Message from Kozhikode

THE public address at Kozhikode on Saturday must have been the most difficult speech Narendra Modi had had to make these last thirty months as Prime Minister of India. It was an occasion when he was billed to break his inexplicable and uncharacteristic silence since the Pakistan-trained terrorists had attacked an army camp at Uri in which 18 soldiers lost their lives. Emotions had been running high since then. At Kozhikode the Prime Minister was expected to finesse India’s response to the Uri outrage. A certain kind of hype had been cranked up about the speech—mostly by his supporters and admirers in the media. The others – especially Pakistan and the rest of the international community—were also looking for a clue as to how the Prime Minister would carry forward his promise that the perpetrators of the Uri terror attack would not go unpunished. A sense of drama got injected into the evening show when it was let out that the Prime Minister had on Saturday morning summoned the top military brass for last-minute counsel.   

In the event the Prime Minister put in a spirited performance, though without his trademark vim and vinegar. And he did well to reiterate the nation’s resolve not to feel intimidated by terror tactics. He eloquently juxtaposed India’s success story with Pakistan’s failed national narrative.  His direct outreach to the people of Pakistan may not add up to much but the chancelleries across the world are bound to note that the Prime Minister has framed his competition with Pakistan in developmental terms. He was almost Manmohansque in his invocation of the challenge of unemployment and poverty as the common enemy for India and Pakistan. 

This marked absence of overheated military rhetoric can only be understood as an end of the muddle-headedness towards Pakistan. Beneath the careful bombast was the dawn of a new maturity. The Uri attack must have cured the Modi establishment of the let-us-break-bread-in-Lahore naivety. We are in for a long haul. Geography provides Pakistan certain advantages; its internal structures would not permit any entente with India. Our biggest challenge is not to let Pakistan distract us from our national journey of economic prosperity and democratic vibrancy. There was a hint of this realisation at Kozhikode.