter, the dutiful wife and self-sacrificing mother. However, as soon as the woman digresses from this image and has a voice of her own, which includes not ascribing to the Hindutva notion of hate politics, she is viciously targeted and trolled. In fact, the online hate and invectives became so severe that even the National Commission of Women spoke out against it.
Another victim of the online hate campaign was Arathi R. Menon from Kerala, whose father was killed in the attack. Menon had praised the two Kashmiri taxi drivers who treated her “like a sister.” “I got two brothers from Kashmir,” she said.
Reacting to this, the right-wingers who savagely trolled her went to the extent of saying it would be better if her parents were childless.
It is ironic that the Hindutva supremacists and the BJP, who are quick to deify the nation as “Bharat Mata” (Mother India), don’t hesitate to brand a woman as anti-national if she doesn’t ascribe to their jingoism.
So it is not surprising that outspoken women political satirists, who have boldly questioned the Modi government on the intelligence failure and on the lack of security in Pahalgam, which led to this tragedy, were booked for separatist activities. Neha Singh Rathore, Dr. Madri Kakoti aka Dr Medusa and Shamita Yadav aka The Ranting Gola had criminal charges filed against them based on complaints by right-wing activists.
Warmongering provides Hindu right-wingers the opportunity and space to display their machoism and any attempts to demand accountability from the government or call for peace or even de-escalation are frowned upon. The India-Pakistan conflict more so is perceived as an opportunity to humiliate the Muslim adversary.
Therefore, when Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, right-wingers felt betrayed and cheated. Their fantasies of decimating Pakistan and annexing Pakistan Occupied Kashmir being unfulfilled, they viciously trolled Misri, labelling him a “traitor.” They did not even spare his daughter, doxxing her and hurling misogynistic slurs. Misri ultimately locked his X account.
Shockingly, in all of the above instances, not once did any BJP politician or government minister speak up in support of the targeted women or speak out against the trolling. In Misri’s case, it was civil servants and bureaucrats who extended public support to him and his family.
This further lends credence to the view that there is benign support of those in power for such rightwing trolling.
In fact, the tribal affairs minister in the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh state, Kunwar Vijay Shah in a public speech recently, referred to Col. Quraishi, a Muslim, as “terrorists’ sister!” No action had been taken against the minister despite the opposition calling for him to be sacked. Significantly, the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday took cognizance of it on its own (suo motu) describing the comments as “cancerous and dangerous.” The court ordered the police to lodge a case against the minister by 10 p.m. the same day.
Meanwhile, the BJP top brass is busy celebrating the “success” of Operation Sindoor even in poll-bound Bihar despite the Opposition accusing them of cashing in on it for political benefit. In an intensely patriarchal Indian society, avenging women’s honor in war is a sure-shot formula for success, whether it be in our films or our elections.