Mainstream WeeklyThe 2025 Pahalgam attack was an attack on tourists by five armed militants near Pahalgam, in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed on 22 April.
The country is no doubt deeply anguished by the Pahalgam attack, but to understand the teleology behind this act, we need more than national grief and the war cry of retribution. If we search from a dispassionate perspective, we will find two particularly troubling aspects of this event: first, in peacetime we usually discount the underlying tectonic fissures that exist and can deal a veritable jolt to the nation