26 dead. At least 12 injured. This was the aftermath of a suspected terrorist attack Tuesday in the Baisaran Valley of the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir in India.
Known as “mini-Switzerland” for its picturesque landscapes, the Baisaran Valley is a popular tourist destination in the north of India – and one that can only be reached on horseback or on foot. The Pahalgam region as a whole, however, makes up a portion of a key pilgrimage route, the Amarnath Yatra, which is currently in its peak season (March through August), attracting thousands.
The situation with Jammu and Kashmir has been an inflammatory point of contention for both India and Pakistan almost ever since the nations won their independence from the British in 1947 and Partitioned.
In October of 1947, two months after India won its independence from the British and divided into modern-day Pakistan and India (among other nations), the maharaja, or king, of Kashmir, Hari Singh, chose to sign the Instrument of Accession, joining the whole region of Kashmir to India. The maharaja’s decision sparked a war between the neighboring nations, ending nearly two years later in July 1949 with a designated line of control (or ceasefire line, commonly referred to as the LOC) running through Kashmir.
The part of Kashmir that was on India’s side of the LOC included the region of Jammu, which housed the Dogra dynasty of which Maharaja Hari Singh was a part, and came to be known as the modern-day region of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Despite the establishment of the LOC, however, tensions between India and Pakistan remained high, sparking pockets of violence at times, as both nations laid claim to the entire region of Kashmir (under Singh, as opposed to the modern-day definition of Jammu and Kashmir) with India occasionally having to fend off Chinese presence in its region of the territory.
After an arduous process, India officially completed the process of admitting Jammu and Kashmir into the nation as a state in 1957.
But in 2019, the federal government revoked the state’s semi-autonomous status and simultaneously separated and “demoted” it into two separate union territories: Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh.
From 1949 up until this decision, J&K operated with almost complete autonomy, despite being an Indian state, with control over all policy matters (except for defense and foreign policy), their own constitution, and their own flag, under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. However, under the highly contested 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 and revoke the region’s special status, J&K lost this autonomy and sovereignty and, to this day, remains as two separate union territories with all the typical rights that come with the designation.
Throughout this entire changing situation with the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan and India have continued to have disputes over the true nationality of the region, which have often been known to boil over into violence… much like Tuesday’s incident.
While violence is rare but not entirely uncommon in Pahalgam with the Indian government conducting a multi-month communications blackout (alongside heightened military presence) in 2019 to mitigate militant activities, what’s unique to note about Tuesday’s incident is its targeting of tourists who make up most of the deceased 26 individuals.
In fact, this attack marks the second in the last 10 months with the last attack taking place in June, leaving nine dead and 33 injured, after a bus of Hindu pilgrims took a nosedive into a gorge presumably due to suspected militants firing on it.
While the gunmen have yet to be identified, according to (but unverified) by Reuters, a relatively unknown militant group known as “the Kashmir Resistance” has claimed responsibility for the attack, citing a “demographic change” that stemmed from the settlement of over 85,000 “outsiders” in the region and promising violence “toward those attempting to settle illegally.”
The rhetoric from the militant group reflects the increasingly religious nature of the multifaceted conflicts and disputes surrounding Kashmir, but also highlights a growing shift globally of religiously backed violence, politics, and even extremism.
All across the world, we’re seeing how religion – no matter which religion – is being weaponized to serve a political purpose.
In the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Jewish and Islamic identities of each group, respectively, have played a key role in shaping conversation around the issue, even seeping into American college campuses. At home, as the chasm between the Republicans and Democrats grows wider and wider, Christianity has become the tool of choice as both sides claim to take the moral ground on a wide array of issues.
Yet using religion as a political instrument undermines its entire purpose – to bring people together and foster love and peace. Instead of leaning into our religions’ promises and mandates of unity and love, we’re instead choosing to weaponize them and allow them to divide us, both within our own religions and across each other’s religions, something that seems very hard to reconcile with the core teachings and tenets of any religion we see today.
Perhaps, as we attempt to weather this increasingly polarized world and bridge the gaps that divide us, we can set aside religion as yet another factor threatening to tear us apart, and instead embrace it as a roadmap to acknowledge and accept each other’s differences, whether they are religious, social, economic, or even political.
