Retaliating against terror is tricky. But India's message after Balakot has worked so far

You can argue forever about how well-targeted our retaliatory strike on Balakot for the Pulwama massacre was. According to the Pakistanis, who took the Western media to the site of the Indian air attack, we missed the target and killed a couple of goats and hit a few trees instead. According to us, we damaged the headquarters of the terrorist group behind the Pulwama massacre (though we later dialled back the figure of 500 dead). These questions have been raised again and again and are now back in the news following the release of a new book by Ajay Bisaria,…