Shashi Tharoor of the Congress on Wednesday said India’s code name for the military response to Pakistan, ‘Operation Sindoor’, was “brilliantly chosen”, while adding that the vermilion’s colour was not very far from blood. 

In an interaction at the National Press Club in Washington DC, Shashi Tharoor used the popular Indian phrase ‘khoon ka badla khoon’, while saying that this time it was “sindoor ka badla khoon”.

While explaining the meaning of sindoor, Tharoor said, “Sindoor, in case some Americans obviously don’t know about this, is a vermilion mark that is applied to the centre of the forehead of married women in the Hindu tradition. It’s widely practised.”

“Some non-Hindus do it too, but more for decorative purposes, but strictly speaking, the Sindoor is applied at the time of the marriage ceremony and is worn every day thereafter by married women,” he added, according to Mint.

Tharoor is leading an all-party delegation to the US after hostilities between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, which claimed the lives of 26 people. India responded to the attack by launching ‘Operation Sindoor’ on May 7, striking terror bases in Pakistan.

Tharoor said while naming the military action on Pakistan, India had been conscious of the “brutal” terrorists who had killed men in front of their wives and children. “When one wife screamed out, Kill me too, she was told, no, you go back and tell them what we’ve done,” the Congress MP said.

He said that it was no accident that the colour of sindoor is bright red like vermilion, which is not far from the colour of blood. “That sindoor had essentially been wiped off the foreheads of 26 Indian women, 26 I was gonna say Hindu women, but one of them actually was a Christian, but the sindoor had been wiped off the rest by these terrorist actions, and so we wanted first of all, to avenge that act of wiping off the sindoor,” Tharoor said.

Tharoor’s response to Pak’s ‘victim of terrorism’ claim

In response to the Pakistani delegation’s claim that Islamabad was also a “victim of terrorism”, Tharoor questioned who the blame should lie with.

“This (Pakistan) delegation is going around saying we are also victims of terrorism, we have lost more lives to terrorism than India has. We turn around and say—whose fault is that?” Tharoor asked.

He quoted Hillary Clinton, saying, “You can’t breed vipers in your backyard and expect them to bite only your neighbours.” This comes after the Pakistani delegation led by Bilwala Bhutto, which is also in the US, said that Pakistan had been a victim of terrorism more than India. 

India’s delegation to brief US lawmakers, thinktanks

The multi-party delegation led by Tharoor has returned to interact with the members of the US Congress, politicians and thinktanks. The delegation will provide a brief on India’s new approach to combat cross-border terrorism, and the military strikes carried out in terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. 

The delegation is meeting members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee and the India Caucus, along with Washington’s leading think tanks.