The entire nation is entitled to feel enraged that 17 soldiers should have lost lives at the hands of four ‘fidayeen’ attackers from across the Line of Control in the Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir in Sunday’s wee hours. The Prime Minister has spoken for the entire country when he correctly asserted that those behind the attack would not be allowed to go unpunished. The Union Home Minister, too, has called a spade a spade and minced no word in mentioning Pakistan’s involvement in the Sunday morning outrage. The whole country salutes the brave men and officers of the Indian Army.The Uri assault cannot be brushed away as yet another ‘incident’. Pakistan is ratcheting up tension, violence and instability all along the India-Pakistan border. Islamabad is testing New Delhi’s patience and will. The Modi government will expectedly find itself under angry public opinion — already being worked up by 24×7 news outlets — to come up with a muscular response. The Uri attack is being catalogued as the sixth major terror attack in the past nine months. The Modi national security establishment will also feel the heat from its own mentors in the Sangh Parivar.Though we should never be averse to any escalation of tensions or to even a confrontation with Pakistan, as a mature and stable nation it is incumbent that we try to avoid the trap of a knee-jerk response. Our answers and responses need to be steadied, smart and efficacious. And to be sure, our response need not be defined only in military terms. There are a whole range of punitive options, short of a full-scale war, available to the government. And, only the government can have an appreciation of those choices and it is only the government that can make the over-all cost-benefit analysis of any particular response. Nor is it necessary that our response should come here and now, or be even openly spelled out. All that the government needs to know is that it will have the support of the entire nation in whatever manner it chooses to respond — just as Pakistan should know that terror tactics will not unnerve India.