Post-Operation Sindoor diplomatic push: Terror has a return address

In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, the Indian government is sending diplomatic delegations to key global centres—from the US to South America, Africa, Europe, and East Asia—to deliver the message in three blunt lines: India is a hard-power democracy with cutting-edge technology and military strength. Terror will meet swift, calibrated reprisals. And the world must stop hyphenating a rising, democratic civilisational State with a failing jihadi franchise called Pakistan.

From the hour of Partition, when Pakistan’s very creation was marred by sectarian violence, India has lived under the shadow of cross-border terror. What began with non-State actors raiding Kashmir in October 1947 has, over the decades, hardened into Islamabad’s cold-blooded doctrine of “proxy war”. By nurturing jihadist outfits as an unofficial army, the Pakistani State has sought to bleed India without the cost of formal combat. The toll is measured in the lives of children, jawans fallen at their posts, and public servants targeted for wearing the tricolour on their lapels. Pakistan has weaponised terror as statecraft.

The world woke up to the face of modern terrorism only after the Twin Towers fell in the United States on 9/11. Two decades on, most nations have turned to the dilemmas of the twenty-first century—climate change, artificial intelligence, employment, and economic resilience. Yet India remains compelled to fight a battle not of its choosing: cross-border terror. Geography, not choice, keeps us in the trenches.

Across the Radcliffe Line lies a State that has collapsed in everything but name. Pakistan’s economy is on an IMF drip, its democracy little more than a theatre for an army-mullah nexus, and its last functioning export is terrorism. As India races ahead—staking claims in the global value chains of chips, green hydrogen, and defence tech—Rawalpindi wages a 4G war of suicide bombers, narco-money, and disinformation. It cannot compete with India’s scale or ideas, so it tries to wound India: a blast in a market here, a sniper’s bullet on the LoC there, and a swarm of bots amplifying lies online.

This is not merely a security nuisance but a strategic veto Pakistan hopes to impose on India’s rise. Each terror strike is intended to sap investor faith, derail tourism, and force New Delhi to divert resources from highways and hydrogen to drones and destroyers. It’s a failed state with nothing to lose that confronts a civilisational state, setting the stage for a clash Pakistan cannot win and India cannot avoid.
The gulf today is unmissable. India’s economy—nudging the $4 trillion mark—is more than eleven times Pakistan’s anaemic GDP. We host the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem. Every multinational worth its ticker hunts for shelf space in the Indian market because our 1.4 billion citizens are not just consumers but co-creators of tomorrow’s technologies. India is stretching its sinews—from chip fabrication and green hydrogen to fintech and space—while Pakistan, locked in a doom loop of debt and jihad, cannot even keep the lights on in Karachi.

This is the reality New Delhi must broadcast in every multilateral forum—from the UNSC to Davos. Terror emanating from Pakistan is not a bilateral irritant; it is an assault on the rules-based international order. Any nation that claims to cherish democracy, human rights, and shared prosperity has a stake in India’s uninterrupted rise. Standing with India is not merely an act of solidarity; it is a strategic investment in a future where open societies outpace the tyranny of failed states weaponising fanaticism.

This is the larger context of our current diplomatic delegation’s visit. We are going to remind the world of a few important facts:

First, every terror strike on India—from the first Kashmir raids to the Pahalgam massacre—was plotted in Pakistan, whose army and ISI even brag about the bloodshed. The killing of civilians in a proxy war is not something any civilised nation should tolerate or remain silent about.

Second, Pakistan hosts the world’s busiest terror assembly line. Every major terror attack in the world in the last few decades, including London, Tehran, Oslo, Paris, and the US, has some direct or indirect link to Pakistan. The terror infrastructure of Pakistan endangers every democracy, not just India. Every IMF tranche that props up Pakistan’s budget is, in effect, a subsidy for the Army-ISI complex—the sponsors who coach, bankroll, and exfiltrate these militants.

Third, India’s era of restraint is over; every strike from Pakistan will draw a proportionate, precision reply like Operation Sindoor. But unlike Pakistan, which uses terror proxies to kill civilians, India’s retaliation will target terrorist infrastructure and, when necessary, military assets within international law. We hit camps and command nodes, not classrooms or tourist spots.

This moment also lets us spotlight India’s broader power—economic and social, not only military. India is now a $4 trillion economy growing 7–8 % annually, driven by one of the world’s youngest populations poised to sustain expansion for decades. Our democracy remains functional and vibrant. Worldwide, our diaspora sparks value, cohesion, and progress. India embodies hope, peace, democracy, human rights, and inclusive development.

Our delegation departs Delhi for New York, honouring the 9/11 Memorial as a stark warning of terror’s savagery. From there, we move to Panama, Guyana, Colombia, Brazil and back to the US, carrying a single, clear brief: India is a nation of accelerating progress, resilient peace and hard power. We will lay out the facts—our growth, our democracy, our resolve—and ask every capital to stand with India against the forces of terror and anarchy.

(The writer is an MP representing Bangalore South in the Lok Sabha)