India must decide whether the Pakistan-backed terrorist assault on the army base in Uri — that killed 18 soldiers and is the biggest attack on Indian army since the 2002 Kaluchak massacre — merits a tough tangible response, or is rhetorical flourish and a pregnant promise enough deterrence against a rogue nation that has fought four full-scale wars against us since its inception and continues to beat us with the terrorism stick as part of an asymmetric, never-ending battle.
The answer to this question is important because between a government trapped within its hardline image and realpolitik compulsions, an angry republic which demands some sort of a denouement vis-à-vis Pakistan, and a liberal commentariat that considers bleeding to death by a thousand terrorist cuts some sort of an attainable moral nirvana, India comes across as a weak nation that cannot act in its self-defence.
The boundaries between "strategic restraint", "paralytic inaction" and "cowardice" are not that pronounced when it comes to a country's national interests faced with repeated and extreme provocation. Historically, India's every action in the geopolitical sphere and international relations has been guided not by strategic interests but the Nehruvian axiom of "non-alignment" and the higher Gandhian ideal of non-violence.
But in this hour of crisis, the Narendra Modi government would do well to remember that even the Mahatma did not offer unqualified adherence to non-violence. He perhaps understood better that statecraft cannot be guided by idealism.
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