Operation Sindhoor: Is Vengeance Really the Answer?

 

The Pahalgam attack took 26 lives of innocent people including tourists. For a few days we mourned for this loss. But this mourning does not last long in a country like ours. Before we could process grief the government launched a counter strike called "Operation Sindhoor". Mourning was replaced by collective cheer for the retaliation. And just like that we moved on.

This pattern is becoming all too familiar. An attack happens, we mourn briefly, then a retaliation follows. The visuals are shared, the applause rises and we forget the pain. Another cycle. Another headline. Another loss. But how long can we keep repeating this? When will we ask ourselves what we are actually achieving with this response?

If retaliation really ensured safety, why do these attacks keep recurring? We have had Balakot, Uri and now Sindhoor. Still the threat returns. The people we call enemies today were once part of us. Long before the borders were drawn, before politics divided us, these were people we lived with. But now in the name of nationalism, we call them terrorists and label them as the enemy, forgetting the history and bond we once had.

The ones in power who make the decisions do not talk. They do not sit down and try to find common ground. Instead they choose to strike back. They are too far removed from the suffering that results from their actions. Too high up to feel the pain, too secure to understand the cost of war. Why do not they take off their shackles and talk? Why do not they step down meet the people and seek understanding?.

The truth is those in power benefit from these cycles. Every time there is an attack national anger rises. Political narratives tighten their grip. Questions about unemployment, inflation and corruption disappear from headlines. The focus shifts. Emotions get channelled turned to votes and Patriotism is reignited, but for whose benefit? When security becomes a spectacle people end up watching a performance while the system avoids real reform.

Let us also not ignore what this cycle does to us. We become numb. We stop questioning. The media packages grief and glory into a two minute reel. A life lost becomes just another number.

And what if this time it escalates? What if the next attack leads to something much larger, something beyond borders, beyond control? We live in a world where nuclear weapons are no longer just threats but real dangers in the wrong hands. One wrong move and everything could change. With the kind of destructive power we hold today, a single mistake could lead to the end of nations. Is that really the price of this cycle we have come to accept?

We have to ask ourselves. what are we doing? Are we really seeking justice or are we just stuck in a pattern that has no real end? Every time we respond with violence, we push the door to peace further away. Every time we applaud a strike, we forget that strength lies in building something better and not destroying what little we have left.

So here we are again. Mourning briefly, then applauding another strike and waiting for the next. This is not justice. It is just repetition. And if we do not stop to think. 

One day we may not have a voice left to raise.