On a paved road in Kashmir, an Indian tourist poses triumphantly for her husband’s camera, national flag in each hand, flanked by two soldiers with rifles.

India’s hottest new tourist destination is also the scene of its deadliest insurgencies, where skirmishes regularly break out between separatist militants and Indian troops, half a million of whom are stationed in Kashmir.

A major tourism campaign launched early last year is luring Indians to Kashmir with the promise of stunning Himalayan landscapes, snow-capped hill stations and secluded Hindu shrines dotted around the Muslim-majority region.

More than 1.6 million Indian travelers visited the disputed area in the first six months of this year – a new record, according to local officials, and four times the number for the same period in 2019.

Many fraternize and take selfies with soldiers, and resent the regular firefights between troops and rebels that take place out of sight of popular targets.

“Now everything is fine in Kashmir,” Dilip Bhai, a visitor from India’s Gujarat state, told AFP while waiting in line outside a restaurant guarded by paramilitaries.

“The news of violence that we hear in the media is more rumor than reality,” he said, adding that the armed clashes that took place “on the side” didn’t worry him.

Security forces have had a tight grip on Kashmir – which is also claimed and partially controlled by Pakistan – since 2019, when the Indian government overturned the region’s constitutionally guaranteed limited autonomy.

Thousands of people have been placed in preventive detention this year to prevent expected protests over the sudden decision, while authorities severed communications links in what became the longest Internet shutdown on record.

Public protests have since been made virtually impossible, local journalists are regularly harassed by the police and the region is closed to foreign reporters.

But clashes still erupt in the area nearly every week, with officials counting 130 suspected rebels and 19 members of the security forces killed in the first six months of the year.

The constitutional amendment opened up land purchases and local jobs to Indians from outside Kashmir, and for residents this year’s influx of travelers is the latest insult.

“Tourism promotion is good, but it’s done with a kind of nationalist triumphalism,” a leading Kashmiri trader told AFP, asking not to be named for fear of government reprisals.

“It’s like war by other means,” they added. “The way tourism is encouraged by the government says to Indians: Spend time there and make Kashmir yours.”

A rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1989 sparked a long-running insurgency that killed thousands and sparked a panicked migration of Hindu residents from the Muslim-majority valley.

Regular attempts to revitalize the tourism market failed as three popular uprisings between 2008 and 2016 killed more than 300 civilians and scared off potential visitors.

But after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy three years ago, the authorities began again touting the region to Indians as one of the country’s top flight destinations.

A promotional blitz followed with festivals, travel markets, road shows and Indian tour operator summits sponsored by the local government and 21 major cities across India.

The government announced the opening of a ski resort among 75 new “undeveloped destinations” for tourists, including some near the heavily militarized de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Authorities are also soliciting investors to build 20,000 hotel rooms in addition to the 50,000 already in the area, and they have relaxed a homestay policy to encourage residents to host visitors.

Sarmad Hafeez, the local government’s tourism secretary, told AFP that the official budget dedicated to promoting tourism has “quadrupled” in the past two years.

“We have changed previous perceptions about Kashmir,” he said. “Events have sent a clear message that Kashmir is safe to travel to.”

India’s drive to open up Kashmir’s remarkable landscape to tourism comes as the rest of its established economy languishes following the change in status of the territory.

Drastic restrictions on public life and an intensified counterinsurgency campaign have stifled the local economy.

The government has also removed tax barriers that had helped protect local production from outside competition.

“This was the final nail in the coffin of our manufacturing industry,” Shahid Kamili, president of the Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kashmir (FCIK), told AFP.

Industrial production accounts for 15 percent of the local economy, according to FCIK data – three times the most optimistic figures for the tourism sector.

But 350,000 industrial workers lost their jobs since the region’s autonomy was lifted, Kamili said.

The region’s potential for growth as a tourist destination continues to be hampered by its violent history and prevailing dissatisfaction with Indian rule, unsettling some visitors with the heavy security presence.

“If Kashmir is part of India,” a West Bengal tourist told AFP, “then we should ask ourselves why there are so many security forces everywhere.”