After the conflict, the need to rebuild

Hindustan Times

22-05-2025

In the Indian imagination, war has never been just a clash of armies or nations. It is part of a larger cycle — where destruction and renewal are inseparable, where endings make way for new beginnings. Every civilisation that endures learns this the hard way. What is broken must one day be gathered, and what is lost must be remembered — not as nostalgia, but as responsibility.
The war with Pakistan, provoked by yet another cross-border terror attack, was answered with restraint and resolve by our armed forces. Tactical gains were made, strategic signals delivered. Yet, the silence that followed from the global community was unmistakable. No major power stood up to affirm India's sovereign right to defend itself. This silence is not unfamiliar, but it is no less troubling. To equate our measured response to Pakistan-backed terror with the original act of aggression is both intellectually dishonest and morally indefensible. Yet, in the grand theatre of global diplomacy, such clarity was absent.
While soldiers secured the borders, another conflict unfolded at home — on television screens and social media platforms. Journalism, which should have been a beacon of truth, turned into a theatre of disinformation and hysteria. Unverified claims were broadcast with reckless certainty. And when corrections came, they arrived too late and too faint. Journalists — especially women — who dared to ask uncomfortable questions or offer nuance were branded traitors, not for their reporting, but for their refusal to perform outrage. They bore the weight of a society that often mistakes critical inquiry for betrayal. This, too, was a battle; on truth, on dignity, and on the fragile soul of democratic discourse.
Meanwhile, in the borderlands, entire communities bore the human cost. Homes were flattened, livestock lost, and schools reduced to rubble. Entire lives were displaced in a single night. These are not distant statistics. They are living reminders that the first and last casualties of war are always ordinary people, who rarely make it to national tributes or commemorations. For them, war is not a national moment — it is personal, it is ruin.
And yet, the work of rebuilding awaits. The fires of destruction must now feed the fires of restoration. What was broken must be gathered. What was lost must be remembered. What can be rebuilt must begin again — quietly, steadily, urgently. Our civilisational memory offers its own language to make sense of moments like this. Among the most enduring figures in that memory is Kali — not merely a goddess of destruction, but a cosmic principle, the fierce embodiment of time itself. She arrives not to wreak havoc for its own sake, but to strip away illusion, pride, and all that has outlived its purpose. Her dance is a necessary clearing of what must fall, so that life may renew itself. Yet, Kali's work is never complete in destruction alone.
From her terrible, transformative energy emerges the gentler force of Bhadrakali, who gathers what remains — not to burn, but to rebuild. It is she who makes way for life to begin again, for the fire once used to destroy to return to the hearth as warmth, as sustenance, as care. It is here, in this turning —from fury to renewal — that every civilisation must find its way forward.
The road ahead calls for a national commitment to rebuild —starting with India's borderlands, where homes, schools, and marketplaces must rise again. We must also confront the collapse of our media ecosystem, perhaps through an independent National Media Ethics Commission to ensure wartime reporting remains factual, responsible, and free of performative outrage, while protecting the voices of women and independent journalists who hold power to account.
On the global stage, India must move beyond transactional diplomacy and reclaim its moral leadership. It must build alliances rooted not in convenience, but in justice, peace, and sovereign dignity, especially across the Global South. We must remind the world that neutrality in the face of terror is not peace, it is complicity. Finally, we must institutionalise civilian preparedness and national resilience by ensuring civil defence protocols, emergency infrastructure, and public awareness are in place so that every citizen becomes not a bystander, but a partner in safeguarding the republic. These are not the words of an expert, nor the declarations of those who sit in power. They are the quiet reflections of a citizen, who bore mute witness to the frenzy on the streets, on the screens, and in the silences that followed. In the end, real victory lies not in how loudly we strike, but in how deeply we heal.
Shubhrastha is co-author of The Last Battle of Saraighat: The Story of the BJP's Rise in the North-east. The views expressed are personal