The Increasing Use of Hindu Mythological References in the Armed Forces Under the BJP Govt

The Wire

3 hours ago

All three services have aided the government in crafting a martial identity focused less on professional neutrality and more on cultural assertion. In turn, this only eroded the inherent secularity associated with the Indian military.
New Delhi: Since coming to power in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government has increasingly infused Hindu mythology not just into public life, but also into the military sphere, shaping naming of operations, ceremonial practices, and institutional symbolism to reflect a culturally and politically charged vision of national identity.
Assorted military operations, along with numerous defence platforms, doctrines, and programmes, were now routinely named after figures, concepts, and events from the epics and Puranas, curiously linking contemporary security and military power to India's ancient cultural heritage.
A politically framed transition
The objective, it appears, is to cast the armed forces as an extension of the valour and divinity celebrated in Hindu mythology, emphasising strength, precision, and the swift destruction of adversaries. This transformation is politically framed as part of a broader nationalist effort to 'decolonise' the military, discarding colonial-era associations, tenets, designations, practices, and traditions in favour of culturally resonant symbols that embody a vision of a pure Viksit or developed India.
Thus, names such as Sudarshan Chakra (Vishnu's celestial discus), Rudra (the Destroyer), Mahadev (the Great God), and Bhairav (the Ferocious), among many others, have been steadily introduced into the military in recent years for their psychological impact and cultural resonance, with the deliberate and pointed aim of reshaping the military's fundamental character.
And in this ongoing endeavour, the armed forces were undergoing re-positioning – not as an apolitical institution – but as 'deliberate custodians' of the BJP's civilisational vision of ethnic nationalism. Rather than resisting, they eagerly embraced this shift, embedding mythological names into manuals, rituals, and briefings, and ensuring such symbolism became part of everyday military culture.
A cross-section of service veterans, however, lamented that, by intertwining mythology with modern warfare, all three services had aided the government in crafting a martial identity focused less on professional neutrality and more on cultural assertion. In turn, this only eroded the inherent secularity associated with the Indian military.
Alongside, instruction in ancient Indian texts like Kautilya's Arthashastra and Bhagavad Gita has been mandated by the government in military institutions, and in October 2023, the Indian Army (IA), with great fanfare, had launched Operation Udhhav (Evolution) to study ancient Sanskrit and Tamil texts from the 4th century BCE to the 8th century CE.
The objective, according to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who inaugurated this Operation at the United Services Institute think-tank in New Delhi, was to 'rediscover' the country's rich heritage in 'statecraft, warcraft, diplomacy and grand strategy' and to operationally adapt it all in the Subcontinent's prevailing nuclear weapons environment.
Other than the Arthashastra, Udbhav concentrates on the writings of the post-Mauryan Kamandaka (Nitisara) and those of the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar (Tirukkural) to 'bridge historical concepts' with the contemporary, and to 'integrate age-old wisdom with modern military pedagogy, according to the Press Information Bureau at the time of launching Udbhav.
Furthermore, in line with government instructions, the IA's Adjutant General's Branch is reportedly preparing sweeping proposals to discard colonial-era traditions centred on either reconsidering, or altogether eliminating long-established dress codes, pipe and drum bands, colour presentations, and investiture ceremonies.
Service veterans strongly opposed prevailing trend of 'mythologising'
Longstanding affiliations of blood and bonding between IA units and foreign regiments, forged during the two World Wars, were also likely to soon be dissolved in a move to sever ties with India's mlitary's past.
It's an established truism that all militaries, past and current, rely on tradition, institutional memory, and established norms to maintain cohesion, discipline, and professional identity. But when naming practices and symbolic gestures are politicised or infused with cultural Hindutva ideology in the Indian military, they tend to reshape its traditions and ethos and alter its longstanding legacies of neutrality and impartiality.
Meanwhile, several service veterans strongly opposed this prevailing trend of 'mythologising' in the military, arguing that adopting names from ancient epics simply amplified the BJP's cultural messaging and facilitated overt narrative construction to serve sectarian politics.
