Through calculated strikes and unwavering resolve, Prime Minister Modi delivered not just punishment, but a message: the canvas of Indian resolve is not to be misread

Be it the history of Europe, or that of Asia, it is difficult to find an instance of what one might arguably be artistry in the conduct of a battle, leaving aside a war. This is not surprising. Art is usually associated with the practice or creation of a work of beauty, aiming for perfection; for example, the Taj Mahal.

The dome is flanked by the four minarets, which, as it were, seem to support the dome and provide a frame to the main structure of the Mahal, from a distance. For my part, I cannot think of anyone worthy of mention who practices this art on the battlefield except for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is no professional military general.

Also to be borne in mind is the fact that the scope of modern conflict is not confined to land, but covers the sea and skies, outer space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence.

The horrific outrage committed on the afternoon of April 22 at Pahalgam was unusually barbaric in the spectre of terrorism. The Prime Minister, therefore, condemned it unequivocally, as well as touchingly. He then went on to promise that the barbarians who did this would soon meet appropriate punishment of such severity that they would remember it for life.

The PM did not move away from the canvas of terrorism and repeatedly reminded the perpetrators that their just punishment and swift retribution were soon coming; they ought not to think otherwise even if it took a few more days to happen.

Some of the terrorists and their masters in Pakistan did begin to feel that India’s PM was perhaps easing off from the issue.

A lot of people at home too might have felt that perhaps the PM was beginning to forget.

After all, the head of a country’s Government has files upon files of work pouring in every day from the secretariats.

I met three persons on the evening of May 6 who told me to forget any punishment or retribution; the issue was “becoming too old”, they told me. Come 1:30 in the morning the same night nine centres of terror in the territory of Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were reduced to ashes by India’s cruise missile attacks.

Any number of merchants of terror and murder were targeted and struck, leaving innumerable dead and others wounded. In less than 25 minutes, the heart of Pakistan was destroyed by Indian armed retribution. According to reliable information, more than 200 terrorists have been killed.

They were also mourned, for their ‘service’ to their ideology and state, as that country’s seniormost military officials did not forget to be present to offer their salutes before the funerals. Pakistan’s behaviour has proved its umbilical ties to all such elements whether with or without a uniform.

In any other country, the coffins of the terror merchants would not have seen such official attendance.

Come the morning of the 8th, the dispensing of punishment continued by the Indian armed forces continued unabated, with the terrorists being the only target. No civilian was targeted and hit; only the purveyors of terror were sent to their graves. By early evening, up to a total of 200 terrorists had been rewarded with burial ceremonies, but only them and no others. Apart from this, 11 of Pakistan’s elite air force bases and its Chinese-made air defence systems were destroyed in devastating Indian missile strikes, with Islamabad reduced to pathetic helplessness.

There are few artists whose arms are strong enough to not veer from the art master’s desire.

Long before a mistake was made, the enemy’s pleading for a ceasefire was chivalrously conceded. That is art, where an artist paints on, without fault or anger. So much so, that even the enemies’ cries are answered with chivalry.

To leave PM Modi alone and isolated wouldn’t make a symmetry. If one were to think of a peer, one can think of only Otto von Bismarck, who made himself Chancellor of Germany from that of only Prussia.

There were any number of principalities and cities, such as Hanover, Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, Dresden, Schweig, Nassau, Frankfurt, Altenburg, Coburg, Weimar, Sondershausen, Rundstedt, Mecklenburg Strelitz, Oldenburg, Braunschweig, Hamburg, Lubeck, etc. Patiently and systematically, Bismarck persuaded, pressurised, threatened, and charmed but managed to amalgamate them into what was his dream of a united Germany. Surprisingly, it is not very different from its map even today.

No doubt, after the defeat of Adolf Hitler in World War II, East Germany, i.e., most of Prussia was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet bloc as the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

By its good fortune, East and West Germany were reunited when the Berlin Wall was brought down by common folk in 1991. Otto Von Bismarck’s “blood and iron” policies of the 1860s did not go to waste.

In a somewhat different way to India’s, German history in this context can be described as artistic. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Otto von Bismarck have often been compared by historians as architecturally admirable.

Sardar Patel of course, was in the context of integrating the subcontinents princely states? 563 of them into the Indian Union with hardly any bloodshed.

(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha; views are personal)