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    The Symbolism Behind India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’

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    The name for the military attack on Pakistan brings to mind a woman who became shorthand for the grief wrought by a terrorist attack.Himanshi Narwal was first a symbol of tragedy, then a target of hate.Last month, Ms. Narwal was captured in an image sitting beside her slain husband, who was among 26 people killed in a terrorist attack on the Indian side of Kashmir. As India struck Pakistan on Wednesday in retaliation, Ms. Narwal became shorthand for why India picked the name “Operation Sindoor” for its military action.Sindoor, or vermilion powder, is a traditional marker of the marital status of Hindu women. Married women wear it either in the parting of their hair or on their foreheads, and they wipe it off if they become widowed. During the April 22 terrorist attack, many women lost their husbands, who were targeted because they were Hindu. But few received the media attention that Ms. Narwal has after the image of her by her husband’s side went viral.The Indian government’s choice of the name Operation Sindoor signaled its intention to avenge the widowed women. On social media, the Indian Army announced the strikes with a stark image that included a jar of spilled sindoor, which resembled spattered blood.“Operation Sindoor” also signals to right-wing Hindu groups — many of which favor more traditionally defined gender roles — that the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is listening to their demands for vengeance.Carrying the body of Vinay Narwal, a naval officer who was killed in the attack last month.Bhawika Chhabra/ReutersBut some feminists have criticized the use of the word sindoor.Hindu nationalism is predominantly driven by a male view of the world, said V. Geetha, a feminist historian who writes about gender, caste and class. “Women figure in it as objects to be protected or as mother figures goading their men to prove their heroism,” Ms. Geetha said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      America Wants a God

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      Today, we’re introducing “Believing,” a yearlong exploration from The Times on how we experience religion and spirituality now.Americans believe.Most people are wary of the government, the future and even each other, but they still believe in astonishing possibilities. Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults — say they have a spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something “beyond the natural world,” as we reported earlier this year.The country seems to be acknowledging this widespread spiritual hunger. America’s secularization is on pause, people have stopped leaving churches, and religion is taking a more prominent role in public life — in the White House, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and even at Harvard. It’s a major, generational shift. But what does this actually look like in people’s lives?I have spent the past year reporting “Believing,” a new project for The Times. This project is personal to me. I was raised a devout Mormon in Arkansas. I’ve left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I understand how wrestling with belief can define a life. I hoped to capture what that journey looked like for others, too — both inside and outside of religion. I interviewed hundreds of people, visited dozens of houses of worship and asked Times readers for their stories. More than 4,000 responded.In my reporting, I found that there are many reasons for this shift in American life. Researchers say the pandemic and the country’s limited social safety nets have inclined people to stick with (or even turn to) religion for support. But there is another reason, too: Many Americans are dissatisfied with the alternatives to religion. They feel an existential malaise, and they’re looking for help. People want stronger communities, more meaningful rituals and spaces to express their spirituality. They’re also longing to have richer, more nuanced conversations about belief.Unsatisfying alternativesIris LegendreOver the past few decades, around 40 million Americans left churches, and the number of people who say they have no religion grew to about 30 percent of the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Zakia Jafri, Who Sought Justice for Victims of Indian Riots, Dies at 86

