One needs to understand the difference between violence and deaths that are normalized and violence and deaths that generate nationwide outrage, whose deaths are grieved for and whose deaths are made ungrievable, which attack is seen as “terror” and which attack is legitimized and normalized through law and society.

Groundxero | April 27, 2025

By Sohini Saha

Last few days have been overwhelming for India. The Pahalgam attack on tourists has generated widespread condemnation and reactions across India as it happens after every terror attack in the country. The act of condemnation is a needed and logical response whenever lives are lost in terror attacks yet there has been an increase in the demand to publicly “condemn”. A performance of condemnation has to be now specially enacted by the Muslim population and those individuals who voice for them. Thus, anyone who voices against the oppression and marginalization of the Muslims, have to now perform an act of condemnation for the “militancy” or “Islamic terrorism” in order to prove their secularity or rather “neutrality”. Here secularism is considered as a “neutral” politics that understands equality of responses through the language of neutrality. This is where the issue lies I think in understanding our responses to this terror attack. My attempt in this piece is not to argue about facts and evidence or the “truth” of the incident but instead to speak about our responses to the information that were spread through social media platforms.

The Pahalgam attack on civilians (tourists) was distinctive as the attack was said to be conducted on religious lines. Thus, it was being “established” in the media and social media platforms, through these pieces of information, that the attack was specifically committed on the Hindu community. This sparked widespread condemnation and the question of Islamic terrorism was brought to the forefront. From secular-liberals to Islamophobes, everyone was united in their likely act of condemnation of the violence done on the Hindus. The demand for condemnation was especially more on the Muslims and on those who speak for the Muslims (categorized in the triad of “secular-liberal-left”). Thus, there was an invocation of guilt and a demand for neutrality and so our social media overflowed with condemnation from everyone. While condemnation is very much needed after any terror attack, this being no exception, the national outrage and condemnation for me was also a site to understand “why” and “how” people came to condemn. I argue that there were largely two responses to this, one through the common language of Islamophobia by a larger population and secondly, the “secular” responses stemming from an urge to “prove” or “express” one’s secularity (neutrality). While condemnation is a needed response, the reasons behind condemnation did not always necessarily emerge from one’s conscience or empathy towards the people who lost their lives, but rather from the predetermined bias or hatred towards a religious community or from the liberal guilt of failure of one’s secularity.

This was evident in the manner that an immediate response was demanded. A reactionary politics emerged from the very moment when the information that “Hindus were attacked” was spread across the media. By that I mean the urgency to react immediately and in a manner already laid down by social media. For example, several posts were not merely condemning but openly challenging the “secularists” to now condemn the violence in the same language as done by them during attacks on Muslims. This added to the tensed guilt consciousness of this population that made many react immediately. The nation was united against this attack, as if all were waiting for this one moment to express their deep seated Islamophobia or to prove their secularity that they were often accused of lacking. Arka Bhadhuri, a Kolkata-based journalist, wrote a piece speaking about how Islamophobia becomes a default response of “secular India” in the face of terrorism. It was here that these two distinct responses perhaps unite, speaking of a condemnation that condemns not just the act of terror but particularly, “Islamic” terrorism. It was not enough to attack terrorism but the religious nature of it needed to be emphasized. Interestingly, the initial statements from the PM of India made no reference to the religion of the victims and the perpetrators. However, online trolling of the PM’s post sarcastically asked the PM to specify the religion of the victims and perpetrators. Even the initial statement put out on RSS’s X handle on the carnage earned flak from the saffron ecosystem for not terming it an “attack on Hindus”. Most posts therefore specifically referred to “Islamic” terrorism as a needed response. I am not arguing against the linkages between religious fundamentalism and the attack in this context, but instead trying to say how acknowledgement of the “Islamic” nature of terrorism was a needed response from these people. This was happening also in a very short span of time when verifiable information was yet to be ascertained. I say this because in a place like Kashmir which has seen years of oppression and conflict, such information need to be carefully verified, contextualized, and understood. In an age of social media, propaganda and fabricated news, it becomes necessary to ponder how information reaches us and how it has to be separated from disinformation. Thus, the immediacy demanded has to be challenged in order to calmly think about the situation in order to write a condemnation. For example, there has been a tendency to relegate militancy in Kashmir as backed by Islamic Terrorism from outside, obscuring the possibility of militancy within and the delusion of normalcy. The urgency and ease with which posts and condemnation emerged, specifically on the nature of violence, the people seemed to have already concluded. The most certain piece of verified news we had was that civilians have been attacked and killed, whereas the intricacies of the nature of attack remained in a cloud of breaking news, statements and media coverage. At such a moment the only possible “truth” was the death of the people due to a terror attack, yet the condemnations took a step forward in concluding about its nature, purpose and methods of killing. We now know some of this initial information has been problematized with emerging newer evidence.

