Apples from Kashmir

Will there be poetry after a massacre?

When reading the news from Pahalgam, I thought of Amit’s poem and texted him, asking him whether there can be poetry after a massacre. Then I made the above drawing. I had asked Amit this question because I had also seen reports this morning that called for even greater violence. Arnab Goswami, the news-anchor who has turned rabid nationalism into a rag for polishing the shoes of the powerful, even gave it a name “final solution.” (Hmmm. What does that term remind you of? And this, maybe?) A call like Goswami’s is anti-democratic, even fascistic, not only because he declares that he believes that there should never be an election in Kashmir but also because, as his rhetoric makes clear, he is creating the grounds for extermination of a people or even a nation.

The immediate reality is that the terrorist attack in Pahalgam has devastated the lives of many people, both tourists and locals. To use the deaths and suffering of others to call for war is to act according to our worst instincts. My friend Ravish uploaded a video today in which you can hear a young man named Sankalp, also a tourist in Pahalgam, offering a testimony about how he was helped by Kashmiris who were the tourist guides and hotel staff. The response to Sankalp’s post, offering condolences to the families of the dead and also support for those turned into victims by this talk of Hindu-Muslim divide, has been nearly uniform—they all label Ravish a “traitor” for not talking about war or not engaging in a hate-filled narrative where every Kashmiri is regarded as suspect.

Religion has been the provocative point of division in India under the current regime. The terrorists and their patrons recognize this. All those baying for blood in their television stations in Delhi and elsewhere are puppets dancing to the designs of the terrorists. Choose apples over grenades!