The lady and the gun
24 May 2008. Somewhere in the 'forward area' along the Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir. Pratibha Patil, President of India, is handed an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle. She reaches for it, smiles like a kid, and brandishes the weapon. She notices a camera and puts up a pose, pointing the gun towards the lens.
The bad odour of it all takes the breath away. Okay, the President of India is also the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces, but it was not necessary to rub salt in the collective wound of the Kashmiris, who for so long have been angry and agitated. Can one forget that many Kashmiris continue to regard Indian security as an occupying force, or that J & K has the world's largest concentration of military personnel (at roughly a half-million) among a civilian population?