The Myth of Modi the ‘Strongman’

Despite his image as a muscular nationalist, Narendra Modi has repeatedly shown a penchant for restraint when decisiveness was needed most.

Operation Sindoor began with fury and ended with a fizzle. In the days following the Pahalgam massacre, when Pakistani-backed militants gunned down innocent Indian tourists on April 22, the Indian military launched a blistering counteroffensive across the Line of Control. A golden window had opened to impose a punishing cost on Pakistan’s deep state for decades of terrorism. For the first time in years, India’s armed forces held a decisive upper hand to conclusively neutralize Pakistan and the Pakistani-sponsored terrorist menace. But as our forces neutralised drones, killed terrorists, decimated their camps and destroyed Pakistani air defence systems, came the ceasefire brokered by Washington and claimed triumphantly by US President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, long touted as India’s muscular ‘Hindutva nationalist,’ blinked to the disappointment of many. Modi’s quiet acquiescence to this American diktat has demoralised many in the Indian security establishment and stunned the nationalist faithful. Far from finishing off what many believed to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to cripple the Pakistani military-intelligence-terror complex, Modi showed restraint.

Since he came to power in 2014, through choreographed speeches, stylised posters and a carefully curated image, Modi has presented himself as India’s iron-willed sentinel. To his critics in the left liberal and so-called ‘secular’ media, they have relentlessly depicted him as a dangerous ‘Hindu supremacist.’ Yet, behind the pageantry lies a record that often undermines this portrayal.

For a man whose legend is built on avenging slights and projecting strength, Modi has repeatedly chosen symbolic action over strategic consequence. In December 2015, in a move that seemed out of character for a hawkish leader, Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore to embrace then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The gesture, timed to coincide with the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (himself remembered for peace overtures to Islamabad), was hailed as statesmanship.

Yet, less than a year later, Jaish-e-Mohammed militants crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and slaughtered 19 Indian soldiers at Uri. That attack drew surgical strikes in retaliation. Precision strikes broke the backbone of the terrorists. Modi declared victory, but the Pakistani military has since machine rolled on, untouched and unrepentant.

In the years since, Pakistan, despite teetering economically, has become ever more brazen. Dossiers detailing ISI complicity in terror attacks, be it the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Pathankot, Pulwama, Nagrota - have been handed over to Pakistan for action in vain.

Nearly 20 judicial requests, reams of evidence, even DNA samples have been shared by the Modi government. Yet, Islamabad has responded with bureaucratic shrugs. Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the Mumbai massacre, continued to preach freely. India’s carefully curated legalism has only met with Pakistan’s institutionalised impunity. Through it all, Modi has thundered from podiums and television studios, but rarely wielded the iron fist his admirers have so desperately craved.

In September 2014, Modi extended a red carpet to Chinese President Xi Jinping in his home state of Gujarat, complete with riverside dinner and flower petals. Yet within three years, Chinese troops were confronting Indian soldiers in a tense 73-day standoff at Doklam. China had stealthily begun constructing a road on Bhutanese territory, an act of territorial revisionism with implications for India’s strategic Siliguri Corridor. Indian troops pushed back, but the eventual ‘disengagement’ was managed diplomatically and left the PLA undeterred. Since then, clashes have erupted across the Line of Actual Control, most violently in Galwan in 2020 where 20 brave Indian jawans lost their lives.

If Modi is, as his image suggests, the embodiment of India’s strategic muscle, the Chinese appear unimpressed. The most recent events in the aftermath of Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor have ripped this mythos apart.

For years, Indian nationalists argued that only a leader like Modi could do what Congress governments never dared: go for the jugular. Pahalgam was finally an opportunity to inflict lasting damage on Rawalpindi’s terror machine. Yet, once again, restraint won. By accepting a premature ceasefire under American pressure, Modi not only ceded the advantage hard-won by Indian armed forces, but also delivered a signal of strategic timidity.

Just as the secessionist movements in Balochistan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were gaining morale from India’s offensive, their hopes were dashed.

This is not to argue for unchecked militarism. War, after all, is no small matter. But Modi’s paradox is that for a man repeatedly accused by the (liberal western media and their Indian counterparts) of being a ‘Hindu fascist dictator,’ his conduct has often been marked by a surprising degree of caution and compromise.

The left-liberal intelligentsia, ever fond of portraying Modi as a modern-day dictator, finds itself in a bind. If Modi were truly the autocrat they accuse him of being, he would not have pulled back from escalation after escalation. He would not have tolerated the bureaucratic stonewalling by Pakistan.

He would not have repealed the farm laws in 2021 the face of prolonged protest. Nor would he have permitted a Waqf Bill earlier this year that fails to address the deep historical grievances over disputed land control by Waqf Boards.

The repeal of the three farm laws - an economic reform widely considered necessary but politically combustible – had been introduced by ordinance, rammed through Parliament, and after months of farmer protests on Delhi’s borders, scrapped unceremoniously. Modi’s retreat was couched in language of humility, but the political reality was that Modi had blinked.

Similarly, the Waqf Properties (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Bill, passed earlier this year, created considerable buzz among Modi’s supporters, many of whom expected it to reverse what they see as decades of encroachment by Islamic trusts. Yet the final legislation did not include provisions for retrospective review or land reclamation, thus effectively shielding decades of what critics allege are illicit acquisitions. For a leader continually vilified as ‘communal,’ Modi showed unexpected leniency.

These moments underscore the essential contradiction of Modi’s rule. He is both more and less than the image he projects. To secular critics, he has not been the destroyer of democracy or the authoritarian bogeyman they feared. To Hindu nationalists, he has not been the crusading civilisational warrior they hoped for.

If the perception becomes entrenched that Modi’s bark often outpaces his bite, then this poses problems for the future. It emboldens terrorists not just in Jammu and Kashmir but elsewhere in India as well. It emboldens Pakistani rogue generals and Chinese territorial adventurism.

For India’s military, which has endured the rough edges of high-altitude standoffs and the bloodletting of cross-border skirmishes, the American-imposed ceasefire is not just a strategic loss but a moral wound. The forces fought valiantly, only to be reined in by political caution masquerading as statesmanship. As India’s brave jawans return to their posts, they do so knowing that their sacrifice was subordinated to geopolitical optics and foreign pressure.

In the theatre of global politics, image matters. But it must be anchored in substance. Modi’s myth as the ‘strongman’ of South Asia has carried him through three general elections and secured him an unparalleled grip over Indian politics. But myths are fragile things. And as the ghosts of Pahalgam cry out for justice, that myth stands exposed.