The Indian subcontinent is never free of tension. Still, it has been a while since we heard the flames of rhetorical fire from New Delhi rise to such an intensely destructive height of bonfire toasts to its adversarial brethren of Islamabad. Imagery of fire, used in public images and official vows, is no longer a metaphor. In its maddening obsession to hold Pakistan responsible for every crack in the domestic edifice, India’s propaganda machine has torched its credibility.

Pakistan has become India’s most convenient whipping boy not for lapses of security, but for policy failures and spiralling authoritarianism.

The initiation of Operation Sindoor on May 7, 2025, was far more than a military miscalculation; it was a carefully calibrated tale of escalation, a cover-up, and a diversion not of the land but of the mind. The fire smouldered in this operation hasn’t quite burned Pakistan like it was meant to. Instead, they rage inside India now, stoked by Hindutva Fascism, electoral fears, and a refusal to address and confront internal failures.

Operation Sindoor was launched after the April 2025 attack in Pahalgam, which the BJP government of Modi blamed on Pakistan without providing credible evidence. Within days, New Delhi had given the green light for a surgical-style air campaign targeting so-called terror launchpads across the Line of Control. Even the name, Sindoor, which is a traditional symbol of Hindu marital sanctity, had been used in a weaponised way to provoke religious passion. It wasn’t simply a matter of Pakistan being in the crosshairs; a sacred sense of vengeance was fostered against Pakistan; military assault turned into a cultural crusade.

But the mission was a strategic and symbolic disaster. India insisted it had bombed multiple terrorist sites but furnished no satellite evidence, independent confirmation or bodies on the ground. Pakistan then released radar images showing their downing of Indian jets, two confirmed downings that India, despite photographic evidence surfacing online, immediately denied. Taunting across the Line of Control for the Indian spring. Much has been made of how India’s airstrikes inside Pakistan last month, its first such cross-border raid since the two countries fought a war in 1971, turned the humiliation it suffered when a terrorist group enjoying Pakistani patronage killed 40 of its soldiers back on Pakistan.

The real harm of Operation Sindoor is not military; it is psychological, narrative-based and deeply political. Already boxed in by economic stagnation, mounting joblessness and violent communal unrest, the Modi government needed a distraction. In this regard, the Pahalgam attack and the manufactured outrage that followed offered the best ceremonial platform to deflect blame. The enemy, once more, was Pakistan. This time, too, the target was Indian Muslims.

India’s mostly state-influenced and/or corporate captive media went into overdrive. Prime-time panels were filled with venom, venom against Pakistan and venom against Muslims, with both often made to seem indistinguishable from each other. Analysts railed against “loyalty” and called for purges of the culture. Hashtags such as #PunishPakistan trended across social media platforms, drowning out alternative views. And yet, some did not fall in line.

Within India, an insurgent alliance of journalists, scholars and citizens has begun to pose uncomfortable questions. Why do we find it so convenient to heap our domestic tragedies on Pakistan? How is it that every military reverse becomes a parade of nationalism without evidence? What is the purpose of Religious symbolism over military operations?

Devika Rani, a sociologist in Delhi, along with other public intellectuals, asserts that “Pakistan has become India’s most convenient whipping boy not for lapses of security, but for policy failures and spiralling authoritarianism.” She’s not alone. Leaked internal memos from civil service officers reveal growing frustration with the government’s inaction on farmer suicides, water scarcity, and the fact that inflation is currently more newsworthy than the blood that falls as molten Bombay, high red as Sindoor, garnishes the nation.

With every electoral cycle, political forces reignite hostility to serve short-term populist gains.

Even more damning are accusations from human rights groups that the Pahalgam assault may not have been what it appeared. There are rumours of false-flag operations, encounters and extrajudicial killing strategies not unfamiliar to occupied Kashmir. Without any solid evidence from India and mounting criticism from the international human rights community, the Pakistan-sponsored terrorism storyline is unravelling.

For average Americans, this nonstop scapegoating is very expensive. Muslim communities in India live under a state of constant fear, plagued by lynchings, police surveillance and social boycotts. In Pakistan, there are still border towns under high alert, closed schools, and traumatised children listening to air raid sirens from India’s infringement of Pakistani airspace.

We’re trapped in their political theatre.” A schoolteacher in Lahore, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “This is all a game about politics. “Whenever Modi’s rating suffers a setback, Pakistan comes to his mind.” On the Indian side, Hindu citizens in even border villages have begun to question the wisdom of the never-ending confrontation. “We do not want war,” said one farmer in Jammu, “but every election, they light the match again.”

This cyclical hate is unsustainable. It corrodes the social fabric itself, replacing trust with anxiety, and solidarity with scapegoating. It emboldens extremes on either side and drives reconciliation further into the shadows. And it reveals the moral pretence of a regime that is more interested in appearances than realities.

What is the cause of this obsession with Pakistan? The explanation is in the combustible combination of ideological inflexibility and electoral need. The Hindutva agenda of the BJP needs an enemy from outside to keep its core base charged. The Muslim-majority Pakistan next door is the perfect example. In psychological terms, this is classic projection, of blaming the other so as not to reflect inwards.

It’s also strategically convenient. And as India is being criticised abroad for its democratic decline, religious intolerance and assaults on press freedom, playing the never-ending victim is a good way to shift the narrative. By painting it as a country besieged from within and without, India makes a case for every crackdown, every censorship, and every unjustifiable raid.

But the world is watching. The finger-wagging of global and internal Indian magazine and newspaper editorials is no longer buying it. As one editorial put it, India should “refrain from sucking Pakistan into a swamp” and “own its demons.” It’s an unusual moment of truth-telling in a region suffocating in lies.

The infusion of religious symbolism into military operations has transformed state retaliation into a form of cultural vengeance.

While the dust of Operation Sindoor is yet to settle, there are a few pertinent questions that would need an answer. Why was such an operation carried out in a hurry without any international agreement or proof? Who benefits from continued hostility with Pakistan? And, most importantly, how long can India continue to deny this?

The Pakistan obsession is not just a diplomatic handicap; it’s a national self-delusion. As India’s global image sinks and its democratic institutions come under attack, blaming Pakistan no longer serves as an effective anesthetic. It numbs for a few minutes, but the deep rot will continue to travel.

There’s still time to alter course. South Asia has a long history of such moments of dialogue, Lahore 1999, Agra 2001 and the short-lived détente after the 2003 ceasefire are just a few examples. These episodes, however fragile, demonstrated that engagement is possible. What is needed now is political will, on both sides, but especially in New Delhi.

Rejecting hate doesn’t mean forsaking national security. It means guaranteeing it through truth, transparency and cooperation among neighbours. Which is to say: It means recognising that the only people who benefit from endless conflict are the arms dealers and demagogues. It is the awkwardness of being honest with citizens and the world.

The psychological obsession that India has had for Pakistan, which Operation Sindoor further sharpened, is a blaze that consumes more than it illuminates. It is a smokescreen for culpability, rationalises repression and places millions of lives at risk. If New Delhi carries on like this, the harm will be irreparable, not just to Pakistan, but to India’s soul.

This recurring cycle of antagonism is unsustainable; it steadily erodes India’s social cohesion and democratic foundations.

The choice is binary and clear: extinguish hate’s flames or be consumed by them. It is time to stop blaming the scapegoats. What lingers is the necessity of a truthful reckoning. And only then can the subcontinent rise from the smoke, not as enemies bound by ritual antagonism, but as neighbours who dare, finally, to dream of peace.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.