Sindoor on a married woman is a form of her objectification and 'ownership', while having Col Sophiya Qureshi address the press reflects govt's crude messaging
India’s military response to the Pahalgam terrorist strike is a ‘developing story’. Pakistan has unsuccessfully retaliated against India’s conventional strike with similar strikes.
The tough Indian riposte was but natural and its armed forces had no other choice.
There is a distinct possibility of the theatre of exchange of strikes becoming bigger. Many twists and turns lie ahead and it is difficult to foresee developments, gains and losses of India as well as Pakistan.
Settling scores
Post-Pahalgam, it was obvious that India (read Prime Minister Narendra Modi) would strike at Pakistan-based terrorists and their facilities. Modi not only made the promise to hound the Pahalgam perpetrators till the “end of earth” at a public meet (addressing his electoral constituency while skipping an all-party meeting), but also has a track record of never wasting an opportunity to ‘react’.
Also read: Indian missile strikes on Pakistan open up fearsome possibilities
From the Godhra carnage in 2002, as Gujarat Chief Minister, to the ‘surgical strike’ in 2016, and the air offence in Balakot in 2019, Modi always ‘settled’ the score. That’s why developments in the strategic theatre will be an evolving one.
There are two narratives, however, spawned by two decisions of the government, which need to come under comment. The first is the nomenclature of the operation – Sindoor. The second is the decision to get Colonel Sophia Qureshi to brief the media (and the world) on the military strikes.
Significance of sindoor
The naming of the strike as Operation Sindoor is problematic because the vermillion powder is used only by Hindu women, that too not universally throughout India, in (usually) the middle parting of their hair.
The sindoor (along with the mangalsutra, which too is used in another lot of Indian regions) is a sign of matrimony and ownership of women – broadcasting a signal in a crowd or public place that the woman with sindoor bhari maang ('a forehead filled with vermillion) is ‘taken’.
The application of the sindoor is one of the many ways in which a woman is objectified. Take for instance, the rituals connected with most Hindu marriages. One of the universal customs is the kanyadaan¸ wherein the bride’s father ‘donates’ his daughter to the groom.
The sindoor is ‘taken away’ from a woman if she becomes a widow, to further underscore that the husband is the central figure in her life after being married.
Bollywood favourite
There are numerous scenes in Indian cinema that have melodramatically portrayed the death of a woman’s husband with the sindoor pot tilting over and the vermilion powder scattering on the floor or being wiped off her hair parting.
Also read: Operation Sindoor aligns with UNSC call against terrorism, says India
The sindoor is not the only material good that is ‘taken away’ from women after the death of their husbands.
Although this trend has somewhat declined among the middle classes, especially the educated groups, widowhood has been accompanied by economic decline, social isolation – even ostracisation and emotional deprivation.
Widow remarriage, although prevalent, increasingly, is still not a universal practice. After Himanshi Narwal said on camera that people should not target Muslims and Kashmiris in the name of taking revenge for Pahalgam, she was brutally trolled.
Numerous posts from all and sundry, mainly Hindutva zealots, alleged that all she was interested was in garnering all monies offered as compensation and then get remarried – they tended to say right away that the idea of finding another partner at a later point should not even cross her mind.
Imposition of one culture
Besides these problematic aspects of sindoor, there is a larger matter – that of using it for a military operation which strikes at terrorists, and naming it after a ritual followed by just one community.
It can never be forgotten that India is a multi-religious country and no practice of any single community, even that of the largest group, can be considered a national symbol.
Also read: Operation Sindoor: 'New phase in India’s response to cross-border terrorism'
Yes, the Hindu men who were shot dead by terrorists were first identified and then killed. It might sound very evocative to say that the operation was named sindoor because it was wiped off the foreheads of these Hindu women.
Another argument may be that the practice is a culture of this country. But this culture is not of all religious communities. Even among Hindus, its use is not countrywide.
Naming the strike Operation Sindoor marks imposition of the culture of one group on others and this cannot be said it is national culture. In any case, the idea of Hindutva is based on the disputable concept of cultural nationalism, a principle in which culture and religion are often used a synonyms.
Cosmetic move
The second problematic issue pertains to the other device which the government has used crudely: getting Col Sophiya Qureshi, a Muslim woman army officer, to be one of the two women officers who provided the nature and details of the strikes.
Undeniably, India has turned increasingly Islamophobic since 2014, even though the tendency predates Modi’s rise to power. Quite clearly, the decision to get the two women to make all matters related to the strikes public, was very evocative. It was aimed to convey that all communities are at par in India.
Also read: How Col Sofiya Qureshi's feats led to a landmark SC verdict on women officers
This decision is problematic because the armed forces are supposed to be one community where religious identities get blurred. Underlining distinct religious identities goes against the ethos of the armed forces.
The world knows
Additionally, if the government was trying to broadcast a message that there is no polarisation on the basis of religious identity in India, it should realise that the entire world knows by now that Muslims and Kashmiris were being hounded in parts of India by Hindu majoritarian zealots. And that the extent of insecurity among Muslims is the highest ever.
If the government and the ruling party are serious committed to put an end to the practice of victimisation and targeting on the basis of religious identities of citizens, the lead has to be taken from the highest echelons of the political leadership.
Instead of taking against action members of their own ideological brigade when hate is spewed at Muslims and Christians, the leadership of the government and its political affiliates look the other way.
Till the time this remains a recurrent occurrence, gestures like identifying a competent Muslim woman officer to make a crucial announcement will be little but a cosmetic move.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
