As the country mourns the brutal Pahalgam terror attack that targeted Hindu tourists — a chilling reminder that Islamist separatism still lurks behind Kashmir’s scenic veil — voices like that of Maktoob Media’s Rida Fathima resurface, not to condemn terror, but to rationalize it.
Fathima, who seems to like draping separatist sympathies in academic prose, claimed that “tourism is a colonial ploy in Kashmir” and grotesquely framed tourists as complicit in what she describes as an “occupation,” in response to a news item on the Pahalgam terror attack.
According to her warped logic, the presence of Indian citizens — pilgrims, families, children — in Kashmir justifies the blood spilled by terrorists. She wrote, “Tourism has been one of the oldest ploys of colonial standardisation in Kashmir, every time the figure of the Kashmiri terrorist is constructed to justify the brutal slaughter, violence, rape and routine abduction of kashmiris by hstani occupying forces kunan poshpora, gawkadal, sopore massacre, countless kashmiri lives in exile and beyond the grave, all bypass collective dominant memory, meanwhile the deaths of tourists are eulogised and weaponised to further sanction the ind*an occupation and its brutality” — a line of thought that not only strips victims of humanity but sanitizes the motives of the attackers while speaking the separatist language.
Maktoob media writer and "Free Kashmir separatist is talking about how tourism is a colonial occupation tool after reading a news on how Hindus were killed and critical of Muslims who condemned the attack. pic.twitter.com/Y0R6paDaYe
— Aayushi (@AquaTxfanaa) April 22, 2025
This is not dissent. It is propaganda.
While the nation unites to grieve and bring justice after the Pahalgam attack, Fathima’s ideological kin choose silence or worse, intellectual justification. Her selective memory invokes Kunan Poshpora and Sopore, but conveniently forgets the Wandhama massacre, the Nadimarg killings, the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, and the relentless targeting of Hindus — not as combatants, but civilians.
Echoes Sentiments Of National Conference MP
In an interview with a YouTube channel, “Nous Network”, National Conference MP Aga Syed Ruhullah stated, “What is happening right now, which they call tourism. In my view it is not tourism. In my view this is a cultural tourism by purpose and design.”
Ruhullah’s past remarks—labeling tourism in Jammu and Kashmir as a “cultural invasion” in the backdrop of the Pahalgam terrorist attack on tourists, especially Hindus, seem to be him downplaying the importance of tourism and issuing veiled threats that eerily echoed the tragic exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s.
Maktoob Media & Progapanda Pieces
Fathima, who contributes opinion pieces to Maktoob Media has also written about “Ram Mandir and Hindutva Fascist myth of Decolonisation”. In this piece, she argues that the grand celebration of the Ram Mandir inauguration in Ayodhya symbolizes not decolonization but a deepening of ‘Hindutva fascism’ rooted in historical revisionism, communal violence, and the ‘erasure of Muslim identity’ in India. Drawing parallels with the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, she highlights how educational institutions, once spaces of critical thought, are now being overrun by majoritarian aggression, with dissent silenced through intimidation. Interstingly, she criticizes the ideological use of archaeology to justify the temple’s construction, claiming that findings from Ayodhya were ‘selectively interpreted and politicized’, often lacking ‘scholarly rigor’.
She challenges the claim that Mughal rule was colonial, pointing to centuries of Indo-Islamic syncretism and mutual cultural exchange, especially through Sufi traditions. She warns against the ‘distortion of history’ to frame Muslim rulers as foreign oppressors while ignoring similar actions by Hindu kings. She also critiques the homogenization of Hindu identity under Hindutva, which masks internal caste violence and marginalization. – How dramatic! Ultimately, she condemns the use of the Ram Mandir as a nationalist project that ‘whitewashes past atrocities’ and legitimizes ongoing oppression.
For someone who writes such divisive propaganda and Maktoob media which seems to exist only to promote such narratives, the agenda of their ilk is very clear.
People like Rida Fathima must understand (will/can they?) that India celebrates tourism in Kashmir not as a colonial project but as a bridge — to bring jobs, hope, and unity to a region bled by decades of conflict. But for those like Fathima, peace is an inconvenient obstacle to a narrative they refuse to abandon.
Terrorists pulled the trigger in Pahalgam. But separatist apologists like Rida Fathima help load the gun — with words, excuses, and silence.
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