In the autumn of 1962, I was a thirteen-year-old boy in the Himalayan foothills when Chinese troops poured across the border into India. I remember the fear in my mother’s eyes, the radio crackling with news of our soldiers dying in frozen mountain passes, and the sickening realization that the world’s democracies would be limited and slow to respond. Nehru’s strategic miscalculations and overreliance on diplomacy left India unprepared for the scale of the conflict. The belief that goodwill alone could restrain totalitarian ambition left India defenseless.
I learned something that year that has guided my life ever since: evil does not negotiate. It advances until it is stopped.
Now, 64 years later, watching Operation Epic Fury unfold carries for me a sense of hope long overdue. President Trump has done what should have been done decades ago. He has called the mullahs’ bluff. He has struck at the heart of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. And he has reminded the world that American leadership, real leadership, means defending civilization, not managing its decline.
This is not merely America’s fight. This is not merely Israel’s fight. This is the fight of every freedom-loving person who understands what theocratic tyranny means, and what closing this chapter could mean for the future of the world.
The Civilizational Stakes
Let me speak plainly, because I fear too many Americans, and too many in my Hindu community, have grown comfortable in our prosperity and complacent in our silence.
The Iranian regime’s hostility to the free world is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of record. Since 1979, Tehran has held American diplomats hostage, bombed American barracks, funded the groups that killed American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, bankrolled Hamas in Gaza, and directed the Houthis to threaten global shipping lanes. This is not a government with legitimate grievances being misunderstood by the West. This is a government whose founding ideology demands the destruction of Israel, the humiliation of America, and the submission of all who refuse to conform to its theocratic vision.
Some will argue that military action risks escalation, that strikes on Iran could inflame the region and draw in other powers. That concern deserves a serious answer. The question is not whether there are risks to action. Of course there are. The question is whether the risks of continued inaction were greater. A regime months away from nuclear breakout, with a proven willingness to use proxies to kill civilians across multiple continents, is not a regime that diplomacy alone can restrain. Four decades of engagement, incentives, and negotiated agreements produced the current crisis. At some point, clarity must replace wishful thinking.
Americans of all faiths share a common inheritance, grounded in pluralism, individual dignity, and the freedom to pursue lives aligned with our deepest convictions. The mullahs’ regime stands in direct opposition to every one of these principles. Their vision is submission. Ours is freedom. And freedom, as history repeatedly reminds us, must be actively defended.
India’s Enormous Stakes
For those asking what this conflict means for India, the answer is: a great deal.
Millions of Indian workers live in the Gulf states, sending tens of billions of dollars home each year to sustain families across Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab, and beyond. A significant share of India’s oil imports transits the Strait of Hormuz, where any disruption would have immediate consequences for the global economy. The economic lifeline of the world’s largest democracy runs directly through this region.
But the stakes extend well beyond economics. A nuclear-armed Iran would have fundamentally destabilized the Indo-Pacific balance of power. It would have emboldened actors hostile to Indian interests from Pakistan to the broader region, and provided dangerous cover to every state that believes theocratic aggression can be pursued without consequence.
President Trump’s decisive action has removed that threat. I have spent over a decade working to strengthen the US-India strategic alliance, including in advisory roles to both President Trump and Prime Minister Modi. That alliance depends on American credibility and the confidence that Washington will act when it says it will. That credibility has been restored.
A Defining Moment
I want to be honest about something. There are no clean wars and no cost-free decisions in a dangerous world. The weeks ahead will bring difficult news alongside the progress. Innocent people in the region are caught in circumstances beyond their control, and their suffering matters. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t serious.
But seriousness also requires acknowledging what was at stake. A theocratic regime, openly committed to regional domination, on the verge of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons, while the international community debated process and procedure, is not a problem that resolves itself. It is a problem that compounds until someone with the will to act finally does.
Americans and Hindus around the world, alongside all people of faith and conscience, are bound by a shared conviction: that life has purpose, that truth matters, and that freedom must be earned and defended by each generation. What has been built over centuries through sacrifice and courage cannot be taken for granted. It must be protected by those willing to stand, speak, and act with clarity and resolve.
This is not a time for silence. It is time for resolution.
History will remember how we responded.
Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar is an industrialist, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition, and host of the podcast “That’s Shalli!” He served as National Chair of Hindu & Indian Coalitions for the Republican National Committee.
