Sunday's devastating attack in Uri carries shadows of the 2002 Kaluchak massa­cre, when three Lashkar-e-Taiba militants killed three army personnel, 18 members of their family and 10 other civilians in Jammu. That attack came months after the assault on Parliament in New Delhi, and nearly transformed a troop buildup—Operation Parakram — into a full-blown war between India and Pakistan.

The Uri attack may have somewhat similar consequenc­es. It will push India-Pakistan relations, already at their lowest ebb in years, to a new low. And it may signal the resurgence of old tactics in Kashmir, at a time when unarmed protesters have convincingly seized the mantle of armed terrorists.

The past decade has seen major terror attacks across India, though mass casualties have proven far easier to inflict on softer civilian targets in cities father than military forces in their bases. The Pathankot attack in January killed seven security personnel, which was half the number killed in a market in the Assamese town of Kokrajhar last month. This is one reason why Uri's 17 casual­ties are so shocking. While there have been larger numbers killed in the post-Kaluchak era, this is likely the deadliest attack on a facility.

More broadly, India has grown accustomed to stead­ily declining violence, both in Jammu and Kashmir and in the rest of India. Last year, the country saw the fewest civilians killed in terror attack and the second-fewest security person­nel — both falls probably driv­en by trends within Kashmir, thanks to tighter control over the Line of Control.

Official statistics last year showed that local militants outnumbered non-Indian ones. According to the head of the Srinagar-based Chinar corps, cross-border infiltration was down to a "trickle". Attacks in Gurdaspur last year and Pathankot in January pointed to weaknesses in border secu­rity, but the scale of the prob­lem has significantly fallen. Large, anomalous attacks like Uri shatter this statistical calm.

The Pathankot attack offered a brief moment of hope that India and Pakistan might handle the fall-out of these incidents in mature, constructive ways. But the steady collapse in India-Pakistan relations in the months thereaf­ter, marked by the most recent reciprocal sniping on Kashmir and Balochistan, has produced a completely different mood.

"Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," tweeted home minister Rajnath Singh hours after Sunday's attack in Uri. "Those behind this despi­cable attack will not go unpun­ished," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Ram Madhav, the BJP's secre­tary general, suggests what this might mean in practice: 'Tor one tooth, the complete jaw. Days of so-called strategic restraint are over".

This echoes previous allu­sions to retaliation-in-kind, made by NSA Ajit Doval, defence minister Manohar Parrikar, and many other would-be covert warriors. In concert with the government's new approach to Balochistan, there is every rea­son to believe that the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) will be given a freer hand to impose a cost on Pakistani terrorist groups, their patrons in the Pakistani intelligence serv­ices, and perhaps even on the Pakistani state more broadly.

Among the more publicly visi­ble consequences will be a further hardening of the government's approach to Kashmir. As counter-terrorism operations widen, pro­tests — already the worst in the Valley since the 1990s—will inten­sify. Another will be a ratcheting up of the diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. Sushma Swaraj's speech for the UN General Assembly in New York on September 26 will go through a frenzy of editing in the coming days.

Uri is not a turning point. There will be no airstrikes or mass mobilisation. But it is a stepping towards what will be a more violent, unpredictable, and tumultuous period in India-Pakistan relations.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, 19, November, 2016