As 'Time' magazine does one more hitjob on Hindus, Kashmir’s jihadi purge continues

Virender Paswan lay on the road at Srinagar’s Lalbazar, his body curled up in a foetal position, his panipuri stall standing as forlorn witness nearby, his Covid mask still clinging to his face. The virus could not penetrate the migrant seller from Bihar’s Bhagalpur. Terrorists’ bullets did.A few hours earlier, the owner of Srinagar’s well-known Bindroo medical shop, Makhan Lal Bindroo, was gunned down. Within hours, Mohammed Shafi Lone, president of a local Sumo transport owners’ association in Bandipora, met with the same fate.It was a sudden wave of violence. But given it is Kashmir, it was hardly surprising. Those who thought or advanced the idea that the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and even Muslims committed to peaceful coexistence happened only in the ’90s and won’t repeat were clearly wrong or lying. Jihad never sleeps.The militancy and separatism was never about Kashmiriyat, insaniyat, and jamhooriyat, as BJP’s then ‘moderate’ PM Atal Behari Vajpayee had famously said and the ‘secular’ commentariat pushed that narrative. It was always about establishing dar-ul-Islam, or establishing the dominion of Islam, and breaking away from the Hindu-majority, secular Indian democracy.The latest bloodletting could have several explanations. Foremost is the growing insecurity among Islamists that scrapping of Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 and introducing a liberal domicile regime has started balancing the demographics which was so far kept completely tilted towards the Muslim majority by a highly discriminating set of laws.It is estimated that more than 15 lakh people have got domicile certificates since the change in Kashmir’s status in 2019. This has been playing on Islamists and their Pakistani masters’ minds.The other immediate reason for a spurt in terror could be Pakistani ISI’s proxy Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan. An emboldened Pakistan was expected to up its sinister game in the region, especially against India.But while this bloodsport unfolds, front-benches of western media keep giving Hinduphobic columnists’ space to peddle false narratives. A recent, incredulous headline read: Is India headed for an anti-Muslim genocide?The trigger of the entire article predicting a “genocide” is the killing of one Muslim man in police firing on violent protesters in Assam. And of course, several one-sided conjectures.“'Hindu khatre mein hain' (Hindus are in danger) is a right-wing refrain that resonates deeply today,” the article says. “As a result, many Hindus have now been persuaded to believe that India’s biggest problem is its Muslims. Before Modi took over in 2014, most citizens thought their chief concerns were poverty, insufficient economic growth and corruption.”No prominent Hindutva leader has uttered the words “Hindu khatre mein hain”. The exact words have, however, been repeatedly used by Islamists who presided over India’s bloody Partition and even later. The writer fails to mention that “Islam khatre mein hain” or “Islam is in danger” has been the rallying call for jihadis down the decades.Also, the writer does not explain why if Indians’ “chief concerns were poverty, insufficient economic growth and corruption”, why were there more than 50 major communal riots just since India got Independence in 1947?There is no citing of uninterrupted Islamist violence, forced conversions, and misogyny in pockets across states like Kashmir, Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Kerala.Identity politics begets identity politics. And hypocrisy and whitewash of truth trigger deeper anger which quickens change. For that change, biased op-ed writers and ideological puppets can legitimately claim some credit but most likely won’t wish to.