Dear Pakistan-based, Pakistan-trained, India-bound terrorist apprentice,
I trust things aren’t really going well at your end! I would have tweeted but, you know, I’m a busy man. Actually governing a country — as opposed to appearing to govern a country — is a time-consuming exercise. But enough digs at you, because by now, I hope you and your senior colleagues have learned a lesson.
If you get the chance to read this letter in this life or the afterlife (which is what you will experience should you attempt another adventure on the LoC), know how stupendously your late senior colleagues — who lost their lives at the hands of the Indian Army on Wednesday night — proved that they did not have minds of their own. All they had were minds filled by your political leaders with anti-India hatred and filled with an eternal false dream by your handlers: The proverbial Jannat and the 72 virgins waiting there.
File image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PTIFile image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PTI
After the Uri attack on 18 September, when the forces on both sides of LoC were on high alert — India expecting further infiltration/terror attempts and Pakistan gearing for an Indian retaliation any moment, I do not understand why your late colleagues committed the blunder of exposing themselves to the obvious danger. They moved closer to the LoC to face an alert, aggressive and provoked Indian Army. So, by planning your infiltration expedition across the border a month after the Uri attack, your colleagues have proven that they weren’t really thinking straight.
And for what? You and your late friends don’t even exist in the records kept by your government, but are willing to dance to the whims of its army and ISI, all while singing the glory of the Islamic State. I strongly recommend that you cut short your apprenticeship at this very moment and seek some other — preferably, gainful — employment, if you have some thoughts of your own in that well-indoctrinated mind of yours.
Only my government, the Indian Special Forces and your former colleagues know the exact nature of what really happened on Wednesday night — whether it was a first-of-its-kind surgical strike that is rumoured to have killed around 40 of your lot or one of the many such surgical attacks the army has been conducting periodically to neutralise terrorists at the LoC. But no one will dare to ask questions on specifics. Not, when emotions are flying so high and every Indian is revelling in a sense of having achieved vengeance.
I don’t expect you to understand the compulsions of politics — whether for me or for my one-time friend Nawaz Sharif. We have to speak and act according to the will of the people of our respective countries. I am someone, who unlike my predecessor, happens to have a 56-inch chest and, logically, the burden to show that it isn’t a myth. I had to prove that all that talk about a tough stance on terrorism wasn’t just meant to be on paper. Now I can say that we have broken the past of the depressing ‘self-restraint’ approach to your kind and we have done what was needed.
A measure of payback for Uri has been achieved.
I’m sure you and your handlers were living in a fool’s world listening to my Kozhikode speech, where I said I would only wage war with you on poverty, unemployment and human rights violations. Your people failed to read my lips. I did talk to Pakistani people directly from Kozhikode to make them understand what was in store. I had warned you that Uri would be avenged, and in a befitting manner.
And yet, what was it you were all fixated on? Kashmir?
You should know that your handlers know fully well that Kashmir is not the issue your country should be fighting for. Pakistan is shattered — both economically and politically. Your leaders must be joking when they say there are ready for a war with India. Pakistan is already is fighting a crisis with its near-empty coffers. Already, 77 percent of Pakistan’s budget is meant for debt-servicing. A $6.6 billion loan your prime minister took from the International Monetary Fund in 2013 — which pushed up Pakistan’s external debt by 79 percent — is up for repayment by the end of this year. How do you expect to wage a war against us? Armed with a handful of IOUs?
I strongly recommend that you cut short your apprenticeship at this very moment and seek some other — preferably, gainful — employment, if you have some thoughts of your own in that well-indoctrinated mind of yours
Don’t worry about this so-called war, but remember that the surgical strikes aren’t the end of this matter.
Next, we are going to put an end to whatever little trade we have with your country by withdrawing the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status and ostracising you from Saarc. That’ll also mark the beginning of a new regional equation that sees India working with like-minded South Asian friends. Perhaps, your political bosses should rethink ordering your lot to cross the border in the name of Kashmir yet again.
Unfortunately for you, this isn’t the India you know — the one that only responds with appeals, tears and candlelight marches every time you and your pals enter our country and take innocent lives. The ever-tolerant India that perpetually lives in passivity, treats terrorists with kid gloves and lives in the hope that your political leaders actually see terrorism as a bad thing was left behind in 2014. We know that.
Here’s hoping you also know that.
Yours sincerely,
Narendra Modi
