THE security forces know this the world over: the desperate always find ways to cross the borders. The Indian army, despite taking every precaution in the blue book of counter-insurgency, has suffered unacceptably high casualties in yet another militant attack in Jammu & Kashmir. Militants have been continuously probing the army’s defences in the state ever since the Central Government sought to preen over the “surgical strikes” when it went on to suggest it had ended Pakistani appetite for staging violent incidents in India. But the army has since then fended off three attempts to break into their garrisons. The militants finally hit pay dirt in Nagrota on early Tuesday morning.Clearly, the first round of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s gamble of punitive military action against Pakistan has not paid off. Pakistan is in its zone, playing this cat-and-mouse game of ceasefire violations and launching attacks by hastily trained militants to keep the Indian leadership off-balance. On the other hand, its envoy in Delhi is a picture of contrived reasonableness as he sidesteps all the recent violence from Uri to Nagrota and offers to hold talks “if India is interested”. Modi’s adoption of the policy of an eye for an eye very early in his tenure has now made it difficult for him to walk back from that approach.The Prime Minister has painted himself in a corner. His anti-Pakistan cheering crowd will not easily allow him to pick up the tools of diplomatic and political rapprochement with Pakistan. After all if the “surgical strikes” were payback for the Uri hit, then according to their logic, India should carry out another round of attacks to avenge the deaths of 25 soldiers since then. A SWOT analysis would show that India will always come second best against the well-honed Pakistani purveyors of “giving the [stronger] enemy a thousand cuts”. Modi needs to utilise Pakistan foreign policy pundit Sartaj Aziz’s offer for talks when he visits Amritsar this weekend. Bilateral ties have been well muddied as the Prime Minister himself has led the jingoistic charge against Pakistan. But being a proponent of out-of-the-box thinking, it is also time for him to review this singular accent on a muscular approach.