No more a soft state: Bharat’s strategic turn after Operation Sindoor

When the Congress-led Opposition called for a discussion on Operation Sindoor, one thought it would be a close contest. The Opposition leaders would grill the treasury benches. But as the proceedings of the past two days suggest, the Opposition seems to have come underprepared. Maybe it never expected the treasury benches to accept the motion to have a debate, though there were enough indications that the government was willing to discuss the matter in Parliament.

The Opposition story doesn’t end here: Had it just given a walkover, one still would have forgiven the Congress and its allies. The Congress went ahead and committed a hara-kiri. It did what even the Americans could not do in the wake of Operation Sindoor. While the Trump administration, in recognition of Islamabad’s role, labelled the Pakistan-based Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy, as a global terrorist outfit for its role in the killing of 26 people in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, the Congress came out categorically saying there was no Pakistan connection with the dastardly attack.

Congress Self-Goal

Had the self-goal come from a junior party member, one could still have ignored the transgression. But the statement came from one of the tallest Congress leaders, P Chidambaram, who had taken over as the country’s Home Minister soon after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. It wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to find out the proof of Pahalgam’s Pakistani links. As Home Minister Amit Shah reminded the Opposition during the debate in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, “We have their voter ID numbers. The rifles and cartridges used were made in Pakistan.”

There’s, however, a pattern to the Congress’ goof-up on Pakistan-linked terror attacks. Even in 26/11, a section of senior party leaders went out of the way to project it as “saffron terror”, even when the Mumbai attack had an undeniable Pakistani connection. Interestingly, these are the same people who are invariably at the forefront to delink terror with religion when it has any jihadi angle.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh too raised 26/11 in his well-rounded speech in the Lok Sabha on July 28, 2025. While underscoring the success of Operation Sindoor, he also turned the spotlight on past failures. He cited the UPA government’s indecisive response to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, quoting Pranab Mukherjee’s memoirs, The Coalition Years, to show how military retaliation was consciously ruled out.

Former High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria, in his 2024 book Anger Management, elaborates on the moment when then Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon suggested striking LeT’s Muridke base in Pakistan—only for Mukherjee to quietly shelve the idea.

“In one meeting, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, as Foreign Secretary (Shivshankar) Menon, High Commissioner (Satyabrata) Pal, and Joint Secretary (TCA) Raghavan sat across the table in his (Mukherjee’s) South Block room, he (EAM) asked his advisers what should be done. After a brief silence, Menon said India could target the LeT headquarters in Muridke with a cruise missile. Visibly startled, Mukherjee paused to clean his glasses, then thanked the officers to signal that the meeting was over,” Bisaria recalls.

Bisaria, however, believes that had Bharat responded in 2008 as it did in 2016 and 2019, the message would have entered Pakistan’s security calculus. “A decisive strike on a terrorist base like Muridke could have acted as an effective deterrent for the attacks India would face for a decade.”

Menon, in his book Choices (2016), justifies the UPA inaction, claiming a strike might have united Pakistan behind its army and weakened a newly elected civilian government. Ironically, similar excuses were used even when the military was in power. Recall the narrative during General Pervez Musharraf’s 2002 Agra visit, where he was projected as the best bet for peace.

It took Bharat more than six decades to stop differentiating between Pakistan’s civilian and military regimes—realising both pursue the same objective, only with different tactics.

According to Menon, the global reaction to Bharat-Pakistan tensions often seeks to “split the blame 50:50” in the name of even-handedness—exactly what the Pakistan Army desires. But Operation Sindoor upended that script. As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed the Lok Sabha on Monday, 189 of 193 UN member nations supported Bharat post-strike. It wasn’t aggression, but clarity of purpose and strength of execution that won global support.

Trump’s Doublespeak

Jaishankar also corrected the record on US involvement. Refuting Donald Trump’s claims of brokering a ‘ceasefire’, he clarified that no phone call occurred between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump from April 22 to June 17. The only calls were one of condolence and a later one in Canada—none regarding military operations or negotiations.

While Trump sought credit for de-escalation, Bharat maintained strategic restraint without conceding ground. Rather than confront Trump publicly, the Modi government chose to make only matter-of-fact statements—recognising that personality politics should not derail long-term Bharat-US relations.

This despite the fact that Trump crossed three red lines: One, he falsely claimed credit for something Bharat had meticulously executed on its own terms; two, he equated Bharat with Pakistan, ignoring that one is a democratic, rules-based nation and the other a terror-harbouring, failed state; three, he undermined Bharat’s long-held position that its conflict with Pakistan is bilateral, not subject to third-party mediation.

The betrayal stung more because Trump had, until then, enjoyed rare goodwill in Bharat. Many had hoped he would recalibrate the Indo-American equation. That hope has now dimmed. His post-Sindoor positioning didn’t just damage his credibility—it raised strategic doubts about America’s reliability in the long term. Trump may not realise it yet, but he is the biggest loser of the Operation Sindoor saga.

Then of course, there was the Dragon. If Trump fumbled diplomatically, China miscalculated strategically. The Pahalgam massacre, according to intelligence analysis, bore Beijing’s fingerprints—executed through Pakistan to provoke Bharat into an overreaction. With China facing economic slowdown and diplomatic isolation, a distracted Bharat suits its interests.

But Bharat didn’t fall into the trap. It responded with precision, not provocation—stunning Beijing. Since then, China has noticeably softened its tone, engaging in backchannel diplomacy. This shift isn’t purely Bharat-driven—rising American hostility too has forced China to prioritise managing Trump over provoking Modi.

Now, Washington finds itself in a bind. Frustrated by what it sees as Bharat’s defiance, yet constrained by China’s assertiveness, it cannot afford to alienate Delhi. Any attempt to push Bharat too far risks driving it closer to Beijing. A full-fledged Dragon-Elephant-Bear tango may be improbable given China’s record of duplicity, but the very possibility has given Bharat new leverage in the global order.

Conclusion

As Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, and Jaishankar made clear, Operation Sindoor was not just a military campaign—it was a strategic declaration that Bharat would no longer absorb terrorism as fate, and would retaliate with clarity and conviction. Bharat is no more a soft state that could be punched at will and gotten away without consequences. Today, following the operation, Pakistan is cornered, its duplicity exposed. America is recalibrating, unsure how to handle a more assertive Bharat. And China is cautious, having blinked when it expected Bharat to flinch.

But this is a moment for caution too. Operation Sindoor has made the world stand and stare at Bharat’s military resolve, capabilities, and tactics. It has made the country strong—but alone. Its enemies are alarmed, and friends are uneasy and envious. One false step could prove costly.

The road ahead is interesting, yet intriguing.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.