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      For two decades, she waged a legal battle against government officials in India after her husband was brutally killed in Gujarati in 2002.Zakia Jafri, who turned her personal loss into an uphill campaign for justice after her husband, Ehsan Jafri, was brutally murdered during sectarian riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002, died on Feb. 2 at her daughter’s home in Ahmedabad, India. She was 86.Her death was confirmed by her son Tanveer Jafri.More than 1,000 people, a majority of them Muslim, died in the riots that gripped Gujarat, on the western coast of India, in 2002. They began on Feb. 27, when a fire killed nearly 60 people on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims to Godhra, a town in Gujarat. The cause of the fire was disputed. However, as rumors spread that Muslims were responsible, mobs erupted across large parts of Gujarat, attacking Muslim homes and businesses, and killing people by hacking and burning them to death. Among those killed was Ms. Jafri’s husband, who was a union leader, a lawyer and a former member of Parliament.In a legal battle that dragged on for nearly two decades, Ms. Jafri accused Narendra Modi, India’s current prime minister, who at the time was the leader of Gujarat, of “conspiracy and abetment” in the riots.In all that time, “she remained stoic, despairing, yet hopeful,” Teesta Setalvad, a human-rights activist, said in an interview. “For me, for us, she was the mother of all the survivors of 2002, carrying the burden of her pain and loss with dignity and fortitude and always giving us strength.”A scene from the riots in Ahmedabad, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, in 2002.Arko Datta/ReutersZakia Naseem Fidahusain Bandookwala was born on Jan. 15, 1939, in Rustampur, a village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She was one of six children of Fidahusain Fakhrali Bandukwala and Amtubai Fidahusain Bandukwala, wealthy farmers. She moved to Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, after marrying Mr. Jafri in 1962.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Curious Case of a Temple Sweet: How Food Increasingly Divides India

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      A Hindu politician has accused his Christian predecessor of allowing a temple’s sanctity to be violated with an animal product.It was a sensational charge in a country where food is yet another marker of political, religious and caste divides.For centuries, the Tirupati temple in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has given laddu, a ball-shaped sweet, to devotees. The temple is the richest Hindu holy site in the world, with revenues each year of hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is spending about a million dollars a month just on ghee to fry the laddu in, according to M.K. Jagadish, an official at a state-owned dairy.Last month, the state’s newly elected chief minister, a Hindu named N. Chandrababu Naidu, accused his Christian predecessor of allowing the temple’s laddu to be made in ghee, a clarified butter, that was adulterated with other animal fats. A majority of the temple’s devotees are vegetarian; Mr. Naidu’s allegation called into question the sanctity of the temple itself.The case of the temple sweet shows how India’s food cultures have become increasingly politicized. In a nation where cows are viewed as sacred by most Hindus, many states have banned the slaughter of cows and made the transportation of beef a punishable offense. In some, even the cooking of eggs has drawn official condemnation. Restaurants are closely monitored for any mixing of vegetarian and nonvegetarian food. Some states have ordered the owners of food stalls to display their names clearly so consumers are aware of their religious and caste identity.Cultural sensitivities surrounding food are not new in India. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British was ignited by allegations that rifle cartridges, which had to be manually loaded by biting off the end, were greased in beef tallow and pig fat, antagonizing both Hindu and Muslim soldiers in the British Army.But the politicization of food has become more pervasive with the rise of Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Vegetarianism and cow protection are now a staple of the political discourse. Mere accusations of eating or transporting beef — mostly against Muslims — can result in lynchings by cow-protection vigilantes and right-wing organizations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      India’s Epidemic of Cow Vigilantism Unnerves Nation’s Muslims

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      An unexpectedly narrow victory at the polls for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-first agenda has not cooled simmering sectarian tensions, as some had hoped.A recent series of attacks by Hindus on Muslims in India have highlighted how sectarian violence remains a serious problem, even as the country seeks to define itself on the world stage as a robust democracy with equal rights for all.Despite a close election victory in June by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that many interpreted as a rebuff, there have been numerous instances of such violence, according to India-focused human rights organizations and a New York Times tally of local news reports. At least a dozen involve so-called cow vigilantism — violence related to the slaughter or smuggling of cows, or the suspicion of such acts.In August, a group of Hindu men beat up a 72-year-old Muslim man because they believed he was carrying beef in his bag. Also that month, a group that describes themselves as cow protectors fatally shot a 19-year-old Hindu student because they thought he was a Muslim smuggling cows, according to his family.The cow issue is deeply divisive because it pits the religious beliefs of one group against the diet of another. Cows are sacred in Hinduism, especially among its upper castes, and many Indian states ban their slaughter, as well as the sale or smuggling of beef. But beef is consumed by many Muslims. Religious violence is not rare in India, where more than one billion Hindus, around 200 million Muslims, 30 million Christians, 25 million Sikhs and other religious minorities coexist, sometimes uneasily.Under Mr. Modi, who has pursued a Hindu nationalist agenda since coming to power in 2014, Muslims have increasingly become a target for hard-line Hindu groups affiliated with his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. Hundreds of instances of religious violence, including lynching, beating and abuse, occur every year, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In India’s Election, Democracy Lives On

