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The Formula 4 Façade: India's High-Speed Deception in Kashmir
Picture this: Srinagar, March 17, 2024. The roar of engines fills the air as the Formula 4 race event takes center stage, heavily promoted by Indian officials and media as a historic milestone symbolizing Kashmir's rapid development and integration under Indian rule. Prime Minister Modi himself took to Twitter, waxing poetic about how this event marked a new era of progress in the region.

Organized in collaboration with the J&K tourism department, the race featured drivers from across India competing on a track along the picturesque Dal Lake boulevard road. A sight to behold, no doubt, but scratch beneath the surface, and you'll uncover a far less pretty picture – one that India tries desperately to keep hidden from view.

Just days before the race, an elderly Kashmiri man was brutally killed, deliberately run over by an Indian armed forces vehicle in Bandipora district. This incident, which sparked local outrage but barely registered on the media's radar, serves as a stark reminder of how Kashmiri lives, deaths, and truths are systematically erased and devalued to maintain India's carefully curated illusion of normalcy and progress in the region.

India's selective focus on the Formula 4 spectacle while turning a blind eye to the ongoing oppression in Kashmir is a textbook example of a settler colonial occupying force imposing its own narrative, a singular, hegemonic timeline that presents Kashmir's integration as an inevitable reality. It's like throwing a flashy party and expecting everyone to forget about the skeletons in the closet.

But wait, there's more! The much-hyped Poloview market, proudly showcased to G20 delegates as a shining example of Kashmir's modernization, found itself underwater during the floods of July 2023. So much for those fancy underground drainage and electricity systems – turns out they were about as effective as a chocolate teapot in a heatwave.

For Kashmiris, who navigate daily harassment and a suffocating military presence alongside these hollow spectacles, India's grandiose gestures of progress and prosperity ring about as true as a politician's promise. The flood-ravaged Poloview market, meant to epitomize a "Naya Kashmir," instead laid bare the cynical politics underlying the occupier state's grand visions – a flimsy veneer of development pasted over a grim reality of control and exploitation.

By projecting a unilateral vision of Kashmir's future that hinges on erasing its past, India seeks to dissolve Kashmiri identity into a homogenizing chronology where its rule is an immutable fact. Meanwhile, Kashmiri identity and history, rooted in alternative temporalities of memory, experience, and aspiration, are suppressed and delegitimized under India's settler colonial occupation.

So, the next time you witness a high-octane event like the Formula 4 race in Kashmir, remember: it's all part of India's elaborate smoke and mirrors act, designed to distract from the harsh realities on the ground. In the end, no amount of racing or ribbon-cutting can erase the truth – that Kashmir's real progress will only begin when its people are free to chart their own course.