Pahalgam attack: A month on, Modi govt eyes political dividends but no trace of perpetrators
The road to recovery is a long and bumpy one but from PM Modi, high on ‘garam sindoor’ in his veins, there are neither words of reassurance nor empathy for the erstwhile state
Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Bikaner on Thursday (May 22), Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it abundantly clear that no moral compunction or Opposition onslaught will deter him from reaping the political dividends of Operation Sindoor.
Also read | One month of Pahalgam: ‘India scored military victory, lost battle of narratives’ | Capital Beat
In a speech heavily infused with metaphors to reinforce his strongman image, Modi presented the May 7 Indian military strikes at nine terror installations across Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as just retribution for the April 22 terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 26 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam. Yet, as he raged about the ‘lahu nahi, garam sindoor’ (not blood but hot vermillion) flowing in his veins, there was much that Modi remained mum about.
No word on security lapses
Modi’s rally in Bikaner marked the passing of a month since the Pahalgam attack. There was, however, no word from the prime minister, whose government directly oversees the security and intelligence apparatus of the Union Territory of J&K, on how terrorists walked into Pahalgam’s Baisaran meadows, went gunning down innocent civilians at a leisurely pace for nearly 40 minutes and escaped.
A month on, while the Indian Armed Forces have exacted retribution from Pakistan for that dastardly attack, the Indian government has neither been able to explain the security lapses that actually necessitated Operation Sindoor nor identify who or how many terrorists were involved in the execution of the Pahalgam plot. There appear to be no concrete leads yet on the whereabouts of the Pahalgam perpetrators, a poor reflection of the security and intelligence apparatus that the Modi regime has established in J&K since the abrogation of Article 370 and downgrading of a full-fledged state to a Union Territory back in August 2019.
Indifference to civilian deaths
Modi also didn’t utter a word about the continuing and escalating cost that ordinary citizens of J&K are paying not just in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre but also of Operation Sindoor. Over 20 civilians across the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir lost their lives to Pakistan’s artillery shelling that rained hell in areas like Poonch, Mendhar, Akhnoor in the Jammu region and large parts of the Kashmir Valley from May 7 till the abrupt ceasefire announcement of May 10.
Modi is yet to condole the death of these Indian civilians. The Centre has announced no ex-gratia relief for their kin nor any financial relief measures to compensate for the scores of homes, commercial and civic establishments that turned to rubble in the crossfire. There is also no clarity on plans to help J&K and its people recover from the inestimable financial losses accrued in the tourism sector, which was poised to rake in unprecedented footfalls during the ongoing ‘tourist season’ but has all but collapsed since the Pahalgam massacre and subsequently Pakistan’s response to Operation Sindoor.
Witch-hunt in Kashmir
What is, arguably, more worrisome than any of this, however, is the growing sense in J&K that the security establishment’s ongoing efforts to ‘swiftly eradicate all terror modules and operatives’ in the UT is turning into a witch-hunt that no one in the media or even political and social circles is willing to speak about because jingoistic passions are running high in the country since April 22.
Also read | Sindoor as a war cry, when all that women want universally is peace
“The current signs are extremely troubling and could have adverse long-lasting repercussions not just for J&K but the country as a whole,” says Jammu-based senior journalist Tarun Upadhyay. “On April 22 itself, there was an unprecedented and unexpected outpouring of solidarity by Kashmiri Muslims... unlike the past, when certain elements in Kashmir, including some political figures, would advise caution against a hard counterterror crackdown or armed escalation against Pakistan, after Pahalgam, everyone spoke in one voice and demanded decisive and punitive retaliation. Common Kashmiris took out candlelight solidarity vigils and there were calls from mosques to stand by the Indian State and whatever action it took against Pakistan but now I sense the mood is beginning to turn because of different factors”, says Upadhyay, who has reported from J&K for various national and international media platforms for over three decades.
No breakthrough in probe
He adds further, “In the past month, at least three major encounters have taken place but none of them have ended with a single arrest; the alleged terrorists were killed during the encounter and so obviously the security forces wouldn’t have got any leads from them to nab the Pahalgam perpetrators... what I fear is that if the same modus operandi continues, it won’t be before long that Kashmiris will start thinking that this is just a witch-hunt and that Kashmiri Muslims are being picked out on mere suspicion and being neutralised... if and when such sentiment begins to gain ground, it will be a very steep slippery slope after that and J&K will be back to where we were in the high militancy years of the 1990s.”
Bid to gag media in valley?
Multiple political commentators and journalists based in Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir that The Federal reached out to refused to comment on the record about the goings-on in the Valley.
“In the past month, many journalists who report from the Valley have been detained by the police and then let off, some the same day and others after a few days. There is a lot of pressure to self-regulate what we write for the publications we work for or even on our social media accounts. This is why no mainstream media outlet is able to accurately report the ground reality in Kashmir. The Valley is turning into a tinderbox once again,” a senior Srinagar-based journalist who was detained by the police for a day told The Federal, adding that his detention was “nothing but an intimidation tactic”.
Also read | BJP schools Cong on Tharoor, but picks hate-mongers as anti-terror envoys
“They (the cops) questioned me about my work, who my sources are, whether I am in touch with anyone in Pakistan, what I think about Operation Sindoor and if I knew any overground workers (terror sympathisers)... then they let me off with a warning to not write anything that will get me into trouble,” the journalist said.
Another reporter for a national daily shared a similar experience of being detained by the police soon after Operation Sindoor commenced. ”I was called in for questioning and then it was the same line of questioning any journalist working in the Valley becomes very familiar with in time... who do you really work for, what do you think of India, have you been in touch with any terrorists and OGWs, and so on. I got off easy because they let me go the same day but some other reporters I know were detained for longer periods, some even for a whole week, without being told what wrong they had committed and without being arrested formally,” the reporter said.
Kashmiri Muslims under lens
A political commentator and activist from North Kashmir said the security apparatus was back to viewing all Kashmiri Muslims with suspicion and that the community, despite speaking in one voice against terror following the Pahalgam massacre and being fully supportive of Operation Sindoor, was being “intimidated and victimised”.
“We had just made peace with the post-abrogation scenario and there was a genuine effort by Kashmiris to look at New Delhi with some trust... everyone unequivocally condemned what happened in Pahalgam but what the system has been doing since April 22 in the name of search operations is nothing but a repeat of the same harassment of the past that had caused a trust deficit between Kashmir and New Delhi. People are being picked up randomly for questioning, encounters are being normalised again and homes of alleged terror operatives and OGWs are being blasted and demolished as a show of State power for other Kashmiris. The real casualty in all of this is the narrative of ‘normalcy in Kashmir’ that Delhi had been trying to sell to the world for the past five years,” the activist said.
Demand for statehood
Sources in the ruling National Conference said it was perhaps the realisation of this reviving schism that prompted party chief Farooq Abdullah and chief minister Omar Abdullah to convene a meeting of the NC’s working committee on May 21 and adopt a resolution demanding the “immediate return of statehood” to J&K and reaffirming the party’s “commitment to special status” for the erstwhile state. The resolution stumped many as in the immediate aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, Omar Abdullah had told a special session of the J&K Assembly that he would not indulge in “cheap politics” to demand the restoration of statehood at a time when the UT had faced its worst massacre in 25 years.
The chief minister has also been repeatedly airing his concern at the economic losses J&K is suffering due to a complete decimation of the tourism sector. Sources in the UT’s hospitality industry told The Federal that though there had been a slight recovery in tourist footfalls in the days following the Pahalgam massacre, Operation Sindoor vapourised those gains.
Massive jolt to tourism
“After April 22, some social media influencers and actors like Atul Kulkarni tried to revive public confidence in visiting Kashmir. By April 25 or 26, we saw a slight recovery in the bookings and tourists did start making enquiries even if the numbers were still much lower than what we had anticipated for the season before the Pahalgam attack. A lot of tourists who had cancelled their bookings in panic immediately after the attack had started calling hotels to say they wanted to re-book but after May 7 everything came to a halt. Most hotels in Srinagar, Pahalgam, Sonmarg, etc do not have even one occupied room right now and there are hardly any enquiries for bookings for the rest of the season either,” a member of the United Pahalgam Trade Forum (UPTF) told The Federal.
Also read | Tales from border towns: Where peace arrives in brief spasms
On Thursday, a UPTF delegation met J&K tourism officials in Srinagar urging various initiatives to revive tourism and appealed for some sort of state support for hawkers, street vendors, pony wallahs and others who are among the worst-hit financially by the sudden crash in tourism activity.
The reasons for disquiet across J&K are many. The road to recovery, to normalcy, is a long and bumpy one but from the Prime Minister, high on the garam sindoor flowing in his veins, there are neither words of reassurance nor empathy for the erstwhile state.