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      Back in January, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India looked all but unstoppable, he visited the small city of Ayodhya for the unofficial start of his campaign to win a third term. The location was freighted with symbolism. For decades, Hindu nationalists had sought to build a temple in Ayodhya, at a spot they believe to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. The only problem was that there was already a house of worship on the spot, a mosque built by a Mughal emperor in 1528. A Hindu mob had dismantled the mosque in 1992, setting off riots that killed 2,000 people, most of them Muslims. The ruins were a flashpoint of religious tensions in India for decades.Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party promised to build the temple, and the lavish event at which Modi officially opened it was a showcase for that achievement. At the time it seemed like strong election-year messaging for a politician who built his career on the twin planks of Hindu nationalism and building a muscular new India. Unlike other politicians, the event implied, Modi made promises and kept them.“It is the beginning of a new era,” he declared.Feeling supremely confident, Modi had boldly asked the Indian electorate for something akin to a blank check to remake the country — control of 400 seats in Parliament in elections that began in April and concluded on June 1. And why shouldn’t he have been confident? India’s economy was the fastest-growing in the world. India had overtaken China as the world’s most-populous country. World leaders sought Modi’s support on issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to the climate crisis, cementing India’s ascent in global affairs.But the ever unpredictable electorate of the world’s largest democracy responded to Modi’s demand for still more power resolutely: No thanks.In a stunning rebuke, election results released on Tuesday showed that India’s voters have reduced the parliamentary share of Modi’s party by more than 60 seats, not enough for an outright majority, never mind the supermajority he had sought.It struck me as particularly apt that despite all the fanfare about the glorious new temple in Ayodhya, Modi’s party lost the city’s parliamentary seat to a political opposition that had been all but left for dead.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Ambani Wedding Event Signifies the Rise of the Oligarch in Modi’s India

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      Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg, bejeweled elephants and 5,500 drones. Those were some of the highlights of what is likely the most ostentatious “pre-wedding” ceremony the modern world has ever seen.On a long weekend in early March, members of the global elite gathered to celebrate the impending nuptials of the billionaire business titan Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son, Anant, and Radhika Merchant. Monarchs, politicians and the ultrawealthy, including Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump, descended on an oil refinery city in the western Indian state of Gujarat for an event so extravagant you’d be forgiven for thinking it was, well, a wedding. But that will take place in July. For the long windup to the big day, some of Bollywood’s biggest stars, though invited as guests, took to the stage to sing and dance in what amounted to a bending of the knee to India’s most powerful family.Watching the event, I couldn’t help thinking of the 1911 durbar, or royal reception, when King George V was proclaimed emperor of India. Once India won its independence from Britain in 1947, it committed itself to becoming a democratic welfare state — an audacious experiment that resulted in what is now the world’s largest democracy. But in advance of this year’s general election, expected to begin in April, the Ambani-Merchant matrimonial extravaganza shows us where true power in India now lies: with a handful of people whose untrammeled wealth and influence has elevated them to the position of India’s shadow leaders.It’s difficult to imagine the Ambani-Merchant wedding event in an India that isn’t ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It’s true that the Ambanis have been wealthy for years now and that accusations of favorable treatment from government authorities are not unique to this family or the Modi government. But no other prime minister in India’s history has been so openly aligned with big business, and never before has the concentration of wealth been more apparent. India’s richest 1 percent now own more than 40 percent of the country’s wealth, according to Oxfam. The country has the world’s largest number of poor, at 228.9 million. And according to a newly published study looking at 92 low- and middle-income countries, India had the third-highest percentage of “zero food” children — babies between 6 months and 23 months old who had gone a day or more without food other than breast milk at the time they were surveyed. Oxfam has described this new India as the “survival of the richest.”For the uberwealthy, this presents a no-holds-barred opportunity to exert their power and influence. In 2017, Mr. Modi introduced a fund-raising mechanism called “electoral bonds” to allow unlimited anonymous donations to political parties. In the five years that followed, the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party received $635 million in contributions through such bonds, 5.5 times as much as its closest rival, the Congress Party. The 2019 Indian general elections cost $8.6 billion, surpassing the estimated $6.5 billion spent on the 2016 U.S. presidential and congressional elections.Analysis by three independent media organizations in India published on March 14 revealed that a company called Qwik Supply Chains purchased bonds in the scheme worth $50 million. One of the company’s three directors, reporters later uncovered, is also a director at several subsidiaries of Reliance, Mukesh Ambani’s mega-firm. A spokesperson for Reliance said that Qwik is not a Reliance subsidiary and did not respond to further questioning from Reuters. The Indian Supreme Court has since struck down the electoral bond mechanism, calling it unconstitutional, but the delay in addressing the matter has most likely come too late to change the outcome of the forthcoming election, which is widely considered all but certain to go in Mr. Modi’s favor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘It Is Suffocating’: A Top Liberal University Is Under Attack in India

