Hello World,
Armed assailants shot down 26 people in Pahalgam, a hill station in Jammu & Kashmir.
'Perception management' can help win elections but delivering preventive security on the ground is a very different game. Repealing Article 370, converting a state into union territories and enabling out-of-state real-estate investments have nothing to do with solving the Kashmir problem. The fact is that these changes post 2014 has only added to the trouble.
It is true, media campaigns have created the 'Kashmir is safe' perception. The reality is different. Any region which loses its legislative assembly and starts reporting to a union territory administration pushes the citizens of that state lose something critical - their political representation. The legislative powers under a union territory administration is not the same as that of a regular state legislative assembly. Taking away political representation is nothing short of taking away democratic rights from a citizen. We will never understand it until we are at the receiving end of such state-sponsored constitutional violation.
The Kashmir issue as such has multiple dimensions. There are those who want Kashmir to be integrated with Pakistan (and hence PoK). There are those who now want their old Kashmir back (the pre-Article370-repeal Kashmir). There are those who want an Azad Kashmir (they lost faith on both India and Pakistan). The state-sponsored military efforts to curtail these aspirations have consumed many civilian lives for many years. This has resulted in another segment of citizens who want to avenge the loved one's they've lost to the state-sponsored military operations.
Converting a state to UT or providing new legislative powers can only go as far as new offices, new officials, new rules and new administrative format. This has nothing to do with schoolkids carrying pistols in their backpacks. Investing in movies where mothers are disciplining their kids against 'militancy' can only appeal to the supporters of the right wing agenda. The anger in the minds of Kashmiris has only grown as it has over the years.
Yes, there are a few Kashmiris who are out of Kashmir for the sake of employment and they, for the sake of survival and safety from ridicule, speak openly in favor of the new administrative format. It is not their acceptance but their submissive mentality out of desperation. They cannot critique the abolition of Article-370 because, they can easily get branded as Pakistani or radical Muslim or even a terrorist.
Kashmir, on the other hand, is slowly melting into a long-term crisis situation. Let's look at the popular opinions objectively:
1. The Pakistani Terrorist Angle:
What is the evidence that the shooters involved in the Pahalgam incident are Pakistani citizens? Without proper documented evidence, it cannot be ascertained. Let's say, for the sake of an argument, it is Pakistani citizens. If Pakistani citizens have made it into India with weapons and conducted this attack, what does it confirm about the Indian border security measures? If Pakistani citizens are able to kill Indian citizens, what does that tell about the Indian tax money spent on Indian military services deployed in the region? Thousands of armed military, para-military and law enforcement officers with all the facilities and logistics and they could not prevent a small group of Pakistani terrorists within the very territory they were deployed to secure. Shouldn't the newly installed Union Territory Administration controlled by the central government take responsibility for the security failure?
2. Anti-hindu Terrorism:
One of the victims of the Pahalgam shooting incident is Syed Hussain Shah. If the shooters were indeed targeting non-Muslims, why would they shoot down a Muslim man? The shooters can easily make out who is who and the last thing they want is one their own dead.
The real questions to be answered are:
Do we know how many guns are active in the Kashmir region, specifically Pahalgam?
Do we know how many of those guns are still with their rightful owners?
Have we confirmed if none of the bullets fired during the Pahalgam incident came from a licensed gun in the Pahalgam/Kashmir region?
Why else do we have a gun register? Do we even have a working gun register? What is its primary purpose?
Without confirming this side of the story, it is impossible and criminal to assume the guns used in the Pahalgam incident are unregistered guns. Once we confirm that the guns/ammunition used in the Pahalgam incident are unregistered, we can proceed further to investigate how illegal firearms made it into Kashmir/Pahalgam?
If unregistered/illegal firearms were indeed used in the Pahalgam incident, it needs to be confirmed how those firearms made it into the Indian territory and their source (point of sale).
For some reason, no one is discussing the Pahalgam incident in this angle. Pictures and videos of victims and their relatives are being circulated and televised news reports even flash "#WeWantRevenge".
Muslim truck drivers and cattle traders are being lynched on weekly basis across the nation for trading cattle/beef. Mohd. Akhlaq was beaten to death for allegedly consuming beef back in 2015.The list is much longer than the list of victims in the Pahalgam shooting incident. For all those incidents of mob lynching targeting Muslims for being Muslim, nobody cared. The responses, if any, was a merely 'strict legal action must be taken' sandwiched with a carefully articulated 'hindus' sentiments should also be considered'.
Now that an incident has consumed non-Muslims, the response is a direct #WeWantRevenge.
Remember, what has been happening since 2014 has taken the nation beyond a point of return. The consequences will have to be faced. As it turns out, varnavyavastha will remain prominent throughout the consequences. If you are at the top of varnavyavastha, you will be the priority target over those below you. Such is the nature of the support you've been extending since 2014. The assumption that times have completely changed and that a hindu rashtra is inevitable is the core of the consequential crisis yet to be faced by those who have been enabling the right wing hindutva propaganda in the nation.
Kashmir has lost much more than what we might assume or even possibly imagine. There will be consequences. Not all of them will pan out right away. The 'Now they can't do anything' perception in the minds of the hindutva supporters is the root cause for the Pahalgam incident. Those who were close enough to believe it and chose to go into Pahalgam as tourists paid the price for this perception management campaign.
The victims of such shooting incidents are as innocent as the Muslims who are being hunted down by the organized hindutva terrorism. The hindutva propaganda, contradictory to popular opinion, is more harmful to its own supporters than the minorities it targets. This fact is not being realized by the supporters of the hindutva propaganda. The reason is obvious and understandable. The hindutva propaganda has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims. The 'I am safe and so I don't have a problem' has been initiated by the hindutva propaganda and it has resulted in many of its supporters falling for it. Non-Muslims who blindly believed this media-controlled public perception and went as tourists to Pahalgam have paid the price. The bad actors in Pahalgam were given an opportunity and they used it as best as they could.
The opportunity being created in Kashmir is the problem.
No, repealing Article-370 and the unconstitutional conversion of a state into two UT's did not solve the Kashmir problem or the associated safety issues. Kashmir is more unsafe than ever and Pahalgam shooting incident is an evidence for the same. It wasn't a case of an indigenous explosive device being delivered covertly into a enclosure. It is a case of armed assailants executing civilians in wide open area which is being perceived a tourist spot.
The belief in the hindutva propaganda put a right wing fundamentalist regime in-charge of the nation for over a decade and the citizens have now started paying the price for it.
The major contributing factor to such incidents is the silence we maintained every time we came across an incident of Muslims being killed for being Muslim. Instead of critiquing it and voting against it, we remained silent and when cornered, went with 'Yeah that happens, crime happens all the time, what to do'.
Now, let's all accept that crime happens all the time and Pahalgam shooting incident is one such instance, much like how Mohd. Akhlaq was beaten to death for allegedly eating beef in 2015.
We must also remember that the Pahalgam incident is one of the many such incidents waiting to happen across the nation as the kith and kin of victims make an effort to avenge the loved one's they lost to the instruments of the violent hindutva propaganda. Innocent people who did nothing more than actively support and vote in favor of the violent hindutva propaganda will also be paying the price. Collateral damage is unavoidable.
#Pahalgam #pahalgamattack #PahalgamTerrorAttack #PahalgamTerrroristAttack #PahalgamMuslimTerroristAttack #PahalgamTerroristAttacks #Pahalgham #kashmirattack #kashmirterrorattack #KashmirStandsAgainstTerror
Best regards,
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