As Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted in his Mann Ki Baat address on Sunday, the nation is “seething in anger” and deeply hurt by the April 22 terrorist mayhem unleashed on an unsuspecting flock of tourists in Kashmir. It is now established that three Pakistani agents and one native from the Valley jointly staged the attack in Pahalgam region. What was clear from the outset, however, was that this was another of the Pakistan-organised terrorist acts. There’s no internal militant network that has the wherewithal to carry out such an attack even as security was slack. Having known as much, retaliatory action should have been swift and strong. Such assaults have happened in the past, and there was every hint this could recur. Yet, nearly a week since the attack, India is in investigation mode and weighing the pros and cons of a retaliatory strike. Immediate reactions like the closure of the Attari border and suspension of the 1960 Indus water treaty would only have limited effect. Stoppage of flow of water that comes from the Himalayan region in Tibet, which finally ends up in Pakistan through the Indian river, cannot be an abrupt act. It will take time for canals to be built to divert the flow to Indian farms. Reports are also that the movement of goods between the two countries would still continue through unauthorized channels. In other words, the actions taken by the Modi government to teach a lesson to Pakistan were soft responses.
Without doubt, the Pakistani military establishment is coordinating and funding the terrorist flow to India through hard-edged training. This has been the case for long and there is conclusive evidence to this. They got away with their act in Mumbai in 2008 as the Manmohan Singh government simply blinked. Later, the Pulwama attack on a CRPF convoy killed over 40 soldiers. This was followed by a surgical strike that was unprecedented and shocked Pakistan and its military establishment. Yet, not much harm was done to Pakistan. Both nations lost at least one each of their military aircraft. The present outrage shows Pakistan did not learn a lesson from the surgical strikes.
It’s now open to the Modi-led central establishment to decide how the response or retaliation should be this time. What’s clear is also that Pakistan is encouraged by China to target India, which was evident also in the game the red nation played at the UN security council this time too. A retired military general has advised caution to the central government, saying the overall striking capacity of both nations is more or less the same though India has a much larger army and military mechanisms. Both are nuclear powers. The government has a better understanding of how the scenario could evolve. A full-scale war is to no one’s advantage. For Pakistan, it could be more disastrous even as such a turn could forge a sense of unity in a deeply divided nation.