Perhaps, the liberals of the country should, for a change, stop viewing Kashmir from an ultra-nationalist lens and instead respond to the candle lit by Kashmiris in this darkness
When terrorists opened fire and began to spray their bullets by singling out tourists on the basis of their religion in Kashmir바카라™s idyllic Baisaran meadow on April 22, chaos followed, with everyone desperately running away in a bid to save their lives.
However, 29-year-old Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a local pony operator who made his living guiding tourists, chose to confront the attackers instead of fleeing. Some reports suggest he questioned the gunmen about why they were killing innocent people and some pointed out that he even tried to snatch their rifles in an attempt to protect the tourists. In reaction, they snuffed his life out by pumping bullets into his body.
In a region long scarred by violence, Adil바카라™s final act of courage stands as a powerful reminder of humanity in the face of terror. But these are stories that the media dwarfs out. Multiple replays of eyewitness accounts talking about the men being targeted after asking them their identity and compelling them to recite Islamic verses바카라”which they failed to do바카라”are being amplified to create a unidimensional narrative and manufacture consent that all of Kashmir바카라™s Muslim majority is complicit in the killings.
All the tourists killed are reported to be Hindus and while it seems apparent that they were targeted for being so, this fact is being weaponised by the frenzied Hindu Right Wing to inject hatred, brand every Muslim바카라”particularly Kashmiri바카라”as a terrorist, promote rabid calls for 바카라˜revenge바카라™ and emulate the Israeli model of military control. The target is not only Pakistan but all of Kashmir바카라™s population. By extension, this also adds to the vulnerability of the Indian Muslims who will be viewed with even more suspicion and derision after this incident.
The nation should stand in solidarity with Kashmiris, who have shown exemplary rationality despite years of brutalisation and suffering.
This hate and venom are pouring through social media, through handles and statements of some BJP leaders, through ordinary citizens and is further fuelled by the broadcast media. The fact about how and why this incident happened, who the perpetrators were is lesser, rather hardly, known. But enemies were manufactured within hours of the heinous murders, some of the most bizarre theories began to be churned and calls for vengeance put on steroids, pushing India and Pakistan to brinkmanship with the reversal of years of diplomatic gains and threats of pushing the region into a war.
Adil바카라™s story strikes a discordant note from this narrative. It has been conveniently discarded. Along with the stories of how the first ones to reach the site were local men and Tourist Police바카라”mostly Muslims바카라”who offered water to the panic-stricken and shocked tourists and pacified them. They also carried the injured to the main road, which is a long trek from the entrance to the meadow.
Also missing from the national discourse is the remarkable maturity and sagaciousness of Kashmiris spontaneously coming out in protest against the killings in open rejection of terrorism. Such candlelight marches, protests, bandh calls and solidarity messages of brotherhood, love and unity over civilian killings by terrorists are almost unprecedented. Kashmiris have never condoned civilian killings and usually condemned all. But the scale of this outpouring was different. They came out not only because such killings jeopardise tourism and are an onslaught on the Kashmiri ethos of hospitality.
They came out also because any ordinary Kashmiri, acquainted with pain and suffering amidst violence, can best understand the import of a tragedy where loved ones are lost and families destroyed. They came out and stood their ground even as reports of Kashmiri students being harassed, hounded and thrashed in various parts of the country came.
Kashmir, once again, shows the beacon of light when the rest of the country is soaked in bloodletting war cries and injecting hatred against Muslims. Yet, instead of appreciating this, social media is abuzz with venom바카라”treating every Kashmiri as a guilty conspirator of the terror attack. Even though television channels have moved their ire to Pakistan, to some extent, reducing Kashmiris to secondary villains, they are being painted as villains, nonetheless.
For the heinous crimes of half a dozen or so deranged men, all Kashmiris have been proclaimed guilty. Whether this is done by design to save the government from facing embarrassing questions of security lapses and its false political messaging of normalcy and for failing to provide security to the hapless tourists, or it is a natural expression of the existing hate that has slowly poisoned and consumed the brains of many in the country, as usual, Kashmiris must be asked to prove their innocence and loyalty.
There is no logic to why all Kashmiris are being blamed. The security of the tourists was not their responsibility but that of the central government, since security entirely comes under their domain after 2019, which miserably failed. Yet some Kashmiris are tendering apologies on social media because they feel morally ashamed that this gruesome incident happened on their land. Anyone from the government has yet to do it, even though the scale of the massacre should have resulted in resignations, at least heads being rolled.
For some enthusiasts or sympathisers, both within and outside Kashmir, Kashmiris should be delivering a stronger and more impactful message of unity, building into a movement for peace.
It is wishful thinking that one of the most powerless people in the country today, the people whose economic and political rights have being eroded consistently since the revocation of Article 370 and the reduction of the state into a union territory, the people whose voices have been choked, whose media and civil society has been decimated can do more than what they are doing. The most powerful people in Kashmir are those associated with the local government, an almost powerless entity whose role is reduced to that of a large municipality.
The question is not what Kashmiris should be doing. The question should be what can and ought to be done for Kashmiris who bear the worst brunt of terrorism, counter- insurgency and war. The security operations post-Pahalgam attack, as the ongoing egregious scale of arrests and demolition of homes shows, demonstrates the price Kashmiris have to pay for being Kashmiris, turning their message of peace into fear and alienation. The least the people in India can do is to acknowledge their restraint and messages of peace. We should stand in solidarity with Kashmiris, who have shown exemplary rationality despite years of brutalisation and suffering, have given hope that the roads for regaining confidence and building bridges have not been completely demolished.
Perhaps, this may be expecting too much from the teeming majority that has failed to even stand in solidarity with the Pahalgam victims, whose killings they have weaponised, turning their tragedy into a theatre of bloodletting war cries and revenge. But, perhaps, the liberals of the country should, for a change, stop viewing Kashmir from an ultra-nationalist lens and instead respond to the candle lit by Kashmiris in this darkness.
(Views expressed are personal)
Anuradha Bhasin is the Managing Editor of Kashmir Times and author of A Dismantled State: The untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370
This article is part of Outlook바카라™s May 11, 2025 issue, covering the Pahalgam terror attack and the old wounds it has reopened. It appeared in print as 'Hope Amid Hatred'