Kashmir, Kashmiris, and the politics of retribution

Hindustan Times

24-05-2025

Most of us know a lot about the terror attack at Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor and the four-day 'war'. We've made it our business to find out. But there are other facts that happened during this period we're woefully ignorant of.
The Association for Protection of Civil Rights reports that between April 27 and May 8 there were 184 anti-Muslim attacks of various sorts all over India. They comprise 19 acts of vandalism, 39 assaults, 42 incidents of harassment and 84 incidents of hate speech. It's believed that 106 were 'triggered' by Pahalgam. The majority happened in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra.
Are these facts unknown to us because it's now commonplace to target Kashmiris and other Muslims? Have they become punching bags for our impatience, frustration and anger? Why aren't we infuriated to learn of them?
Consider what happened in Kashmir. Houses of alleged terrorists were demolished simply on the basis of suspicion without any due process and in blatant defiance of Supreme Court judgements on bulldozer justice. Didn't this make a mockery of India's claim to be a democracy that follows the rule of law?
That's not all. The Guardian, among other Western newspapers, reported that some 2,000 people were arrested, again on suspicion, and many were allegedly tortured. Two, reportedly, were killed. Doesn't it feel as if this was a case of treating Kashmiri Muslims as suspicious simply because they are Kashmiri and Muslim?
Now, compare how the Kashmiris themselves responded to Pahalgam. Clerics opened mosques to provide beds for those who did not have hotel bookings, taxi drivers refused to charge fares to passengers heading for the airport, there was a complete hartal as shops, hotels, colleges, schools closed to express sympathy with the victims and all political parties, whether in power or Opposition, took out rallies in condemnation of the terrorists.
In sharp contrast to the behaviour of Kashmiris in the Valley, is the way Kashmiris were treated in the rest of India. In Punjab and Uttarakhand, Kashmiri students were beaten up and had to flee for their lives. In Mussoorie, shawl wallahs who had worked there for decades, were forced to leave.
Yet the governments in these states seemed unconcerned and unbothered. Again, why? These are citizens of India with the same rights as you and I.
Perhaps, worst of all, those in positions of authority opted to attack rather than defend Kashmiris and Muslims. Vishnu Gupta, the president of the Hindu Sena, said: 'The attack in Kashmir was an attack on Hindus and we will respond in kind — not only against Kashmiris but against every Muslim in India'.
Vijay Shah, Madhya Pradesh's minister of tribal affairs, called Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who gave daily briefings on India's military operation along with Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, the 'sister of terrorists'. And they got away with it. They weren't admonished. They certainly weren't punished.
It's worth remembering a quote from Jawaharlal Nehru's letter of October 15, 1947, to state chief ministers, written when the post-Partition killings were at their height. 'We have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India'. Then he pointedly added 'whatever the provocation from Pakistan … we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner.'
Isn't that advice as relevant today as it was 80 years ago?
Karan Thapar is the author of Devil's Advocate: The Untold Story. The views expressed are personal