Amarnath Yatra Attack: Kashmiriyat is the Only Hope Amid Gloom

Notion of Kashmiriyat has foiled the intentions of Amarnath terror attack by uniting Kashmiris with India in grief.

(Photo: Lijumol Joseph/ The Quint)

At 8:20 pm on the night of Monday, 10 July, as a chartered bus carrying pilgrims from Gujarat and Maharashtra, after concluding a pilgrimage to Amarnath, returned down the national highway towards the Banihal pass, it was fired upon by three motorcycle-borne terrorists.

The bus was carrying 56 Amarnath pilgrims to Jammu from Baltal, the base camp for vehicular transport to the pilgrimage centre, the lofty cave enshrining Amarnath. It was passing Batengoo in Anantnag district, close to the district headquarters and 65 km south of Srinagar, whence it had departed at 5:30 pm.

(Photo: PTI)

The bus was part of the pilgrimage convoy, which is provided meticulous security, perfected over years of practice, but it had fallen behind the rest with a burst tyre which took an hour to replace. Although the highway to Jammu was closed to the convoy after 7:00 pm, this bus had passed 18 check posts without being stopped.

Also Read: Amarnath Yatra Tragedy: The Tale of Seven Yatris

Brutal Incident, Lucky Escape

At 8:15 pm, these very motorcyclists had fired on a check post manned by Special Task Force, Special Operations Group & Central Reserve Police personnel in Khannabal, a suburb of the district HQ Anantnag, with no casualties.

But then they fired on the bus repeatedly, first at a petrol pump in Batengoo, then again as it fled with the driver Sheikh Salim Gafoor swinging his vehicle to block the attackers, fleeing for several kilometres with the bus receiving up to 60 bullets, as terrified passengers desperately rolled on the bus floor.

Seven pilgrims were killed and 18 were injured. The Deputy Commissioner Anantnag, Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, who hastened to the victims in the hospital found them all benumbed, speechless.

Among those who died, five were from Gujarat and two from Maharashtra. So vulnerable was the bus that had it not been for the presence of mind of the driver Gafoor Bhai, the casualties could have been much higher. To his gritty determination must go the credit for having saved over 50 lives.

Intentions of Terrorists Foiled

Expectedly, this terrorist onslaught on an unarmed group of citizens pursuing a religious mission shocked the country and sparked outrage across the world. There was media discussion and debate, demonstration and protest.

The narrative of the event exposes fatal lapses, which will require accountability. But if the terrorists had sought to promote a cause through this execrable act, they had succeeded in doing the exact opposite.

Most importantly, the Kashmiri public, itself in a state of disaffection for the past year, was swift in expressing its outrage.

Also Read: A Kashmiri’s Open Letter to All Indians: We Are With You

(Photo: AP)

Idea of Kashmiriyat

At the dawn of independence, as Northwest India was engulfed in unprecedented communal carnage, Mahatma Gandhi had seen a ray of hope in Kashmir. There, despite a bloody communal eruption in neighbouring Jammu and the murder of some Kashmiris there, in Kashmir there had been not a flicker of communal frenzy.

This was part of the Kashmiri heritage, the concept of Kashmiriyat having evolved since the advent of Islam in Kashmir, and conceptualised in the early twentieth century by its intellectual elite, mostly Kashmiri Pandits, as part of the framework of the movement to overthrow despotic rule, that had culminated in the accession of the state to India.

Kashmiriyat meant non-violence, dismissed as faint-heartedness by its more masculine critics, religious harmony going well beyond mere tolerance, and generosity to guests.

The onset of violence since the late ‘80s, the rise of terrorism and consequent disorder leading to severe restriction in the exercise of civil liberties, has resulted in a whole post-’90 generation of Kashmiris being nurtured on pure violence. This seemed to have put paid to that concept, amid doubts that it had ever been a reality. Does the terrorist attack of 10 July mark the eclipse of Kashmiriyat?

Also Read: Amarnath Yatra Fallout: Fear Psychosis Rife Among Muslims in Jammu

Hope Amid Gloom

India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh bravely applauded those that have kept this concept alive, for which he has been bitterly trolled. But facts indicate that the attack was masterminded by two Punjabis infiltrating from Pakistan.

Although there is no doubt that they had garnered local support, the revulsion of Kashmiris, which includes youth sympathetic to separatists and the very leadership of the Hurriyat, expressed in Facebook and street demonstrations, has been near universal, looking together on this tragedy as an assault on their civilisation.

Amid the enveloping gloom of this national tragedy, however slender the hope, perhaps Kashmiriyat carries the answer?

Also Read: Lessons from Amarnath Attack: Increase Vigil in South Kashmir

(The writer is a former chairperson of the national Commission for Minorities and is the author of the book, ‘My Kashmir: The Dying of the Light’. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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