2 weeks Ago
Pahalgam 22/4 has not only violated the middle and affluent classes’ false sense of safety, but it has struck at the heart of their both intrinsic and imbibed liberalism-secularism The pristine meadow in Baisaran valley takes a slight stretch for tourists to reach. It is about 5 km from Pahalgam. There is a dusty path to this ‘mini Switzerland’ and it is inaccessible by car.
Many walk. And some families — especially those with happy, raucous children — trot to this nature’s lawn surrounded by forests on ponies. The tiny trek and the resultant treasure give tourists a taste of Frodo Baggins’ adventure.
It is in this off-the-beaten-track Baisaran that Islamic terrorists struck on Tuesday, slaughtering 26 people, the majority of them Hindus. Even in Kashmir, where gun-toting commandos are everywhere, it takes security forces about 20 minutes to reach. So, before they could arrive, the terrorists looked at men’s ID cards, pulled down their pants to check for circumcision, or asked if they could recite the Islamic kalma before shooting them point blank.
The nation is not just outraged, it is enraged. But in particular, the urban, educated middle and affluent class is most shaken. Their infamous inertness to grave tragedy seems shattered, at least for the moment.
A dear one, lifelong a liberal, sent a WhatsApp text in the morning saying: “The Kashmir episode is so jarring that it has blown away my secularism with one slap...
every image, every piece of this is haunting the mind. Enough. I officially give up my stand, my views.
" So, why are ‘people like us’ so moved and infuriated? Because the Pahalgam terror has hit home very hard. Tourists taking selfies, newlyweds enjoying the lush meadows and mountains and posting videos on Instagram, children spending quality time with otherwise busy parents, youngsters on the zipline..
.it is all that ‘people like us’ do on a vacation. How could they so violently raid that sanitised, innocent space? How could they check for circumcision, ask men to recite the kalma, and so casually and mercilessly crush the ‘terror has no religion’ myth? Pahalgam 22/4 has not only violated the middle and affluent classes’ false sense of safety but has struck at the heart of their intrinsic and imbibed liberalism-secularism.
Some are trying to deflect their giant disillusionment and horror by solely questioning how the security apparatus of the Narendra Modi government failed, and not why the jihadis killed the innocent. Others are only able to articulate bewildered queries such as, ‘Why did they do this?’ The last time this particular class, which fills up the media and intelligentsia, got so unsettled was after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The reason was the same: terrorists had struck at the heart of their leisure.
They stormed the Taj Mahal Hotel, Hilton, Leopold Café...
where our gentry chills. When an Uri attack happens, Pathankot airbase is stormed, a packed Mumbai train is bombed, devotees at the Akshardham temple are blown up, or even Hindus are butchered in Murshidabad, it does not quite seem like ‘our’ pain, ‘our’ loss, or danger to ‘our’ very existence. That is because the ranks of our military, paramilitary and police forces are usually filled up with people from needy backgrounds.
Those travelling in sweaty, crowded local trains are often not ‘us’. A vast section of the sea of devotees at large temples is mostly poor. But when terror descends on Mumbai’s Taj hotel or Pahalgam’s meadow full of tourists, what always seems to be someone else’s tragedy — someone we subliminally deem ‘lesser’ — you know that clear and imminent danger has come knocking on your door.
All your pretty notions of peaceful co-existence and a liberal and multicultural society, of secularism and Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb or inter-communal courtesies, get drastically challenged. The human instinct for survival kicks in. You begin to challenge one-sided secularism, ideologies that won’t stop killing and converting till they totally and undisputedly rule the world, no matter how friendly a hand you extend.
It is then that ‘shatrubodh’ , or the sense of the ‘enemy’, begins to dawn. Because our dharmic duty is to defend ourselves, our way of life, and our civilisation. Not to turn the other cheek and disappear off a cliff of history.
Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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