India must ignore nuclear scaremongering and finish the job

Operation Sindoor should be a turning point — not a blip. In the aftermath of the brutal terrorist attack on Indian holidaymakers in Pahalgam, Kashmir, India acted decisively. It crossed the Line of Control and struck terrorist launch pads deep inside Pakistan. The message was loud and clear: no more strategic restraint, no more blind patience. For every Indian life taken by Pakistan’s proxies, there will be retribution.

The Pahalgam attack wasn’t just another tragic headline. It was an assault on the idea of India — its freedom of movement, its tourism economy, and its right to provide safety for its own citizens in a region long targeted by Pakistani-backed extremists. The victims were ordinary people on vacation — families, friends, young professionals — gunned down because Pakistan believes it can export jihad across borders without consequence.

Pakistan continues to behave like a terrorist state wrapped in a nuclear flag. It buries Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants with full military honours. Its mosques and madrassas lionise men who massacre civilians. Its generals and politicians speak in two tongues — denying involvement publicly while privately feeding the machinery of jihad. This duplicity has been at the heart of Pakistan’s strategic doctrine for over four decades. And for too long, it has worked.

That time is now over.

India’s response through Operation Sindoor marks a critical shift in posture — from symbolic diplomacy to hard power. The name itself, Sindoor, symbolises the sacred, the red mark of honour worn by Indian women — an invocation of cultural defiance. This wasn’t just a military strike; it was a statement of intent: we will no longer be passive recipients of Pakistani violence. We will retaliate, recalibrate, and dismantle the infrastructure of terror, piece by piece.

Predictably, the nuclear scaremongers have begun their routine. Op-eds in Western capitals fret about “escalation.” Analysts who never set foot in South Asia warn of a “flashpoint.” Islamabad’s spokesmen mutter about full-spectrum deterrence. It’s the same tired song — but India must no longer listen. The nuclear bluff is precisely that: a bluff. Pakistan’s generals are many things — brutal, corrupt, ideologically deranged — but suicidal they are not.

For too long, India has operated under a psychological ceiling imposed by this bluff. After every Pakistani provocation, there were meetings, dossiers, and appeals to international forums. Meanwhile, Pakistan counted its gains: another jihadist cell activated, another Indian city bleeding, another round of geopolitical sympathy for “regional stability.”

Enough.

The architects of these attacks sit not in caves but in conference rooms. The ISI doesn’t merely “harbour” terrorists — it produces them. From Rawalpindi to Bahawalpur, from the terror camps of Muridke to the offices of proscribed “charities,” the infrastructure is open, operational, and overt. Everyone knows this. Indian agencies know it. Western intelligence knows it. Even the average Pakistani knows it, though few dare say it.

The U.S. government knows it, too. The 9/11 Commission Report bluntly stated that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence most probably funded Osama bin Laden’s return to Afghanistan in 1996 — a pivotal moment that directly facilitated al-Qaeda’s rise. That wasn’t the only smoking gun. During the Clinton-era U.S. missile strikes on al-Qaeda camps in Khost in 1998, following the East Africa embassy bombings, ISI officers were killed in the explosions. These weren’t rogue agents — they were representatives of the Pakistani state, caught red-handed in the company of global jihadists. Training them for their wars.

And if there were any lingering doubts, they were put to rest last week when Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in an interview with Yalda Hakim on Sky News, openly admitted that Pakistan had supported terrorist groups for decades. “Yes, we did,” Asif said when asked whether Pakistan had funded and trained extremists. “We did the dirty work for the West,” he added — a blunt confession that Pakistan’s support for jihadist proxies wasn’t accidental or peripheral, but a conscious element of statecraft. It confirmed what India and others have long argued: that Pakistan institutionalised terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy — and felt proud of it.

This culture of impunity defines Pakistan’s military elite. They have supported terrorism and extremism with such consistency — and without meaningful consequence — that it has become an addiction. For them, backing jihadist groups is not just a tactical choice, it is a source of ideological gratification and strategic leverage. Their confidence doesn’t come from competence. It comes from the world’s failure to hold them accountable.

And now, the international community must know that India has had enough.

Pahalgam should have been a red line for the world. Instead, much of the global commentariat has responded with platitudes. No condemnations of the state sponsor. No sanctions. Just appeals for “restraint.” This moral cowardice has bred a culture of impunity — and India is finally breaking it. India needs to give the world order a shake.

The strikes under Operation Sindoor are part of a larger doctrinal evolution. No longer is India bound to respond in kind or in proportion. It will respond on its terms, at the time and place of its choosing. That is what sovereignty looks like. That is what deterrence means.

Critics will argue this could backfire. They will say Pakistan could retaliate. But retaliation for what? For hosting terrorists and getting hit in return? For losing a monopoly on escalation? If Pakistan does respond, it will only confirm what we already know: that the state itself is complicit in every attack its proxies carry out. And if it chooses not to, it will prove the other truth: that its nuclear sabre-rattling is just theatre.

Let us not mince words: Pakistan is a terror factory in uniform. Its military trains jihadists not as a rogue fringe, but as part of national policy. Its judiciary releases killers under pressure from mobs whipped up by extremist clerics. Its politicians appease groups like Tehreek-e-Labbaik. Its textbooks teach children to hate Hindus, Jews, and the West. It is not a failing state — it is a malign state.

And India must treat it as such.

That means more than airstrikes. It means strategic consistency. It means diplomatic offensives at every forum, exposing Pakistan not just for what it does, but for what it is. It means actively supporting civil society groups, dissidents, and human rights defenders who are trying — often at great personal cost — to break the military’s stranglehold over Pakistani society.

It also means building regional partnerships. Afghanistan, Iran, and the Gulf states all have reasons to distrust Rawalpindi’s games. India must work to align these interests — not for war, but for containment. Terrorism must be isolated, not indulged.

Most importantly, India must end the internal debate about escalation thresholds. The burden of escalation lies with Pakistan — the aggressor, the provoker, the state sponsor of terror. India is merely responding, proportionately and lawfully. The world must understand that “restraint” in the face of terror is not virtue. It is weakness. And weakness is provocative.

Operation Sindoor must not be the end of something. It must be the beginning of a new phase — a doctrine of forward deterrence. For every Indian blood spilt by Pakistani terror, there must be a consequence. Tangible. Visible. Devastating.

History will not remember think-tank warnings or Geneva handshakes. It will remember whether India chose to act with courage or hide behind committees and communiqués. The world is changing. The rules are being rewritten. And India must lead from the front — with clarity, conviction, and an unshakable belief in its right to defend itself.

Pakistan has played the nuclear card for too long. It’s time India finishes the game.