THE NEW RED LINE

TRUCE REMAINS TENUOUS AS INDIA DRAWS A TOUGH NEW NORMAL FOR DEALING WITH A RECALCITRANT PAKISTAN OVER SPONSORING TERROR, INCLUDING RESUMING DEADLY RETRIBUTION IF PAKISTAN DOES NOT MEND ITS WAYS

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

AS PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI PREPARED TO ADDRESS THE NATION ON MAY 12, two days after the dramatic cessation of hostilities in India’s sixth war with Pakistan, he knew it would be a defining moment of his third term. Twenty-six years earlier, in the summer of 1999, the Indian armed forces had, under the watch of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first prime minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), successfully repelled Pakistan’s brazen bid to capture the Kargil heights in what was the fifth war between the two countries. If circumstances had forced Vajpayee to go to war, then Modi, too, had no option but to visit severe punishment upon its neighbour for fostering a terror infrastructure that was responsible for the brutal gunning down of 26 innocent civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on April 22.