Despite warning that there will be a strong and befitting response to Uri at a time and location of India’s choosing, the Pakistani Army was caught napping. The Indians struck and struck hard, knocking the swagger out of the two Sharifs -- Raheel, who did not want to miss the jaunt to Europe amidst the red-hot tensions in the sub-continent, and Nawaz, who, whether in Pakistan or out in Panama counting the stolen billions, matters little anyway.
An element of surprise is always crucial in covert and overt warfare. Both organised armies and non-state actors rely on it. The Indian Army last Thursday raided at least 3 km inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to neutralise scores of terrorists. It was an extraordinary act. And marked the beginning of the beginning of the certain end of terrorism in the sub-continent as we have known it thus far.
Had our armed forces been empowered to undertake such reprisals when Pakistan first began to `bleed India through a thousand cuts’ some three decades back, in all probability Pakistan would have ceased harassing us by now. Or the matters could have come to a head with some conclusion reached about the terms of engagement between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
In the absence of an effective Indian response so far, India-Pakistan relations had meandered aimlessly, with periodic engagements of the diplomatic kind followed by long months of sullenness induced by terror atrocities in between.
After the Uri attack and its consequences, the Rawalpindi GHQ will finally come to terms that a `new’ leader is in place in India. India's first post-Independence born Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not to be held back by the usual fears and concerns that had assailed his predecessors. A new, assertive India, the third largest economy in the world in purchasing power parity, is no longer ready to turn the other cheek even as a rogue nation seeks to torment it constantly. Just as well that Modi called its bluff.
Yet, the powerful Sharif -- not the one who is a dummy -- is bound to respond sooner than later, particularly since the clock is ticking against him. Due to retire next month, Sharif would like to come up with a demonstrable riposte so that he can get an extension as Army chief. Following the Indian reprisal Sharif’s 'moochh' has begun to sag. Otherwise his stock with `aam’ Pakistanis was quite high, especially when the Pakistani Army began to go after `bad’ terrorists following the massacre of school kids in Peshawar in December 2014.
Notwithstanding some rotten elements in Kashmir Valley, who mourned the death of two Pakistani soldiers in the post-Uri operation, the parasitical Hurriyat crowd will definitely want to tamp down its stone-throwing display following the unmistakable message of strength sent out to Pakistan. If it cannot be business as usual on the Line of Control, it cannot be business as usual in Kashmir too. In short, not only the Generals in Rawalpindi GHQ but the fat-cat Geelanis and Maliks in Srinagar too were put on notice: Behave, or else...
When all else fails, the use of force becomes not only unavoidable but a bounden duty. From the way the surgical strikes were carried out, it was clear that all concerned had learnt their lessons from the over-the-top reaction to the Myanmar operation last year. On all fronts -- military, diplomatic, political, media, etc -- there was a clear demonstration of maturity and perfect coordination. Small wonder, then, everyone, bar Sita Ram Yechury, who could not shun the `talk- with- them’ dirge even on this rare day of national unity, in the Opposition felt obliged to endorse the Army action.
More likely than not the Uri reprisal could be the beginning of a series of events which might detract from the on-going efforts to boost development and economic growth -- the only plausible excuse of the weak for the strategic restraint exercised till Uri. We should be prepared to take on the chin what Pakistan might throw at us next. A durable peace is absolutely necessary for economic growth. But with a hostile neighbour which survives only on a rich diet of hate against India, pursuing a successful war might be unavoidable to attain durable peace. We should be ready for a Pakistani misadventure.
Meanwhile, if Pakistan denies any surgical strike took place, as it insists it did not, where is the question of responding in kind against India?
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