In functional democracies, the armed forces are expected to stand above partisan politics and sectarian identity, embodying a neutral, professional institution that serves the state rather than a party, ideology, or religious community. Under the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, India’s armed forces increasingly appear to be marching to a different drumbeat. “Saffronization”– the infusion of Hindu nationalist ideology and symbolism into state organs– has seeped deep into the military sphere, transforming what was once projected as a secular bulwark into what many now describe, only half in jest, as “Modi ki Sena.” This is no accidental drift; it reflects a deliberate project to align one of India’s most powerful institutions with a majoritarian political-religious agenda.
One of the clearest indicators of this ideological shift lies in the calculated use of religious symbolism within military spaces. In January 2025, the Army Chief’s lounge in South Block, New Delhi, quietly replaced a historically significant painting depicting the 1971 Indo-Pak war with a new artwork titled Karam Kshetra. This piece presents Hindu mythological figures such as Lord Krishna and Chanakya interlaced with modern military assets. On the surface, it might appear as a mere aesthetic change, but beneath the veneer the symbolism is unmistakable. The narrative is being shifted from a concrete, secular military victory to a mytho-religious frame in which warfare is implicitly sanctified through Hindutva imagery. The Indian soldier is being subtly recast less as a constitutional guardian and more as a foot soldier of a civilizational project.
The same pattern is visible along India’s tense frontiers. In December 2024, the Fire and Fury Corps unveiled a statue of the 17th-century Maratha ruler Shivaji near Pangong Tso in Ladakh, flanked by a saffron flag. Pangong Tso is a strategically sensitive border region; installing a saffron-framed emblem of Hindu martial glory there is far more than an exercise in heritage pride. It is a loud political and ideological signal, aimed simultaneously at domestic audiences and external rivals. Rather than projecting a secular, pan-Indian military identity, the institution appears increasingly comfortable wrapping its strategic posture in Hindutva-inflected iconography.
Religious rituals involving senior military leadership have further blurred the line between personal belief and institutional role. On National Unity Day in 2025, the Chief of Army Staff, iGen Upendra Dwivedi,n full uniform, received a traditional tilak and garland from Hindu priests during a public ceremony. Defenders may dismiss this as harmless culture, yet in a deeply diverse, multi-faith society such overt privileging of one religion by the top brass erodes the perception of neutrality. When the highest-ranking soldier openly participates in explicitly Hindu rituals in uniform, it sends a clear message down the chain of command: Hindu ritualism is not just accepted, it is endorsed as part of institutional culture.
The boundary between private faith and public duty was pushed even further in May 2025 when the COAS paid a high-profile visit, again in uniform, to the ashram of Hindu spiritual leader Jagadguru Rambhadracharya in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh. This was not a quiet, off-duty pilgrimage; it was a spectacle. The spiritual leader later claimed to have given the COAS diksha— religious initiation, likened to Lord Hanuman’s initiation in Hindu tradition— and in return publicly asked him to “reclaim Azad Jammu and Kashmir as dakshina,” a religious offering. In that single tableau, General Dwivedi was symbolically recast not as a neutral constitutional officer of a secular republic, but as a disciple bound by a spiritual obligation bestowed by a religious preceptor. It is hard to imagine a more direct breach of the invisible wall that should separate the temple from the barracks.
Even the naming conventions of military operations now mirror this ideological turn. Traditionally, Indian military operations were given neutral or technical labels. Under the current dispensation, however, operations are increasingly christened with explicitly Hindu religious terms, with “Sindoor” and “Mahadev” being emblematic examples. Names are never just labels; they are semiotic choices that shape internal culture and external messaging. By invoking Hindu religious vocabulary in military operations, the institution is, wittingly or unwittingly, recasting itself as the armed wing of a Hindu nationalist project. When this trend is coupled with bellicose statements by senior officers that echo ruling-party talking points and hardline rhetoric— including open threats and boastful references to Hindutva ideals— the distinction between a professional military and a partisan instrument of power becomes perilously thin.
