Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has solemnly assured us that the deaths of Captain Kundu and his three troopers in Pakistani firing on Sunday will be duly avenged. That he offered the placebo from a poll-bound Tripura speaks of the BJP’s approach of making politically palatable a diplomatic-political failure to stabilise Kashmir and the border. The fallen soldiers, the shut schools and maimed civilians become part of an anti-Pakistan rhetoric that resonates well with the Hindutva constituency during elections. It was little surprise that Rajnath Singh’s colourful broadside against Pakistan — kisi ne maa ka doodh nahi piya jo Kashmir ko alag kar sake — were picked up by junior ministers and assorted Hindutva spear-carriers. Doubtless, Pakistan makes similar assertions for its domestic audience when its soldiers fall to bullets in what has been an unrelenting tit-for-tat for over three years. After so many deaths on the border, the government needs to be asked, especially after the surgical strikes failed to temper the Pakistanis, about the end game behind this approach. The people need to be told whether this daily dose of attrition has an expiry date. Since neither side has or will ever achieve a decisive military edge over the other on the border, both governments are content with framing the recurring casualties in a grander nationalist vision where these small pains must be endured for an undefined but bright future. The strategy of a “matching response” appears deceptively low-risk at face value. Yet, there is no guarantee that cross-border incidents may get degenerated to a full-blown military entanglement. Clearly, both sides have not done enough to create a less aggressive space for political disagreement that then gets reflected in military behaviour. The only tangible accrual from Modi government’s policy of hostilities on border has been to ensure a nationalist high ground for the BJP. But the law of diminishing returns may be setting in. The Pakistanis seem to be on familiar turf with the policy of “matching response”, happily exchanging bullet for bullet and sacrificing a life for a life. And Kashmir remains still far removed from normalcy.