In a landmark national address amid the ongoing Operation Sindoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday declared that India will no longer be held hostage by Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent in the face of cross-border terrorism. The statement marked a massive strategic shift in New Delhi’s posture, historically restrained by Islamabad’s nuclear threshold doctrine.

Operation Sindoor, a high-intensity military campaign targeting terror infrastructure deep inside Pakistani territory, is being hailed as the most audacious Indian Air Force operation since Independence. According to military sources, the IAF has struck targets across 11 airfields in under 90 minutes — an unprecedented scale and tempo in Indian military history.

PM Modi’s message was unequivocal: India will no longer allow Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities to shield state-sponsored terrorism. “The era of nuclear blackmail is over,” the Prime Minister suggested, referring to Pakistan’s long-standing strategy of using its nuclear arsenal not as a tool of national survival, but as a political cover for fomenting terrorism across the border.

This doctrine — developed by Pakistan’s military establishment under General Zia-ul-Haq and later articulated by Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai in the early 2000s — outlined four ‘red lines’ that would trigger nuclear retaliation: loss of territory, destruction of military infrastructure, economic strangulation, or internal destabilisation. It was intended to prevent any Indian conventional military response to cross-border provocations.

“Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was never about deterring the Indian military. It was about deterring the Indian political class,” PM Modi’s address implied. For decades, this strategy succeeded, from the late 1980s through the Kargil conflict and Operation Parakram (2001–2002), during which India refrained from crossing escalation thresholds despite grave provocations.

India’s nuclear program, publicly acknowledged in response to Pakistan’s growing capabilities in the 1990s, had until now functioned largely as a counterbalance. However, successive Indian prime ministers — from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh — stopped short of authorising military strikes inside Pakistan, even in the face of mass-casualty terror attacks.

PM Modi’s decision to authorise full-spectrum air strikes at the outset of Operation Sindoor signals a doctrinal rupture: India is now willing to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff.

PM Modi’s speech is not just a tactical update, but a strategic declaration: India will no longer differentiate between acts of terror and those who enable them, regardless of the nuclear shadow, redrawing the red lines in South Asia’s security calculus.