Structural and institutional shifts add another layer of concern. The Agnipath recruitment scheme, introduced in 2022, has altered the demographic and cultural pipeline feeding the armed forces. While officially justified on grounds of efficiency, youthfulness, and budgetary prudence, credible reports suggest that a significant proportion of new recruits are connected, ideologically or organizationally, to Hindu nationalist ecosystems such as the RSS and its affiliates. When large inflows of young soldiers are drawn from pools already steeped in Hindutva narratives, the long-term impact on military culture is not hard to foresee. It risks creating an echo chamber in which majoritarian nationalism is treated as common sense rather than as a contested political ideology.
By binding the military’s identity to a partisan religious project, India risks undermining the very pillars of cohesion, professionalism, and legitimacy on which any modern armed force must rest. In the attempt to recast the Indian military as “Modi ki Sena,” the political leadership may reap short-term applause from its core constituency, but it is, in effect, playing with fire. When the gun and the saffron flag are symbolically welded together, the consequences reach far beyond momentary political gain. It is not only minorities or the wider region that have cause for concern; it is the long-term stability, institutional integrity, and constitutional balance of the Indian state itself that ultimately hang in the balance.
Sainik Schools— long considered incubators for future officers— are undergoing a similarly consequential re-engineering. These institutions, crucial in shaping the mindset and values of prospective officers, are increasingly influenced by organizations close to the Hindu nationalist network, including Vidya Bharati and groups tied to the Ram Mandir movement. Curricular and extracurricular activities that foreground a Hindu civilizational narrative over a secular, pluralist ethos risk grooming a generation of officers whose primary loyalty may tilt toward ideological majoritarianism rather than the constitutional framework. If the well is poisoned at the source, the water downstream cannot remain pure.
Cultural and symbolic shifts of this kind carry very real human consequences, particularly for minority officers and soldiers. Reports have surfaced of systemic pressure on Sikh, Muslim, and Christian officers to participate in Hindu rituals or, at the very least, remain conspicuously silent when such rituals dominate official functions. A stark example is the case of Lt. Samuel Kamalesan, a Christian officer dismissed in 2025 for refusing to comply with Hindu ritual practices. His dismissal, later upheld by the Delhi High Court, sends a chilling signal to minorities in uniform: conform or be cast out. Beyond formal punishment, minority officers speak of social exclusion, professional stagnation, and a pervasive sense that their identities are increasingly unwelcome in a force that once prided itself on pluralism.
Meanwhile, the human rights climate surrounding military operations appears to be deteriorating in parallel with this ideological hardening. A 2025 Human Rights Watch report documents hundreds of custodial deaths and extrajudicial killings attributed to Indian security forces, many occurring in conflict-affected regions. While officialdom routinely dismisses such findings as biased, it would be naïve to treat the rise in impunity as unrelated to the ideological shift. When an institution begins to view itself as the defender of a particular faith or civilization rather than of law and constitution, dissenters— especially minorities— are easily recast as existential threats rather than citizens with rights. The slide from valour to vigilantism can be alarmingly swift.
Taken together, these developments reveal that the saffronization of India’s armed forces is not an isolated aberration, but part of a broader project to reshape the republic along majoritarian Hindu nationalist lines. Symbolic changes in art and iconography, politicized speeches by uniformed officers, religious rituals conducted in public view, ideologically charged operation names, recruitment pipelines influenced by Hindutva networks, and the marginalization of minority officers collectively paint a disturbing picture. The armed forces— once a rare institution commanding cross-spectrum respect precisely because they were perceived as apolitical and secular— are being recast as another cog in the ideological machinery of the ruling dispensation.
By binding the military’s identity to a partisan religious project, India risks undermining the very pillars of cohesion, professionalism, and legitimacy on which any modern armed force must rest. In the attempt to recast the Indian military as “Modi ki Sena,” the political leadership may reap short-term applause from its core constituency, but it is, in effect, playing with fire. When the gun and the saffron flag are symbolically welded together, the consequences reach far beyond momentary political gain. It is not only minorities or the wider region that have cause for concern; it is the long-term stability, institutional integrity, and constitutional balance of the Indian state itself that ultimately hang in the balance.