While acknowledging that the intermixing of religion and politics was not new, applying it progressively to the armed forces over the past decade, they said, was unprecedented. They further contended that the BJP's deliberate strategy of recasting India's defence capabilities as the modern embodiment of divine power and heroic figures from the past was also 'deeply troubling', but few were willing to openly challenge it as they were fearful of 'consequences'.
Another Indian Air Force (IAF) veteran observed that this symbiotic relationship between BJP politicians and soldiers benefited both sides.
The former, he said, leveraged military operations to bolster their electoral campaigns, showcasing a strong approach to national security, while ambitious soldiers who supported or endorsed their narratives were invariably rewarded with promotions and career advancement and, in some cases, high-profile employment after retirement.
Also Read: Rudra, Bhairav, Shaktibaan: Army's Mythology-Infused Brigades Revive an Old War Plan in New Garb
Such mutual reinforcement blurred the boundary between professional military service and political utility, he added, requesting anonymity.
But this was not always the case.
A three-star Army veteran noted that, for several decades after Independence, operation naming was largely ad hoc and left to the discretion of local commanders.
Many operations bore Anglicised, yet neutral names like Blue Star, Brasstacks, Rhino, Cactus, Checkmate, and Trident, amongst others. Nativised monikers were typically functional or drawn from nature, geography, and history – Meghdoot, Pawan, Vijay, Kabaddi, Safed Sagar, Bajrang and Hifazat, to name a few.
'This naming was not only secular but often carried a mischievous and droll streak of informality as in Ops Orchid, Shanti, Ginger, Samaritan and Leech,' recalled the veteran, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Platform names too – INS Mysore, INS Ganga, INS Godavari, Chetak, Cheetah, Dhruv, Prithvi, Akash, Nag, Ajeya and Vijayanta – reflected linguistic, cultural, geographical, and historical themes without overtly religious or mythological references, underscoring the armed forces' conscious effort to maintain neutrality and institutional distance from political agendas.
'However, today's trend is different,' he stated, adding that 'All three services now compete to adopt religiously inflected nomenclature to please the government."
This shift reflected a growing alignment between military naming and political-cultural messaging, where operation and platform names were no longer purely professional or strategic, but heavily influenced by the BJP's ideological and partisan considerations, he said. Furthermore, many officers, he added, either proposed names with Hindu mythological resonance themselves, or promptly endorsed suggestions from senior ministers, anticipating the BJP's preference for such allusions.
Military action intersects with identity politics
Globally, many militaries have adopted different naming conventions.
The US, Britain, and other Western armed forces, for instance, tended to choose operation names systematically and institutionally, drawing from preapproved lists of neutral or evocative words. These names conscientiously avoided religious, cultural, or political sensitivities and were designed to ensure operational security, while subtly conveying operational intent.
Since the 1970s, the US, for instance, has employed a semi-random system in which each command receives blocks of letters to generate two-word operation names, ensuring both neutrality and unpredictability.
There is also an implicit rule that all names avoid overt aggression, commercial brands, or cultural insensitivity. For example, Operation Killer (1951, Korean War) and Infinite Justice (post-9/11 Afghanistan), both somewhat evocative, were replaced with Operation Ripper and Operation Enduring Freedom, respectively.
The British Ministry of Defence favours understatement and anonymity, providing units also with randomly generated lists, from which one codeword is selected. Traditionally, Britain uses one-word names for operations, two-word names for exercises, but all neutral and discreet.
French operations, for their part, are named after geographic or symbolic references, avoiding religiosity, while post-WWII German operations employed abstract, benign, or humanitarian names, reinforcing the military's role as an impartial instrument of state policy.
Compared to these neutral models. India's increasing use of evocative, culturally charged operation names highlights a unique trajectory, where military action intersects with identity politics. Operations like Sindoor, for example, typified this trend, framing military action not as a strategic necessity but as a 21st-century enactment of a cultural legacy.
Besides, operations like the 2016 'surgical strikes' and the 2019 Balakot air attack were woven into electoral campaigns, portraying the forces as instruments of nationalist messaging. Veterans cautioned that such lobbying gravely undermined the armed forces' secular and inclusive character and risked weakening of one of India's most trusted institutions.
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