However, I emphasize on the initial days of the attack when statements started coming out from people. I once again repeat my aim is not to challenge the information but rather to point out the ease with which they were received by the masses. What was about these pieces of news that triggered such quick widespread responses? What made us “believe” in this information? For example, in the context of Gaza, Mohammad Al Kurd notes that a disinformation of decapitation of babies by terrorists was circulated. While it was later recognized as a disinformation, it played a crucial role in feeding on Islamophobic tropes by referring to decapitation. This linkage made it acceptable to people even before the news could be verified. The Pahalgam attack was not merely a direct one as we were made to understand. It was enacted through certain means that resembled a “communal script” known to us. I argue that what made these pieces of information, circulated by different media houses in a very short span of time, acceptable to the masses, were their resemblance to the everyday nature of religious and caste based violence meted out to the marginalized population. For example, the asking of one’s religion, or forcing to recite Kalma (similar to forcing Muslims to recite Jai Shree Ram), or pulling down of pants (similar to stripping Dalits) were circulated in media houses and were eagerly taken up by the masses as part of their condemnation towards the terror attack. It was as if to say how the majority too is undergoing a similar form of violence that so far the minorities were going through. This suppressed emotion and insecurity that has been instigated in many (majority) were triggered with this set of information and who came to vehemently emphasize on these while condemning. Thus, the condemnation was not merely towards the terror attack or an empathetic response to the people who lost their lives, it rather assumed a communal response based on one’s religious identity.

This immediacy to react and condemn is also recognized in context of Gaza by Alice von Bieberstein, when she writes how “politics is being reduced to the incessant call for and the repeated performances of condemnation”. In such a time, withdrawing from reacting immediately became a much needed “action” for me at that moment. I contemplated my stance at a time when reactions were heavily demanded. In doing so I came to differentiate between condemnation and protest/resistance in order to distinguish between voicing against minority based violence and voicing against civilian attacks and attacks on communities that hold a majority position. While condemnation is a needed and obvious response to any terror attack, violence and death associated with it, the voicing against minority violence is more than just condemnation, it is resistance against erasure. When we come to voice the atrocities against minorities like Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, the attempt is to expose the workings of injustice and inequality in their experiences. We do not merely condemn but protest against such atrocities in order to open up discussion on the ways atrocities against them are normalized on an everyday basis. Thus, voicing against the normalization of violence on minorities is different from condemning violence against a civilian attack or an attack on a majority. The point of difference is that, it is very evident from the aftermath of such terror attacks that the violence against innocent civilians are recognized and acted against, grieved for by the nation. The current attack can be considered to be so as there is widespread condemnation across India. While on the other hand, when we witness the violence against minorities, this is not a response we get. Thus, although we remember 9/11, 26/11 and now the Pahalgam Attack to name a few, we do not remember or are mostly unaware of say for example, the Nellie massacre in Assam that took the lives of two thousand Muslims. Do we recognize it as an act of terror? Do we mourn for these lives lost? Was there a national outrage? Thus, our voicing against minorities is an act of resistance against normalization, an act of protest against erasure. This is not the same as condemning any violence or terror attack which is a default, logical and needed response to any violent incidence.

Thus, the neutrality demanded in the name of secularism, misses the point that secularism is not about neutrality. It is about recognizing the injustices and inequalities in our responses to the violence meted out to people who are not equally placed. One needs to understand the difference between violence and deaths that are normalized and violence and deaths that generate nationwide outrage, whose deaths are grieved for and whose deaths are made ungrievable, which attack is seen as “terror” and which attack is legitimized and normalized through law and society. Thus, our responses cannot be “neutrally” driven towards all violence in the same manner. Violence, deaths and our responses towards them are always contextual and have to be recognized through it.

The author is an academic.