The Line Must Move

I write this not as a political or policy strategist, but as a citizen—grieving, angry, and worn down by the cruel repetition of loss. What happened in Pahalgam was not a tragedy in the abstract. It was a massacre: deliberate, ideological, and executed with precision. Civilians were not collateral in a faceless conflict—they were identified, targeted, and slain. Beyond an act of terror; it was a message.

There are moments in a nation’s life when it must decide whether to merely endure history or to shape it. Pahalgam must become that moment. Some costs in history must be borne—not because they are desired, but because justice demands them. We cannot bring back lives we have lost, but we can ensure their sacrifice is not buried in silence or diluted in ritual.

For too long, we have walked the long road of outrage—of candlelight vigils, televised debates, and fleeting fury. And yet, we have also seen the evolution of India’s response—from uneasy silence to decisive surgical strikes. But that trajectory cannot stop halfway. From surgical strikes, we must now move to surgical amputation—not trimming branches but uprooting the source.

Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) is not just geography—it is a crucible of pathology. It is a breeding ground—trained, armed, and ideologically fuelled to spill blood across ours. Today, Pakistan is not merely a hostile state. It is an affront to the moral order of nations—a place where civilian bloodshed is a tactic, not an aberration; where theology arms the state, and the state hides behind deniability. It is where uniformed generals hand over terrain to militant camps, and where religious ideology is contorted into a blueprint for mass murder. Engaging such a structure with only the tools of diplomacy is not restraint but moral abdication. To expect civility from a system that thrives on incivility is to betray the very lives we vow to protect.

India has fought three wars with Pakistan, and yet the proxy war continues unabated. Because deterrence so far, has been superficial. Pakistan has never suffered a strategic cost that leaves it with a scar. The Line of Control (LoC) has seen skirmishes, not seismic responses. Their pain has never mirrored our loss. It is time—while we applied ointment to our wounds—we scratched Pakistan deep enough. Only then would a terror state register consequence. Only then loss would be felt in a language they understood.

This is not a call for reckless adventurism—it is a call for calculus. For strategic realism rooted in consequence. A doctrine of fair deterrence. Not reaction, but rebalancing. Every act of terror must result in a shift in the equation—one that Pakistan cannot ignore and the world cannot deny. India must stop treating diplomacy as ritual and start treating it as leverage. The Modi government has, to its credit, begun walking this path—most notably by initiating steps to walk out of the Indus Waters Treaty, a longstanding symbol of goodwill now rendered obsolete by bloodshed. Such measures are not symbolic—they are statements of resolve. We must also shed the diplomatic courtesies we extend to Pakistan by habit or nostalgia. A state that sanctifies slaughter in the name of faith, that erases the line between governance and terrorism, forfeits the privilege of being treated by the norms we reserve for legitimate states.

We are not the tentative republic of yesteryears. Today, India is both a civilisational voice and a regional power. Our diplomacy no longer begs. It asserts. Our diplomats must wake up to the reality that global opinion does not shape itself. It must be courted, carved, and compelled. The world must be made to reckon with the costs of Islamist fundamentalism and cross-border terror—not in abstract terms, but through the truth of massacres like Pahalgam. Economic leverage must be used where needed. Moral leverage must be wielded without hesitation. Every nation must be treated not as a faceless bloc but as an individual actor—capable of alliance or betrayal. A red line has been crossed by Pakistan. And the world must be made to note it.

This moment also demands composure and coherence at home. This is not the time to hunt for scapegoats or dissect operational lapses. Our security forces did not fail us. They stood their ground, as they always do—with courage few comprehend. But our security forces are too often left to fight with one hand tied behind their backs by a national discourse that refuses to name its enemy.

The liberal establishment in India has long abdicated its responsibility to speak truth in its rawest form. They avoid confronting Islamic fundamentalism and tiptoe around the ideology of Islamist terror in the fear of appearing majoritarian. This is not moral restraint—it is moral collapse. To refuse to name the threat is to shield it. To rationalise its violence is to participate in its longevity. This is not nuance—it is intellectual and moral betrayal. And let us be unequivocal: calling out Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism is not an attack on Muslims. It is a defence of civil society, of pluralism, of the countless Muslims themselves who are victims of the same ideological poison. National security cannot be dictated by the insecurities of editorials that hesitate to speak clearly about the very survival of the nation.

The question is no longer how to avenge the dead alone. The question is also how to secure the living. Pahalgam must not be remembered as one more footnote in the ledger of national grief. It must be remembered as the threshold—where India turned from mourning to movement, from retaliation to reclamation, from anger to permanence.

From this moment forward, the line must move.

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