BENGALURU: In his first public address after the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without naming Pakistan in a public address on Thursday in Madhubani in Bihar, said, “Aatankwadiyon ki bachi khuchi zameen ko mitti mein mila denge” (will raze to the ground whatever little land terrorists have). He then, in a rare move, switched over to English to address the world, and said, “Today, from the soil of Bihar, I say this to the whole world, India will identify, trace and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.” It was a very strong message coming from Modi and was not rhetoric.Having raised the pitch in a public rally, he will not scale it down. After the deadly Uri attack in September 2016, in which 19 soldiers were killed, India had launched ‘surgical strikes’ across the Line of Control (LoC) — targeting the militant launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). Three years later, in February 2019, after 40 Central Reserve Paramilitary Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in a suicide bombing attack in Pulwama, New Delhi responded with the Balakot airstrike hitting the militant camps deep inside Pakistan — their first since 1971. Pakistan responded with air raids, leading to a dogfight and the brief capture of the IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman.While on the earlier two occasions, Modi did not openly challenge the perpetrators of terror attacks, this time he has spoken out his mind on a public platform. The winds of change are visible. In a historic move, Kashmiris reacted in solidarity against the Pahalgam attack. Businesses and educational institutions across the Valley were closed on Wednesday with Kashmiris holding protest rallies against terrorist attacks, pledging their allegiance to the tricolour and asserting that such heinous acts against innocent people were against the Kashmiriyat ethos and Islam. This is a befitting reply to Pakistan’s decades long anti-India propaganda on ‘Kashmir banega Pakistan’ and the recent desperate bid by their army chief Asim Munir, when he called Kashmir their “jugular vein.”In dealing with Pakistan, India has military and diplomatic options. The former is not ruled out but when, how and where is the question. The movement of the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier towards the direction of Pakistan is an indication of building pressure on the adversary. India may call off the fragile 2021 LoC ceasefire leading to cross-border firing. There will be collateral damage to any military action but one cannot be risk averse when the stakes are high.
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