India’s latest display of cross-border bravado — most dramatically the so-called Operation Sindoor, advertised as a “decisive strike” on terror infrastructure across the Line of Control in May — is not just another spike in South Asia’s long history of flare-ups. It marks something deeper and far more unsettling: the steady “saffronization” of India’s armed forces.
What was long considered one of the region’s most secular, disciplined and politically insulated institutions is now being tugged — symbol by symbol and ritual by ritual — into a majoritarian ideological project. And in a region where one misread signal can trigger catastrophe, an ideologized military is not merely a domestic concern but a regional hazard.
For decades, India’s officer corps maintained a professional distance from the passions of politics. Soldiers guarded borders; politicians guarded narratives. That equilibrium is now eroding.
The shift began quietly. In early 2025, the Army Chief removed a historic 1971 war painting from his lounge and replaced it with Karam Kshetra — an image fusing Krishna, Chanakya and modern weapons. It wasn’t just a change in decor; it was a declaration of what kind of imagery, and implicitly what kind of ideology, should frame India’s military leadership.
The contrast with India’s most iconic Army Chief, General Sam Manekshaw, could not be sharper. Manekshaw famously kept portraits of British generals in his office — not out of colonial nostalgia but because they represented tactical clarity, discipline and apolitical soldiering. Today’s leadership appears comfortable flipping that tradition on its head.
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Across Ladakh, where Chinese, Pakistani and Indian troops stand within shouting distance, a towering statue of Shivaji now looms over a strategic corridor, draped with a saffron flag. Its presence is not accidental: it is architecture as ideology, declaring who the military believes itself to be — not merely a force of the republic but a guardian of a majoritarian civilizational mission.
The shift is not confined to stone and steel. It is seeping into rituals and behavior. Senior officers conducting Hindu ceremonies in uniform — once unthinkable — now barely make the news. When the army chief publicly received diksha (spiritual induction) from a Hindu guru, it might have been dismissed as a personal act of devotion. But the guru’s declaration that the chief should “reclaim Azad Kashmir as a religious offering” revealed how normalized such rhetoric has become.
Even the naming conventions of operations — Sindoor, Mahadev and Trishul — reflect a growing fusion of strategic decisions with ideological symbolism. The creation of battalions such as the Bhairav Battalion — invoking the fierce manifestation of Shiva known as the destroyer of evil and guardian of time — shows how deeply religious metaphors now permeate military identity. These may seem cosmetic, but in institutions where culture shapes command, names matter.
And the ideological pipeline is widening. The Agnipath recruitment scheme, already criticized for its short-termism and socio-economic volatility, has reportedly become a magnet for right-wing, Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-affiliated youth.
The RSS has long advocated for the military and broad security apparatus to reflect Hindu civilizational values. Sainik Schools — feeder institutions for future officers — are seeing increasing influence from Hindu nationalist organizations. These are not temporary trends but long-term structural shifts, altering the worldview of the officers who will lead tomorrow’s crises.
Minority officers sense the pressure most acutely. Sikh, Muslim and Christian servicemen describe being nudged into Hindu ceremonies labeled “unit bonding.” When Lieutenant Samuel Kamalesan, a Christian officer, was dismissed last year for refusing to perform a Hindu ritual, it revealed a stark truth: secular dissent within the force is under assault.
A military that coerces cultural conformity is not merely abandoning constitutional ideals; it is reshaping its internal climate in ways that inevitably spill over into its external behavior. And they already are.
India’s recent cross-Line of Control strikes in Kashmir were framed not in the cool language of strategic necessity but in the heated rhetoric of nationalist-theological destiny. These operations have become performances designed to feed a domestic audience increasingly conditioned to see military aggression not just as patriotic but as sacred.
The world is taking notice. When Donald Trump bizarrely claimed that his tariff threats forced India and Pakistan to halt clashes — a narrative New Delhi quickly rejected — the global debate that followed was telling.
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Analysts no longer assume India’s military decisions are purely strategic; they increasingly interpret them through ideological lenses. Credibility, once one of India’s greatest military assets, is quietly eroding.
In South Asia, borders are fragile abstractions drawn over real grievances and old memories. A single misread signal can unravel an uneasy peace. Injecting religious nationalism into the military — the institution that manages these flashpoints — is thus playing with fire in a region often divided on Hindu-Muslim lines.
India has every right to secure itself. But security grounded in ideology rather than strategy will inevitably cause instability, not safety. The military is India’s most powerful institution; if it continues sliding into a saffronized identity, it risks becoming an instrument of political will rather than constitutional duty.
The applause it wins at home for using religious symbols in military affairs may be loud. The consequences abroad, however, will be dangerous. A military aligned with creed and party is not simply a symbol of democratic erosion – it is a strategic fault line.
And as the dust from recent hostilities with Pakistan shows, that fault line is widening — faster and far more perilously than many realize and the region can afford.
Advocate Mazhar Siddique Khan is a Lahore-based high court lawyer. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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