In the Name of Sindoor: Justice or Revenge?
‘Mother of the Disappeared’ Artist: Mubashir Niyaz, an artist based in Kashmir
The “feminist” warmongers say: we kill in the name of sindoor – the Hindu tradition of wearing a red line in one’s hair to honor the beloved. They lament the loss of that right for the two dozen widowed women who lost it in Pahalgam on April 22. They wield sindoor like a weapon– a “stand for every woman whose love was stolen.” They claim rage for “every symbol [of love] that grief has tried to erase.” They vow that terror will not silence tradition, dignity, or “the fire of a nation that remembers.”
Once again, a fire is ablaze in the name of every [Hindu] woman.
It flares every few years – when a lucky story of terror rekindles memory. The flames are brightest when the woman lost to it is Hindu and upper-caste. Brighter still, when the beast who ignites it is Muslim. Then, time devours fire. No blaze is large enough to hold the sorrow of our women in their millions.
This time again, sorrow feeds the flames. Another fire has flared– on command of those who stand to gain from making beasts out of suffering men and women. This fire doesn’t mourn the countless eight-year old Asifas raped and killed in Kashmir, or the three-year old Pakistani girl murdered last night. The fire burns for the beast itself – the state. It is not the fire of a nation that remembers its people; it is the fire of a nation that refuses to see that it's burning in its own hatred.
If it is in the name of sindoor that they kill, then let us mourn not only the lives lost in Kashmir and Pakistan, but also our Hindu faith—which teaches that the world is one family (vasudhaiva kutumbakam)—and our feminism, which calls us to stand with women and not for borders.
We must ask ourselves: what do we want—justice or revenge? And if it’s justice, then for whom? If revenge, then against whom?
Has the word “terrorist” ever been used without vilifying a people—and justifying state-sponsored violence against them? Has national outrage inspired by the t-word ever produced anything remotely just?
The word is everywhere again, this time in the wake of the deadly attack in Pahalgam. Within hours of the attack, group chats and socials lit up with fellow Hindus proclaiming their heartbreak and rage. My heart aches too for the families who lost loved ones. But no more than it breaks for the Indian Muslims attacked in the aftermath, for the 1,500+ Kashmiris detained almost overnight, or for the millions of Pakistanis now facing the threat of collective punishment as India suspends the Indus Waters Treaty and bombs Pakistan.
The Pahalgam attack was an act of terror– no question. But to fellow Hindus, I ask: what of the terror of the Indian state? What of the thousands of Kashmiris killed, disappeared, or indefinitely detained? What about the occupation that has turned ‘paradise on earth’ into one of the most heavily militarized zones in the world?
I insist on a simple principle: if we call this terrorism, then we must call that terrorism too. And let’s not pretend the scales are comparable. If the massacre of 26 tourists in Pahalgam is an episode of terror, then the Indian occupation of Kashmir is no less than a structure of terror – one that makes such violence imminent. The Indian government insists on “normalcy”. It pushes tourism in Kashmir, as if the everyday brutalities of the occupation can be wallpapered over with mountain views and saffron fields. Again, I ask: what’s “normal” about arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, torture, rape, and murder by Indian ‘Security‘ Forces? What makes an occupied territory under routine lockdowns, state surveillance, and internet shutdowns a safe travel destination? Why are we pretending that violence is an aberration in a region entirely shaped by it?
The question of Kashmir lies at the heart of the Indian Left. I am reminded of Arundati Roy’s powerful words as I confront it myself: There should be deep solidarity between the struggles in Manipur, in Nagaland, in Kashmir, in central India, and with the poor, the squatters, the vendors, the slum dwellers. But what is it that should link these struggles? It’s the idea of justice. Because there are struggles that are not for justice—like the VHP. That is a people’s movement too—but it’s a struggle for fascism, it’s a struggle for injustice. Not every movement, every person on the street, every slogan is a slogan for justice.
So how do we make sense of Pahalgam, when the gunmen call themselves the resistance? We do not need to absolve the Pahalgam attack to name the Indian occupation as the fundamental force of terror in the region. Not all violence by the oppressed is resistance. Not all groups of the oppressed are guided by a liberatory agenda. Not all targets are legitimate. Not all operations are politically meaningful—or morally defensible. Some are simply devastating.
The question I am raising is not whether armed resistance is justified. The history of anti-colonialism (including our own) has long affirmed that. The question is: what counts as resistance? If all violence is automatically valorized as resistance so long as it’s the oppressed who commit it, then the struggle against the oppressor is drained of its politics. It is reduced to the mere fact of violence, if we fail to consider its politics seriously. The good news is: none of us have to determine the criteria for resistance. The bad news is: we are still not off the hook. Moral ambivalence is uncomfortable. Solidarity commands conviction. But conviction can be a slippery slope to dogma, if it preserves no space for doubt. Or worse, when it collapses those we claim solidarity with into a single, flattened identity. Maybe conviction starts with something more modest– a commitment to take questions about political struggle seriously, to reject dogma and false equivalencies, and to strike the word ‘terrorist’ from our vocabulary altogether.
Because ultimately, there can be no justice for the lives lost in Pahalgam without an end to India’s campaign of terror and militarization in Kashmir. And we must say so—especially now, as public grief is being manipulated into calls for vengeance. To acknowledge the guilt of the Indian state is to admit what we already know: the current political arrangement is untenable. Occupation and mass dispossession make violence routine, not exceptional. At the very least, we must all agree that ‘unity against terror’ cannot entail an endorsement of more state-sponsored terrorism. The real task of unity and solidarity now is to prevent, stop, limit the horror show that is unfolding.
It is our moral imperative as Indians— and as Hindu Indians, in particular— to ask ourselves: why have we only let our hearts break now, for these 26 lives, and not for the thousands of (Muslim and Hindu) Kashmiri lives lost since AFSPA came into effect in 1990? Why aren’t we outraged by thousands of arbitrary detentions, hundreds of extrajudicial killings? Why do these 26 deaths strike us differently than so many others? Why are we not horrified by the hate-mongering across India, or by the “operational freedom” granted to the military under Modi? Will we grieve with such urgency when the next wave of blood is spilled—when the dead are Kashmiri, Muslim, Pakistani, and the “terrorist” is our state?
Vagisha Agrawal is a member of Hindus for Human Rights Canada. She is currently completing a Masters in Social Work at York University, Toronto, Canada.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Hindus for Human Rights or any affiliated organization.