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Narendra Modi silences his critics once for all

When some terrorists from Pakistan attacked Uri the other week, the biggest casualty was the image of our Prime Minister. A quick peep into social media would have shown anyone the impatience for action, like he had promised. I was amused to see people bringing out Indira Gandhi's name as someone who was really bold enough leader. That was of course more insulting to Dr. Manmohan Singh then to Mr. Modi as Singh unlike Modi had been at help for a decade yet the Congress had to dig into 70s to find a name to prop against Modi

By sanctioning a surgical strike yesterday Modi has really shown his mettle as one of the shrewdest PMs we ever had. What he tried was risky, innovative and immensely successful, First, he took the bitter pill of bad publicity to his name as someone not doing enough. Then with Sushma Swaraj's help at the United Nations, a diplomatic offensive was launched. At the sideline was talks about Indus Water Treaty and MFN status to India. With people hammering for action as not realising the importance of such initiatives, Modi remained patient. He is known to play to the gallery but this time he almost took a back seat and let others do the talking. He then decided against SAARC meet, which was pretty obvious but was handled quite well by India. With other nations supporting India, it didn't come as a unilateral but a joint decision by member nations.

And then came the news of the surgical strike. It is not the strike that is quite important. It is the strategy of execution. The Prime Minister waited, gave time to Army to plan well and not pushed it to take a knee jerk reaction. Then look at how it was announced to the world. A senior Amry officer and a senior foreign ministry official briefed the media. There was no denial, no bragging. Just plain fact. Yes, a unit of army went across LOC and terminated terrorists. It was wonderfully presented to the world. As India had already stated clearly to the World that Pakistan is a terrorist state and should be dealt accordingly. So even if the World is shocked and surprised, all countries were given clear inklings. They now cant say that they were shocked or say anything substantial against the strike.

Also the PM has probably shut the opposition up for the time being. The kind of rhetoric that was coming from opposition was like India goes to war daily and today should be no different. There was too much criticism for the government. The attack on Thursday morning would have surprised them all. The obviously had to now back the government. On his part, Modi's government briefed all opposition leaders to make sure a united polity is maintained.

By showing a grit and patience like Vajpayee did through Kargil and then operation Prakaram, Modi has not only managed to silence his critics but maybe won some admirers along the way.
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