Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an acknowledged nonpareil in focusing attention solely on his message. His effective use of inventive acronyms and choreographed gestures ensure that each of his public appearances makes it to the front pages of newspapers and prime time TV. In Udhampur on Sunday, he continued with his use of homophones by asking the Valley’s youth to choose between two Ts: terrorism and tourism. No one can have a gripe with a universal statement like that — or the ones that followed such as “this game of blood has failed to benefit anyone in 40 years.” Narendra Modi was at his persuasive and conciliatory best — offering funds, projects, business and employment to tamp down the unending cycle of violent conflict in Kashmir.As history has shown, the Prime Minister may be on the right path. An infusion of massive funds accompanied by the heavy hand of the military has helped end chronic insurgency in many parts of the world. But such recipes presuppose that Kashmir is not a political problem but a terrorist one that has to be solved militarily. This approach may be in sync with muscular nationalism on show in mainland India. But it doesn’t account for the various narratives of identity politics that have led to hardly a day passing in the last 28 years when some part of Kashmir was not up in flames.After spending the Diwali night in Srinagar in 2014, Modi would know that this route is unworkable. It is not only because Islamabad-backed minders are inimically influencing Kashmiri youth with visions of independence or merger with Pakistan. The BJP’s consolidation of the Hindu vote and its conscious “othering” of Muslims in mainland India have reduced the credibility of the PM’s exhortation of forgetting the past and making a new beginning. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti may have sensed the absence of political content in the PM’s peace offering when she requested him to visit the Valley. This was a clear hint to New Delhi to address the deeper reasons for the disquiet.