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Original article: https://theconversation.com/kashmir-attacks-kashmiris-trapped-between-tourism-and-terrorism-as-an-insecure-nation-looks-to-modi-for-accountability-255148
The horrific targeted attack by militants in Kashmir on April 22, which killed at least 25 Indian tourists and one Nepalese national and injured many more, bears all the hallmarks of terrorism. The timing of the attacks during the high-profile visit of the US vice-president J.D. Vance to India, highlights that this was calculated to achieve maximum impact.
The attack came at the beginning of the peak tourist season, right before a major annual Hindu Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage that attracts thousands each year. It also happened soon after provocative statements from Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir. In a recent speech, Munir said: “No power in the world can separate Kashmir from Pakistan. Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein.”
The attack was made by gunmen who identified Hindu men by demanding they recite verses from the Qur’an before killing them, while sparing women and children.
Kashmir is a site of multiple competing claims, entrenched conflict and intense militarisation. The political dispute has further been used to divide Kashmiris along religious lines, resulting in a discourse of competing victimhoods between Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Hindus.
Against the backdrop of already normalised Islamophobia in India, such an attack creates greater prospects for repression and violence against Muslims.
The reaction in the Indian media has followed a predictable script. Amid the Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) ratcheting up of anti-Muslim sentiment in the country, some people took to social media to demand the annexation of Pakistan Administered Kashmir (known as “PoK” – or Pakistan Occupied Kashmir by many in India). Kashmiri Muslims in India are reportedly now facing Hindutva groups threatening to target them.
Hindu majoritarianism in India has long relied on constructing a narrative of the beleaguered majority under attack from a Muslim minority. So this attack becomes part of a selectively retold and lengthy history where Muslims have always been aggressors and Hindus always victims.
Indian Muslims then often have to prove their patriotism. A Muslim member of India’s Congress Party even called for the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi to be “flattened”.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, held an emergency meeeting of the (all-male) security cabinet and immediate measures were announced after the meeting included a condemnation of Pakistan for encouraging “cross-border terrorism”. Barely a day later, he is already on the campaign trail in the Indian state of Bihar for the upcoming elections there.
There is a continuing clamour on social media for cross-border military strikes and a desire to go after Pakistan (#AvengePahalgam). These two countries have a long history of conflict. With an ongoing spiral of tit-for-tat responses, a de-escalation cannot be guaranteed and a more general irrational miscalculation between the nuclear-armed neighbours cannot be ruled out.
A question of accountability
In the cacophony of jingoist calls for revenge, what is being ignored completely by the mainstream nationalistic media – often satirically referred to in rhyme as Modi’s “godi” (lapdog) media – is the question of accountability.
In 2019 Jammu and Kashmir was downgraded from a state to a “union territory”, since which all matters of security have been the responsibility of the Delhi-appointed lieutenant governor and central home ministry. So when the home minister Amit Shah – Modi’s right-hand man – went to the region after the attack, the local chief minister, Omar Abdullah, a veteran political leader, was excluded from security briefings and meetings.
Voices calling for accountability and even Shah’s resignation (he was the architect of downgrading Jammu and Kashmir in the name of greater security and integration) are being ignored and termed “anti-national” or traitorous. This contrasts with the reaction after the Mumbai attacks of 2008 under the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance. Following that terror attack, the Indian home minister resigned.
By contrast, Shah and India’s current national security advisor, Ajit Doval have remained in post over many such attacks, the last major one being in Pulwama in 2019 when 40 central reserve police force (CRPF) personnel were killed, also in the Kashmir region.
Before the most recent attack there, despite the heavy tourist presence, there was no security deployment on the main road from Pahalgam to Baisaran, another major tourist resort.
Important questions need to be answered. What were the lapses in security and who is responsible? What are the policy failures in Jammu and Kashmir that allowed this to happen? Who in government should be accountable and what lessons can we take from the attack?
In a democracy, elected leaders are held accountable and those who speak truth to power can do so without being punished. Yet, in an environment of censorship on dissent, any questioning of Indian ruling party leaders, especially Modi and Shah, is branded as hostile to India’s national interest.
The problem with tourism as a political solution
Modi’s policy towards Kashmir has been to encourage tourism in response to terrorism. This makes the people there dependent on the centre, as well as presenting the idea of post-conflict normality as a propaganda coup.
But anyone who knows Kashmir will tell you that official platitudes about “normality” mean very little. The conflict in Kashmir has a complex history in which the idea of Kashmiri self-determination has long been the most important factor. Now the region is without autonomy and only held an election last year – for the first time in a decade – after the Indian Supreme Court ordered it.
In today’s India, where authoritarianism is ascendant and Hindu nationalism poses a threat to Muslim rights and security, questions of Kashmiri people’s rights are almost impossible to address.
Meanwhile they are vulnerable to attacks in the name of revenge for whatever Pakistani or Pakistani-backed militants do. And any acts of solidarity by Kashmiri Muslims, such as vigils and shutdowns tend simply to be ignored by a narrative that points the finger at Muslims.
Rather than focus on the shared grief, the risk is that Modi’s Hindu nationalist government will adopt a narrow and aggressive stance, making tensions in the region worse. Calls for a vendetta may fail to distinguish between Indian Muslims or Kashmiri civilians and terrorists. This will only make the entire south Asian region less secure and more violent.
Nitasha Kaul does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
