The horrific killing of tourists that has left the meadows of Pahalgam stained with the blood of more than two dozen corpses produces a sickening sense vertigo — like the fall of the falcon, “turning and turning in the widening gyre,” to borrow W B Yeats’ metaphor. The moral issue in this attack is clear. There are no root causes, no mitigating circumstances, that can contextualise its enormity. People were targeted for their religion. We can speculate on the logic of this attack: Was it timed to coincide with a visit by an American leader? Was it planned to divert attention from Balochistan? To wreck Kashmir’s economy? Is the attack part of the Great Game, meant to draw in the Great Powers by creating a sense of crisis? But there is no point speculating on motives. In the end, it is the effect of this act that will matter.

The nature of this attack is such that any state reserves the right to take whatever action is necessary to bring the perpetrators, and those who aid them, to justice. Yet, as India chooses the next course of action, it will be difficult to shake off the sense of despair this kind of terrorism produces. A successful military operation might be an act of justice. It might restore a sense of confidence in the capabilities of the state, and, in some quarters, satiate a desire for revenge. But even if these actions were successful in a limited sense, we will remain close to the edge of an abyss. One only hopes that whatever action we take is prudent, in the largest sense of the term, not merely performative or reckless. But the tragedy of the moment is that the bloody frontier this act in

© Indian Express