Time for stocktaking, especially when the year has been as eventful as 2025, both domestically and internationally. In India, official rhetoric, reaction and public sentiment swung between two terrorist incidents, separated by six months—massacre in the meadows of Pahalgam in April and a car blast close to Red Fort in New Delhi in November. 

The former saw nationwide outrage, partly due to the shocking nature of targeted killings of Hindu men and partly because of the government’s rhetoric which threatened to teach Pakistan a lesson. Quite like the aftermath of the Godhra train fire incident of 2002, when chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi had declared it to be an act of terrorism within hours without investigations, this time Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the Pahalgam attack as proxy war by Pakistan without any investigations. Having done that, the government ordered aerial attacks on pre-selected terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan, under Operation Sindoor—the name chosen by the Prime Minister himself. Since the killing of Hindu men holidaying with their families in Pahalgam resulted in the ‘wiping off of sindoor’ (symbol of marriage for Hindu women) of the women, the name of the operation implied that it was revenge for that and nothing more.

Refusing to accept Indian argument of a limited revenge, Pakistan joined the air war through its operation Marka-e-Haq (battle of truth). Whatever happened thereafter in the five-day air war is now a matter of public record, despite claims on both sides. Even after the fighters returned home and the guns fell silent, the Modi government refused to turn down the rhetoric, perhaps in the hope that a continued perception of hostility with Pakistan would keep the citizens in a state of anxiety and the political opposition on the defensive, thereby absolving the government of accountability—both of the Pahalgam attack, its investigation and Operation Sindoor. Hence, despite the ceasefire, the government declared that the operation was merely suspended and not over.

This was the reason that when a car blew up at a traffic signal in Delhi in November, the government was at pains to ensure that the incident was neither described as terrorism nor as having its roots in Pakistan. While the Sindoor rhetoric continues for domestic consumption, the terrorism tale has been muted since then.

However, the bigger impact of Op Sindoor was felt on India’s foreign policy and global stature. While the former has been in a freefall since then—also because of US President Trump’s tariffs and repeated claims of stopping a nuclear war between India and Pakistan—the latter has taken a substantive beating, as the five-day aerial conflict exposed the limitations of Indian military, with the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission report in November insisting that Pakistan, with the help of China, had an edge over India. Consequently, India is once again warming up to Russia.

But since the December issue celebrates the Indian Navy, a comprehensive stocktaking of 2025, with projections for 2026 will be published in the January issue of FORCE. Until then, stay safe, stay hopeful. To a better New Year!