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      A campaign to make the country an explicitly Hindu nation has had a chilling effect on left-leaning and secular institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru University.Jawaharlal Nehru University, named for India’s first prime minister, is one of the country’s premier liberal institutions, a hothouse of strong opinions and left-leaning values whose graduates populate the upper echelons of academia and government.But to the Hindu nationalists who hold power in India, the university and others like it are dangerous dens of “anti-India” ideas. And they are working to silence them.Masked men have stormed the J.N.U. campus and attacked students, shouting slogans associated with a far-right Hindu group. Vocal supporters of the right-wing governing party who have been installed as administrators have suspended students for participating in protests and, in December, imposed new restrictions on demonstrations. Professors have been denied promotions for questioning government policies.“It is suffocating,” said Anagha Pradeep, a political science student who has received warnings from J.N.U. after protesting her housing conditions and helping to screen a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “And you can’t learn in fear.”A student protest near Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2019.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe pressure being put on J.N.U. is part of a broader effort to neutralize dissenting voices — media organizations, human rights groups, think tanks — as right-wing Hindus pursue their cause of transforming India into an explicitly Hindu nation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Demolition of Muslim Properties Sets Off Deadly Violence in India

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      When officials arrived to raze a mosque and seminary ruled to be illegally located on public property, they encountered hundreds of protesters.The demolition of a mosque and a Muslim seminary has led to deadly clashes and an internet shutdown in northern India. The flare-up, in the hill state of Uttarakhand, is the latest bout of sectarian tensions as Muslim sites have become a broader target of the Hindu right wing after the opening of a major temple last month.The toll of the violence was unclear. An official in Haldwani, the town where the clash took place, said in an interview that two people had been killed and dozens injured, including police officers. Reports in the Indian news media, citing top police officials, said four people had been killed, but this could not be confirmed because the police did not respond to requests for comment. Images from the area revealed vehicles destroyed by fire and debris littering the streets.Thursday’s unrest began when officials and the police arrived to raze the structures, which the authorities said had been illegally built on public land, and encountered an angry crowd. Witnesses said that the police fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who threw stones at a police station and set vehicles on fire. The police have denied using live ammunition.The violence unfolded against the backdrop of Hinduism’s rise as a national identity in India, a multiethnic state founded as secular republic, but which in the past decade has been moving steadily further from that vision under the leadership of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party.In his 10 years as prime minister, Mr. Modi has fulfilled many of his campaign promises, like building an enormous Hindu temple where a mosque once stood, and stripping the Kashmir region of its semiautonomous status.Thursday’s demolition was part of a larger government effort that leaders of the opposition say has been targeting Muslims. In 2022, a court in Uttarakhand ordered the destruction of about 4,000 homes of mainly Muslim inhabitants in Haldwani, located on land that the court said encroached on a railway line.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More