After days of sending civil service officials and military personnel to face the public on his behalf, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally emerged to deliver his account of recent events. What followed was a speech that should alarm anyone who watched it—a performance steeped in hate, provocation, bullying, and wounded pride. But perhaps most unsettling was that this tirade wasn’t aimed at an international audience, nor at Pakistan, but at the Indian populace itself—designed to stoke nationalist sentiment and reinforce a narrative of regional superiority.
Modi has long been known for such fiery rhetoric, often pointing sternly at the camera and proclaiming his party’s might with theatrical bravado. But this time, the performance rang hollow – a desperate attempt and reframing the truth. Absent from his speech was any mention of the actual conflict, India’s role in its escalation, or even the loss of an Indian aircraft—something the Indian military itself had acknowledged just a day prior.
Instead, the speech was filled with inflammatory language and brazen threats towards Pakistan—escalating tensions in a region already on edge. By lowering the threshold for conflict, Modi not only fuels instability but also pushes any hopes of a negotiated resolution to the Kashmir issue further out of reach. All of this appears carefully tailored to cater to the wounded ego of the ruling Hindu nationalist party and its supporters.
Right on cue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced yet another grand spectacle: the Tiranga Yatra, a nationwide rally meant to drum up support and propagate the party’s triumphalist narrative around the so-called Operation Sindoor. It is a political roadshow peddling manufactured victories, aimed more at bolstering voter support than confronting reality.
The BJP seems confident that its constructed narrative will deliver votes, regardless of the facts—facts that lie buried in the wreckage of downed aircraft in the mountains of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Truth, it seems, is the first casualty in the theatre of politics.
