It may be alright for nightly television news channels to feast on the Myanmar kill by the Indian commandos, but quite another for government ministers to indulge in wholly unwarranted bravado. Maturity required that the operation be played low-key officially. Of course, the temptation to milk it for self-congratulation was great, but, then, restraint and sobriety ought to have informed the official reaction. Unfortunately, a junior minister boasting of Prime Minister Modi’s big chest and the severe punishment inflicted on the insurgents reflected poorly on the entire Government. Indeed, in this regard one might point out that Modi’s tweet that he was the first to inform his counterpart in Nepal about the massive earthquake too was out of place. Blowing one’s own trumpet in such matters somehow seems graceless. In the case of the Myanmar operation, welcome as it was, there ought to have been no attempt to over-sell it. Though Modi himself deserves full credit for having sanctioned it without any hesitation once the insurgents of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) had ambushed and killed 18 soldiers on June 4, those who actually carried out the daring operation are no less worthy of praise. It was their life that was on the line should anything have gone wrong, as is not unlikely in such operations. But in the time honoured tradition of special operations squads drawn from various wings of the armed forces they too must eschew all publicity. Indeed, their identity ought not to be made public given the nature of the top secret work they do for the country. Even here, it was improper for some television channels to flash a group photo of the commandos who had carried out the operation. Hopefully, their seniors would take the necessary steps to rein in the natural human tendency for publicity.
Thanks to the wild comments of some in the Government and the usual loudmouths in the media, especially in the nightly television ‘news’ shows, Pakistan was provoked to react angrily. Mind you, even without boasting, the Myanmar operation had sent a warning to Pakistan. But there was no need for anyone in authority in this country to rub it in. That was wholly uncalled for. The over-the-top Indian reaction struck Pakistan’s raw nerve, with Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan warning that Pakistan was not Myanmar and that “India should not try such a misadventure inside her territory.” Others in the Pakistan establishment too reacted on similar lines. Of course, it will be a great folly if someone ever believed that Pakistan was Myanmar. But at the same time it must be noted that henceforth Pakistan should be prepared for what can only be called a tit-for-tat response from this country. If it exports terror from its soil, or its soldiers on the Line of Actual Control indulge in wanton firing at Indian targets, the Modi Government can be relied upon to respond forcefully and effectively. The days of India taking it lying down are gone. Last year when Pakistani Rangers fired at the Indian border guards killing a couple of them, the Rawalpindi G.HQ was stunned by the ferocity of the counter-attack. Pakistani media for days did not stop lamenting the ‘unprovoked and barbaric attack’ by India. Besides, Pakistan may not be Myanmar but it is not an impenetrable fortress either. Remember how the US Seals had flown deep inside its territory to eliminate Osama bin Laden without the Pakistani soldiers able to fire a single shot at the audacious intruders.
In other words, wisdom lies in Pakistan abandoning its official policy of using terrorists as instruments of State policy and in its returning to the negotiating table to thrash out problems that have dogged its relations with India. Meanwhile, under the changed political environment in the sub-continent, the political establishment in Pakistan will have to be doubly on guard against myriad jihadi elements, mercenary or otherwise, who might seek to perpetrate an incident against India with an eye on provoking a bigger conflagration. However, taming of such elements may
not be possible unless the Pakistani Government is able to rein in the ISI. How it will purge the ISI of terror-masters is a challenge for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In fact, Sharif himself has never been free from the threat from ISI, which, it has been rightly said, is a state-within-the-state.
