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Question to everyone..
Are there evidences across the world, where such geographical echo chambers came back to normalcy?
Don't think even Punjab at the height of militancy reached this stage.
Punjab was different and similar at the same time. But it's better to focus on key differences first
1. For one, the state had nearly 50-50 split in Hindu-Sikh population, nearly equally distributed. That too its difficult to say if Khalistanis enjoyed wide spread support among the Sikhs throughout the state.
2. Despite Blue star and 1984, Sikhs remained a key part of our military and civil society and post Sant Longowaal murder, Khalistanis started losing traction.
3. Khalistan was not propped up by a pan-Sikh movement worldwide unlike the pan-Islamic terror that we see today. The terrorists were almost entirely drawn locally, even if they sheltered in Lahore. Moroever, hardly any SIkh from US, UK, Canada et al were to be found trying to travel to liberate Khalistan. All support notwithstanding,
there were unlikely to be
Napaki jihadis trying to cross the border everyday to strike in India. So once the local support was targeted and neutralised, Pakis could only do as much.
4. Punjab was and is much more deeply connected with the rest of India.
These are but a few points.
But, this is not to say that Punjab was a bed of roses. It was not. Growing up in 80s with little news coverage, even a small child can recall the horrors of those days, you couldn't open a newspaper or switch to DD news without being informed of how many lost their lives in a district in Punjab.
Bhindranwaale was this close to declaring an independent Khalistan, which forced an increasingly erratci Indira Gandhi to launch operation Blue star.
Punjab was entirely a mess of our own making and it cost a lot in blood and sweat for us to get it back to normal.
Kashmir was also messed up by us, but
Napaakis are involved much more deeply, for them it's an existential battle. They will throw everything at it and they also have a deeper pool of cannon fodder to call upon, not to mention radical Islam, which breeds it own frankensteins everywhere.