Hard responses, but no war drums

The demand — made notably by the BJP — that efforts to normalise ties with Pakistan be frozen following the beheading of one Indian soldier and the mutilation of the body of another is in a sense now redundant. Given the angry public reaction that has swiftly followed the outrage, it will be a brave government that will seek to push the peace card any farther at the present juncture, not least with the general election on the horizon. We may take it that the liberalised visa regime to promote trade and people-level exchanges that has just been signed will remain an achievement on paper. One ill-advised but apparently coldly calculated move by Islamabad has given a monumental setback to what looked like real gains on the ground for the first time since 1971. The causes will unfold as time passes. But it is not unlikely these may be linked to the Pakistani military preparing the ground for a more direct domestic role to be able to regulate the outcome of the upcoming general election in the country, and an untrammelled regional role in Afghanistan (with the American departure imminent) despite disavowals which aren’t given credence anyway. The Americans will frown only if it impacts them adversely. India will thus have to rely on itself to deal with Pakistan. This is best done without making extravagant noises of a militaristic nature. International opinion has not been with Pakistan for some time, and this became plain when Islamabad’s double-dealing was seen on Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. The national mood in India was shaped by the horror of beheading, not by a routine transgression on the LoC from the Pakistani side which we have learnt to accept with a measure of philosophical detachment in the larger interest of working for a peaceful neighbourhood. Evidently this has not been to the liking of the Pakistani military. So, it went out of its way to do things that would cause an uproar in India. Army Chief General Bikram Singh has rightly noted that the calculated beheading would have taken up to 10 days to plan, and was not a chance occurrence dependent on the vagaries of a patrolling party’s life on the LoC. It is best if Indian politicians took it easy now on. Gen. Singh has called decapitation an “un-soldierly” act. It will be a pity if the Indian Army seeks to reply in the same way. The Army Chief has called for a suitably aggressive but “tactical” response, one that does not lead to allout war. This is balanced thinking. The same message is expected from leading figures in the government, the ruling party and the Opposition.