The Hard Choices Of 2019

This is the 18th year of the India Today Conclave. And, as it transpires, we’ve arrived not a moment too soon.

- Aroon Purie

We are on the threshold of two major events that epitomise the conclave theme of ‘Hard Choices’. On February 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his hardest choice by launching an air strike on terrorist targets in Pakistan in response to Pulwama. It was the deadliest terror attack in the Valley on our security forces, killing 40 CRPF jawans. The terror group Jaishe-Mohammed operating out of Pakistan took responsibility.

It was a firm and audacious response by Prime Minister Modi. No such strike has been undertaken since 1971, and given the kind of country Pakistan is, it could not have been an easy decision to make.

Pakistan is a bonsai democracy on the brink of bankruptcy. It’s driven by the compulsions of the army. At every opportunity, they threaten us with their nuclear weapons.

This time, Prime Minister Modi called their bluff. India was careful to couch its attack as a “non-military preemptive strike” and reach out to the international community to create a diplomatic firewall around its right to respond to a grave provocation.

As claims and counter-claims abounded, both sides could be accused of propaganda and misguided rhetoric. In the bargain, Truth became a casualty.

Now, there is a stalemate. Pakistan says, let’s talk. But India says it won’t talk till Pakistan shows tangible evidence of dismantling their terrorist infrastructure. Quite rightly so.

You must have read in the newspapers the prime minister’s clever but serious quip: “A pilot project is done. Now the real one has to be done, it was practice earlier.”