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?
And so, let us try to replay the series of events. Madame President lands in her helicopter from Srinagar. She is taken on an inspection tour. She asks to handle, or is handed, the offending weapon. She strikes a pose at a rakish angle. Everyone grins – what a jolly good character is the president! Among those who see nothing amiss in these antics is the Congress party Kashmir stalwart and former chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, at the rear left. The bodyguard is also game, as are all of the bureaucrats and soldiers in the background. Then, President Patil spots the photographer, and zooms in on the camera.
Back at the president's public-relations office in Raisina Hill, the responsible officer could have quietly placed the images into the archive, if not the dustbin. But this was evidently seen as a great photo-op, to prove the 73-year-old lady's warlike qualities – the amenable, dragon-slaying devi in the avatar of non-threatening sari-clad Marathi womanhood.