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All for josh After the IAF strikes in Pakistan, crowds assembled, taken by the newly assertive national mood. Here, students from a college in Hyderabad cheer the military action kvs giri STATES OF MATTER Muscle memory Hashtag #NewIndia has become the new signature of military machismo and PM Modi its prophet even as the reality of violence against Kashmiris is pushed to the background

he terrorist attack in Kashmir’s Pul #17825 dum voting Modi into a second term. The theatre, observers who questioned the wis wama district on February 14, which hashtag #NewIndia gathered irresistible mo dom of publicising a covert military opera Tkilled over 40 Indian security per mentum on social media, as the signature of tion for political mileage, were denounced as sukumar sonnel and grievously injured many the new mood of military machismo. Modi enemies of the nation whose rightful place muralidharan more, came with the instant promise of im himself, as the prophet of the newly assertive would be in Pakistan. And just months ahead parting a khaki tinge to the upcoming na national mood, appeared on a campaign plat of this year’s Lok Sabha election, Bollywood re tional general election. Anger boiled over in form in Rajasthan soon afterwards to pro leased a film memorialising that episode, no its immediate wake, only partially spending it claim — against a backdrop depicting the distinct from a long sequence of similar ac self against Pakistan. Ample amounts were security personnel killed in Pulwama — that tions except in being fodder for a partisan left over and directed against adversaries of the nation was in safe hands since he would campaign. the ruling party, past and present, not to men bear true allegiance to his 2014 vows. No af Another of the jewels from India’s covert tion the people of Kashmir. front to the nation’s dignity would pass. operations repertoire was given awaywhen, at The martial tone surfaced at the inaugura By any assessment, the consequences of the an allparty meeting in August 2016 to discuss tion of a national war memorial in New Del Modi government’s hard line approach on a cycle of violence in Kashmir, Modi an hi’s India Gate hexagon on February 25. This Kashmir have been quite the opposite of its nounced that the time had arrived for fulfilled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vow claims. The number of violent encounters in Pakistan to answer for “atrocities committed from the 2014 campaign, remedying what he volving loss of life, according to data compiled against the people of Balochistan and called out as an egregious lapse in failing to by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, has in PakistanOccupied Kashmir”. honour the soldiers who had fought and creased steeply since 2014, as have casualties This was no part of a strategic calculation, fallen in the cause of the nation. among both civilians and secur merely the expression of a politi At the inauguration of the war memorial, ity forces. Intelligence reports in cian’s conceit. At the prime min part of a new nationalist iconography suf dicate that recruitments into ister’s customary Independence fused with martial symbols, the prime minis militant ranks have multiplied. Day address from Delhi’s Lal Qila ter had little use for the common propriety of Intemperate speech in the af WhileQ that gulf grows, a few days later, Modi paid elab acknowledging the wide political consensus termath of Pulwama and threats older means of orate homage to the “people of in matters of national security. While repeat of physical violence in various containment are Balochistan, Gilgit (and) ing his customary litany of blame for the situ parts of the country against cit slipping out of grasp PakistanOccupied Kashmir” ation in Kashmir, the prime minister izens of Kashmiri origin who had extended their thanks introduced a new motif, accusing the Con widened the chasm between ma to him for advocating their gress of a sinister plot to delay the acquisition joritarian sentiment in India R cause. of fighter jets by the Indian Air Force (IAF). and a people it has proclaimed India’s crossborder airstrike The next day, IAF jets struck across the bor captive to its whims. That feverish overreac applied a brief quietus to a growing contro der, destroying an alleged terrorist training tion aligned perfectly with the terrorists’ ob versy over the Rafale fighter jets deal. It camp in Pakistan and inflicting significant jectives in underlining that India’s claims to crowned an effort that began soon after the casualties on the armed group that carried Kashmir are about coveting the land without Pulwama atrocity, when the ruling party’s for out the Pulwama attack. Aside from a terse the people. midable social media army began a determ statement by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, While that gulf grows, older means of con ined pushback against the tide of revelations there was little information from official tainment are slipping out of grasp. Crossbor indicating possible malfeasance in the acquis sources. Ambiguities were erased and inform der raids by special commando units were at ition of the jets from France. It probably will ation gaps filled in by an eager media, every one time a way of keeping adventurism from not survive Pakistan’s retaliatory strike and outlet claiming special access to news sources the other side in check. One such operation in combat action in which one IAF officer was that matter, feeding the celebratory mood. September 2016, undertaken in retaliation for taken prisoner of war. As news anchors made their triumphal an a lethal attack on an Indian army establish nouncements, crowds assembled on the ment in Uri, acquired the appellation of a “sur sukumar muralidharan teaches at the school of streets in what seemed a spontaneous referen gical strike”. In an earlier enactment of today’s journalism, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat