SMART POWER

With courage and vision, PM shows how India-pak diplomacy can occupy a more spacious, less shrivelled ground

WHenprimeministernarendramoditookthestageatthepublicrally in Kozhikode on Saturday to break his silence on Uri, it was a moment set in a clamorous context. The backdrop was made up of the hardening and coarsening of public-political debate since the attack in which 19 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Voices within his own government and parivar were calling for a cessation of restraint, with BJP general secretary Ram Madhav baying, "for one tooth, the complete jaw." Many in the Opposition, reflexively — and regrettably — joined in the noise with the Congress reminding the PM of his own hardline rhetoric on Pakistan in the past, inciting the PM to, as senior party leader Amarinder Singh put it charmlessly, “kill 20 of theirs” if “they kill 10 of ours”. “Something must be done”, was the refrain, inflamed and inchoate, and there was loose talk of “escalation strategies” and “military options”. It was in this moment that PM Modi broke his silence to dare the people of Pakistan: Come join the fight, with India, he said, against poverty, against unemployment, against illiteracy, and against maternal and infant mortality — and let’s see who wins first. For the moment, on Saturday, the PM seemed to achieve at least two things: He showed that leadership is about not losing sight of the big picture, and about articulating it, against the current. And that a leader is one who has the acuity and courage to stay ahead of his followers, even while responding to them.

It could be said that the PM’S re-articulation of India’s Pakistan challenge in the 21st century — as one shared by peoples of both countries — is born of a certain necessity. It is only an acknowledgement, is it not, of India’s constraints in taking on Pakistan militarily? That is a mean-spirited argument in this moment. It takes the narrowest view of things. PM Modi’s attempt at Kozhikode to shift the terms of the discussion on Pakistan is powerful precisely because he cites India’s strengths and capacities, not its constraints. The India-pakistan story, he says, is not just India vs Pakistan. It is also one of two nations with possibilities and resources in the “Asian century", held back by common problems like poverty and illiteracy. The India story is larger than that of India-pakistan, and it is shored up as much by its exports of software as it is secured by the valour of its soldiers. What most empowers India’s soldiers is not their “shastra” or weapons but “desh ka manobal”, the self-possession of a nation as it moves, in the PM’S words, towards a future of greater prosperity, equality, justice, cleanliness, accountability, respect for women, job opportunities — and hope.

The PM’S rhetorical device of speaking directly to the Pakistani people is an imaginative attempt to break from the predictable patterns of cross-border ripostes. It acknowledged that far from being the monolithic “other”, Pakistan is a multi-layered entity, and that its people cannot be punished for the terrible failures of their leaders. From that moral high ground, PM Modi has raised hopes that diplomacy between India and Pakistan could occupy a more spacious, less shrivelled, space. His government must live up to his soaring promise.