Don't let Indians be terrorised, terrified

By definition, the main intention of terrorists is to spread fear among a populace, a sectarian backlash, another backlash against that backlash, and so on until until the people are fractured into hostile groups and national unity lies shattered. Over the last week, with five non-Muslim Kashmiris targeted and murdered, there is understandable fear in Jammu and Kashmir. To defeat the terrorists, neither must fear be allowed to drive Pandits or Sikhs out of Jammu and Kashmir or the Valley nor the violence by extremists permitted to poison the lives of normal people of any community. That calls for intelligent policing, level-headed isolation of the extremists from their target groups for solidarity or enmity and political commitment to unity of the people across the country.

Kashmir is no stranger to terrorism - whether of the 'full-scale' variety as witnessed in the 1990s, or of the subsequent, scattershot kind. The responsibility of the Indian State is to ensure that all citizens under its purview remain safe and vigilant against instigation, especially at a time when elements across the Radcliffe as well as the Durand Lines are self-confessedly itching to 'flip the terror switch on' in Kashmir again for their political benefactors. In the interconnected world we live in today, how India responds to machinations and actions planned in junta-controlled Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is vital.

For this purpose, it is important to both clamp down on terror via intelligence and vigilance and bring perpetrators to book and to reach out to the people of J&K, reassuring both minorities (Pandits, Sikhs, etc) as well as the majority that India will not be terrified or terrorised.