Pahalgam has been avenged, partly. Only the knockout punch remains. It will be delivered at a time, spot and in a manner that India and its armed forces, or its other coercive arms, choose.
Avenged, you may ask. How? On the action side, we have only sent back a few innocent Pakistani citizens, stopped trade, and threatened to choke their rivers. What’s the big deal in these? Nothing.
We hit back by not doing what Pakistan’s mullah-generals, who have been recruiting urchins and training them “to do dirty work” as their defence minister admitted, wanted us to do.
The generals expected us—not only the state of India but the people of India too—to get angry. Indeed we are angry; but we aren’t showing the anger in the way they thought we would. They thought India would get provoked over the lines of faith, and that the whole of India would turn into a post-Godhra Gujarat. That’s why they trained their unschooled boys to ask our tourists about their faith, and then chose the victims by their faith.
Imaging: Deni Lal
But Kashmiris themselves called the Pakistani bluff at Pahalgam. Adopting a unanimous resolution condemning the cowardly killings, the strife-torn territory’s law-makers said they were “mindful of the sinister design behind the selective targeting of the victims....”
The rest of India, too, has been mindful. The whole of India read and heard about the selective targeting, but refused to get provoked on the lines of faith, community or kinship. Hindus didn’t blame Muslims, rulers didn’t blame the opposition, the rest of India didn’t blame Kashmir. India has had one of its finest hours in the post-Pahalgam days.
Indeed, sour notes were heard here and there, both from the ruling and opposition side, but India has largely stood as one, trusting its state, its rulers, and its armed forces.
India has given the decision-makers time to think, brood, deliberate, debate, plan, and strike at the right time, in the right place and in the right manner. No pressure should be brought to bear on them—not political, not economic, and no cries for blood from us the citizens. They will strike at the time of their choosing. It could happen before this column comes out of the press, it could be after dinner tonight, before lunch tomorrow, this weekend, next month, this summer, during the monsoon, or even later. Let’s wait.
The later the better. For two reasons. One, that will keep the mullah-generals in suspense as long as possible. Let the suspense kill them before our boys deliver the final punch. Let them sweat it out through this summer and longer, not knowing when, where or how our men will strike.
Two, let the wait make them lower their guard. The more we delay, the less vigilant they would be. That will also lessen the risks our men will be exposed to.
In the meantime, we can sit assured that the mullah-generals and their cowardly crowd have been exposed. They have run out of the bombs, bazookas, and the smarter gadgets of terror that they had saved from their Afghan stint. They no longer have the dare or devilry to attack targets of strength—assembly building, army camps, convoys or even communication towers. The Pakistani terrorist has been reduced to a mere dacoit who kills unarmed wayfarers.
The people of Kashmir have seen through this. They are no longer afraid of the boys who sneak in from the other side with bullets in their belts and bombs in their backstraps. No surprise why Kashmiris are out on the streets, boldly condemning the civilian-killing cowards.
prasannan@theweek.in