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“I want to make it clear that India is a secular country and its army is a beautiful reflection of India’s constitutional values.” These words from Indian military spokesperson Colonel Sofiya Qureshi will keep ringing loudly long after the war drums fall silent. They are the most significant words among the countless utterances rained on us during this most recent India-Pakistan conflict.

Soon the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will try to drown them in their aggressive, violent and communal propaganda. But we must not let them go into oblivion.

These words prove that India can establish its superiority over its rival Pakistan only by making one claim: that India is a secular nation.

Now that both sides have stepped back and war has been averted, the question that lingers is: who won and who lost?

The leaders of both countries are trying to tell their people that they were the winners. Since their public had given them unconditional support, they are forced to accept the claims of their leaders. The facts, however, are embarrassing for them.

Leaving aside this worry, we cannot ignore that in this conflict the BJP and its parent organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have suffered a decisive defeat in the field of ideology. Their idea of nationhood stands defeated. India is better than Pakistan not because it has practically turned into a Hindu rashtra but because the constitutional idea of India is that of a secular nation.

There is a war that is fought with weapons, and there is another war that is fought with language – language as an expression of ideas. When two countries fight each other, they also want to turn it into a war of ideas or ideals.

The warring countries claim they are the bearers of an idea that is better than the other country’s. Each seeks support from uninvolved countries by claiming that only the victory of its idea will benefit the whole world. When Russia attacked Ukraine, it felt necessary to say that Ukraine was promoting Nazi ideology.

The question asked is which country represents dharma and which is serving adharma. So, in modern times, what is dharma and what is adharma?

In the last ten days, a war of language and ideas was also being fought. During this period, India’s military was speaking on its behalf. Its political establishment chose to remain........

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