Modi may have got his Indira Gandhi moment with India's response to Uri

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not mince his words when he warned Pakistan against the deadly attacks at Uri earlier this month. Not only did he threaten Pakistan of isolating it internationally, he also promised the nation of punishing terror perpetrators by giving India's arch rival a fitting response.

Modi has kept his promise. 11 days on, Modi has ensured that the sacrifice of India's 18 jawans has not been in vain. With the Indian Army launching a surgical attack, which sources say killed 38 terorrists, Modi has sent a strong message to Pakistan.

Indian Army, on Tuesday early morning, launched a series of surgical attacks across the Line of Control in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

With this, the ruling party can claim that Modi is a Prime Minister with a spine as tough as that of Indira Gandhi's who changed the face of South Asia in 1971.

Back in 1971, India had militarily intervened to reshape the subcontinent, sowing the seeds of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that would come into being, in Dhaka, in 1985. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was famously described as a manifest of Durga as Pakistan splintered into two and the world crooned along with Joan Baez as Gandhi sang the song "Bangladesh".

HI)India boycotting the 19th SAARC Summit scheduled to take place in Islamabad in November was Modi's first step to build a regressive against Pakistan. In a Bharatiya Janata Party rally on September 24, Narendra Modi blamed Pakistan for exporting terror.

The continuity of the decades-old Indus Water Treaty, according to which control over the three eastern rivers was given to India, while control over the three western rivers to Pakistan, lies questionable.

Since the source rivers of the Indus basin lie in India, Pakistan faces the potential threat of droughts and famines if the treaty is broken or stalled.

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with officials to review provisions of the Indus Water Treaty. In that meeting it was decided that India will "exploit to the maximum" the water of Pakistan-controlled rivers, including Jhelum, as per the water-sharing pact.

Modi has also said India will review Pakistan's Most Favoured Nation status, which India granted to Pakistan in 1996.

The possibility of a nuclear war is also doing the rounds with the Indian government preparing to corner Pakistan holistically. Defence experts say war with Pakistan will always be with a nuclear backdrop. And India's endeavour, in case it initiates war, will always be to keep it below the level of nuclear threshold. "But then war is dynamic. If the Indian forces are getting success everywhere, and if you threaten Pakistan's major cities, there may come a time when Pakistan will be forced to use the nuclear option," said a defence expert.

BJP strategists emphasise that Modi is no shrinking violet. That he would much rather underline something he is saying, in all capitals and in red, if he wants to say it at all. Unlike Manmohan Singh, who led a nearly successful backchannel on Kashmir for almost two years, from which India and Pakistan emerged with a four-point solution to manage the problem. Modi is different, say his strategists.

All said, Modi has upped his ante against terror induced by Pakistan and it can be well said he is leaving no stone unturned.