The massacre at Baisaran, in Pahalgam, shattered the cliché that violent death had become in Kashmir, prompting its people to observe a shutdown to express their sorrow. Their prolonged experience of violence, as much perpetrated by some of their own as by the Indian State and Pakistan, didn’t inure them to the militants asking the tourists to identify their religion before shooting them dead, even though this form of killing has a long history in India.

Yet the humane response of Kashmiris was lost in the din of warmongering, or portrayed as their lament over the setback Baisaran will inflict on their tourism industry. Tourism, according to former finance minister Haseeb Drabu, accounts for only seven per cent of Jammu and Kashmir’s GDP, and hotels and restaurants less than one per cent. Kashmiris, in other words, can survive without tourism. The misrecognition of their sorrow commodifies their emotions, a subliminal step towards dehumanising them.