Satpal Nischal was shot dead by terrorists in Kashmir merely weeks after he received a domicile certificate that granted him the right to purchase immovable property and other such crucial rights. The 70-year old had been living in Kashmir for the past forty years and on Thursday, he became the first person to be killed for having received the domicile certificate.
The Resistance Front (TRF), a terrorist outfit, claimed responsibility for the murder and called those who had receive domicile certificates “RSS agents”. They also had a warning: “We know your names, we know where you live and we know what you do and we are coming for you.”
Unfortunate as it is, Satpal Nischal is only the most recent person who has lost his life over the Civilizational War that is underway in Kashmir. He has not been murdered because he is not a Kashmiri or he posed any legitimate threat to Kashmiris, he was murdered because he was not a follower of Islam.
Rohingyas from Myanmar have managed to reach the state and are living under no threat whatsoever. But Kashmiri Pandits were forced out of their homes and they have not been able to return even after three decades. Why is that?
Some people suffer under the delusion that the terrorism in Kashmir is related to Kashmiri self-determination and Islam has very little to do with it. Propagandists in the media work double hard to peddle that narrative as well. But the fact that an illegal Rohingya Muslim immigrant can find refuge there but Kashmiri Pandits are chased away and Hindus from other regions of India are called “RSS agents” only reveals that it is not about Kashmiri at all, it is about Islamic terrorism.
Unfortunately, the name of Satpal Nischal will be forgotten in a few days. And the cycle of violence that has been underway in Kashmir for decades will continue for decades more. And even after all this time, authorities will console themselves saying that Pakistan backed terrorists are responsible for the murder.
Maybe the terrorists are backed by Pakistan but Pakistan itself is only a manifestation of the problem. Does anyone seriously believe that the condition of Hindus in Kashmir would be any different from Pakistani Hindus if there were no Indian soldiers on the ground? And yet, we are force-fed a diet of Kashmiriyat propaganda to gloss over the very real problem of Islamic radicalism.
To be fair, there is no easy solution to any of this. Ultimately, blood is the price that one must pay for Civilizational wars. And history is evidence to the fact that a lot of blood has already been sacrificed for it and a lot more will continue to be spilt.
The enemy that the Indian State and Indian citizens is facing in Kashmir is political Islam, there’s no sugarcoating it. The Indian brand of secularism, on the other hand, works overtime to prevent ideological clarity on the matter so that the threat can be effectively countered.
Liberals are often wrong but there is something they claim to have great commitment towards that is very true for Kashmir. Multiculturalism is our strength when it comes to Kashmir. The only way to neutralize the threat of political Islam in Kashmir is the region’s cultural enrichment.
If “Diversity is indeed our strength”, then Kashmir is the most fertile place in India to test it. But when such suggestions are made, secular-liberals in our country start screaming fascism. It is important to recognize that Satpal Nischal was murdered because he is representative of the diversity that Islamic terrorists in the valley fear the most.
Satpal Nischal was murdered because Islamic terrorists in Kashmir cannot permit cultural enrichment of the region. But be that as it may, the Indian government cannot shy away from the path it has chosen to tread after the tragedy. Instead, it must bring fire and fury to the monsters who robbed the 70-year-old of his life.
That is the only path forward. Secular-liberals are more than willing to ally with ethnic-supremacist Islamic terrorists to undermine Indian interests but even on the face of enormous pressure, the feet cannot be taken off the peddle. If the feet is taken off, then all the progress that Kashmir has made since the abrogation of Article 370 will be lost.
