For us who don't gel
The naming of India's military op to hit terror bases in POK and Pakistan topped TRP charts – it is also a rare instance of daubing a forces' op with a Hindu custom. How the forces name their ops are rarely political activity. From Op Night Dominance in Punjab during 1990s militancy, to Op Sarp Vinash in 2003 in J&K to 'flush out' insurgents and a Sarp Vinash 2.0 recently, to Op Black Tornado in 2008 after 26/11, the names all promised aggression. A J&K op in 2017 was called All Out, followed by a Calm Down. Navy blocked Karachi port in 1999 in Op Talwar. India-Pak standoff in 2001-2002 after Parliament attack was called Op Parakram, while Op Safed Sagar was air force's op during Kargil. The list is long and muscular secular, even Op Devi Shakti is a passive Divine Energy to bring home people when Taliban seized Kabul in 2021.
From Python to Cactus to Restore Hope, from Madad to Dost to Ajay, ops are imaginatively named, with aid-ops invariably striking relief & rescue tones – from Rakshak to Goodwill to Good Samaritan etc. Unlike the secular message the Indian military put out in fielding Muslim and Hindu women officers in pressers following India's taking out terror camps and the ensuing battle, the op's political name completely forgot Adil's wife, in Kashmir, who doesn't apply vermillion but is grieving just as much. Her 30-year-old husband was killed trying to protect tourists. It also forgot Tage Hailyang's widow, from Arunachal, whose religion also doesn't include the vermillion custom and whose husband was also killed. Kashmir and Arunachal. Forgotten.
In the naming of the op alone, and what rode the airwaves since, hitting Bahawalpur and Muridke terrorist addas morphed into a case of revenge for India. Had the op been named in the usual military style – maybe Op Kamad Tod or Op Bolti Bandh or whatever aggressive tone suited the takedown, it would have eschewed this sense of revenge. By all means, use overt, covert, diplomacy, people-to-people, Track II, III, IV, whatever it takes to stop cross-border terrorism. But going after terror bases has to be born of natsec strategy, long-term, not Bollywoodian revenge fantasies riding on weaponising the pain of those who've lost family. So, hanging the successful op on a very south Asian male self-view of protector of women, a conquest over those who would attack 'our women', is cringe-worthy. Next time GOI gives the go-ahead to take out terror camps, hopefully military will also keep Adil's widow and Tage's widow in mind when giving a thumbs-up to an op's name. And the fact these men were sons and fathers too.
What happens in battle is one thing. How we remember it, another. If then the signalling from India is of Hindu India avenging a terror attack, there is no way to dodge the equivalence given to India and Pakistan. This is falsification of reality – but fact is, the fight against terrorism disappears into the fog of war, as have the terrorists themselves apparently. Our military can yell from the rooftops its secular credentials and training, but alas, the world, the world is 'seeing' Hindu majority India vs Muslim majority Pakistan. That rhetoric suits either's domestic politics plenty, but it doesn't prevent terrorism any.
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