An explanation is long overdue. When the Indian military mounted a “surgical strike” across the Myanmar border in June it was hailed as having accounted for some of the Naga insurgents who had only days earlier ambushed an Army convoy in Chandel, Manipur; actually killing 18 jawans whose unit was in the process of disengaging from counter-insurgency operations in the much-troubled part of the North-east. Doubts that it was not a targetted raid against the Chandel killers would now appear to have been reconfirmed. The National Investigation Agency probing the ambush has just announced cash rewards ranging from Rs 200,000 to Rs 700,000 for information leading to the arrest of 24 insurgents – it has identified and named them – who were involved in the cowardly trap.

That announcement would be at serious variance with the initial claim of the NDA government that among those “neutralised” were men who had been active at Chandel. To be on the look-out for no fewer than 24 suspects would indicate the raid by the Special Forces was essentially revenge-action, perhaps to send out a message, but not specifically directed at those who had massacred the soldiers of 6 Dogra when they were in the process of “pulling out”. Whether the NIA will succeed in bringing the miscreants to book remains a matter of speculation: undoubtedly a tall order, but then why the big talk after the so-called “hot pursuit”?

As the months pass by, the shallowness of the Modi government&’s way of functioning is sinking in – and that is not just a question of electoral promises never fulfilled. The fanfare after the cross-border strike has fallen flat: the Myanmarese authorities claim they were unaware, never approved of it. The promised detailed account of the success-story has yet to be presented to the public – neither has the defence minister&’s assurance of the full facts of the setting ablaze of a small vessel off the Gujarat coast on New Year&’s Eve been fulfilled.

The strike across the frontier in Manipur was clearly a “political” action, the NDA wanted to “show” it would not hesitate to counter-punch, and letting the minister of state for information and broadcasting do the boasting was part of the game plan – the sharpshooting ex-Army officer could not be held directly responsible for back-tracking on the bragging. His veiled warning to Pakistan that it too would have to pay has been “answered” by a string of cease-fire violations on the LOC, militant forays at installations of the security forces and continuing infiltration without a single Indian strike at the terrorist-training camps or their launch pads. If Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore cared to take a second look at his TV performance he would find himself embarrassed. The bombast stands exposed.