When Faith Burns: How Hindutva’s Airstrikes Reduced Mosques to Message Boards

It was May 7, 2025.

The world’s largest democracy crossed a border it had not crossed since 1971. But this time, it didn’t just cross land — it crossed law, memory, and morality. The warplanes flew low over sovereign skies. Their payload wasn’t just explosives. It was politics, wrapped in fire.

And all of it began — as so many calamities do — with a lie.

The Ghost of Pahalgam

April 22. The Baisaran Valley in Kashmir bloomed like a postcard. Pilgrims climbed toward temples, and the air buzzed with laughter and hymns. Then the guns opened fire.

Twenty-six civilians died. The nation mourned.

But the state did not wait for facts. Before the dead were buried, the script was written. Pakistan was blamed. TRF was named. The Resistance Front, allegedly tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba, became the ready-made villain.

What the public didn’t hear was the truth whispered in bureaucratic chambers: the Ministry of External Affairs had no evidence. None. But truth is heavy and elections are light — so they let it go.

The Digital Bonfire

Before the jets flew, the tweets fell.

• 8,000 X accounts banned

• Journalists silenced
• The Wire shadowed and throttled

In the vacuum, hashtags bloomed like shrapnel: #AvengersOfPahalgam. #SindoorJustice.

This wasn’t mourning. It was mobilization. Grief weaponized.

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Operation Sindoor — The Airstrikes That Campaigned

On May 7, the Rafale jets screamed over Bahawalpur and Azad Kashmir.

They dropped fire on:

• A mosque full of children: Masjid SubhanAllah
• A civilian neighborhood where the oldest resident was 92
• Empty plots labeled as "terror camps"

51 civilians killed. 11 soldiers dead. Zero verified terrorist infrastructure.

The only thing Operation Sindoor destroyed was the boundary between nationhood and narcissism.

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The Men Who Applauded

Modi smiled on stage. Shah raised a fist. Doval remained invisible, as always — a ghost behind a doctrine.

In the rally lights, the airstrikes weren’t tragedy — they were branding.

Like Pulwama in 2019. Like Balakot. But this time, the smoke from the mosques mixed with saffron and slogans. The electorate wasn’t asked to choose policy. They were asked to pick a side.

And bombs speak louder than ballots.

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The Silence That Screamed

The UN? Silent.

The West? Still calculating arms contracts.

The Global South? Watching. Waiting.

Even those who knew better — who knew that India cross-border aggression violated UN Charter Article 2(4), Geneva Conventions, and Rome Statute Article 8 bis — said nothing.

Because nationalism is a commodity now. And war sells better than peace.

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The Nuclear Shadow

150 warheads in India. 160 in Pakistan. Two men with fingers on buttons.

But this wasn’t called brinkmanship. It was called sovereignty.

This wasn’t called provocation. It was called patriotism.

And no one asked the children under the rubble what they called it.

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Memory Is a Witness

The mosque has no roof now. But people still pray beside the crater. They pray not for revenge. But for remembrance.

Because history isn’t always written by the victors. Sometimes, it’s written in ash and brick and bone.

And that’s where this story ends:

• In the silence of a desecrated mosque
• In the weeping of mothers who couldn’t find all the limbs
• In the stain of Hindutva’s war narrative, broadcast as victory

The world must not just remember. It must respond.

Or else, the next war will not begin with a lie. It will begin with precedent.

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