On May 7, India crossed the Rubicon. The Roman senate had prohibited Julius Caesar from entering Italy with his army, but in 49 BC, Caesar, as the governor of Gaul, crossed the boundary line between Italy and Gaul, and history is witness to what followed later. The Indian army on May 7 attacked 9 places, four of which were in Pakistan. Though India made it clear that its attack was only targeted at terrorists’ infrastructures and was non-escalatory in nature. But a message was conveyed that India’s patience had passed the critical barometer and the gruesome killings of innocent Indians in Pahalgam were basically an assault on the soul of India. The attack was to teach the perpetrators a lesson. India crossed the line which it had avoided even during the Kargil war.

India’s message was unambiguous. Any terrorist attack on Indian soil, henceforth, will be retaliated to with ferocity, and Pakistan would pay the price. This was a message to the world too; that India had tolerated enough in the past and its tolerance should not be misunderstood as weakness. India could no longer be blackmailed by the simple fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power state and any conflict between the two could turn into a nuclear war. What complicated the whole affair more and should be viewed as a major paradigm shift in the relationship between the two countries was Pakistan’s nefarious attempt to view the India-Pakistan affair through the prism of the two-nation theory. Pakistan’s army chief Munir’s articulation of the two-nation theory could have been avoided, but the reiteration of the same and reference to Mohammad........

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