Two weeks ago, the photograph of a woman sitting motionless beside her husband's body went viral across Indian social media. It captured a moment of unspeakable grief - one that came to symbolise the 22 April militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed.
Himanshi Narwal, whose 26-year-old husband was one of the victims, is the woman in the picture. Vinay Narwal was shot and killed while the couple, who had only been married for less than a week, were enjoying their honeymoon. However, a hate campaign began targeting Ms. Narwal, who had been portrayed as the tragedy's face, within days. It started last week when, as national sentiment was high, she urged people not to target Muslims or Kashmiris. According to survivors, Hindu men were the target, and the victims were shot after the militants inquired about their religion. Indian security forces are still searching for the attackers.
It has been reported that Hindu right-wing groups have harassed and threatened Kashmiri vendors and students in other Indian cities since the attack. After a fatal attack, Kashmiris in India face violence and say, "We are too scared to go back." "We don't want people going against Muslims or Kashmiris. On the day that would have been her husband's 27th birthday, the family held a blood donation camp. "We want peace and only peace," Ms. Narwal told reporters. "Of course, we want justice. She continued, "The wrongdoers ought to be punished." It was her first public statement since a video of her bidding an emotional farewell over her husband's coffin went viral. "It is because of him that the world is still surviving," the weeping widow says in it. And in every way, we ought to be proud of him." Her appeal for peace sparked a swift backlash. Within a matter of hours, numerous internet users who had previously expressed their grief for her death began making abusive comments. Some accused her of dishonouring her husband's memory as she refused to blame ordinary Kashmiris for the attack. During her time studying at a Delhi university, others made and shared untrue claims about her friendships and relationships with Kashmiri men. Another person asserted that she was not permitted to discuss her husband's death because they had only been married for a few days. India's National Commission for Women (NCW) wrote on X that the trolling was "extremely reprehensible and unfortunate" as the online abuse continued. "Perhaps her reaction did not go over well with irate individuals. But any kind of agreement or disagreement should always be expressed with decency and within constitutional limits," NCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar wrote on x.
Journalist Namita Bhandare, who covers gender issues, told the BBC that it was "shocking" how much hatred Ms Narwal received for simply appealing for peace and calm.
Ms. Bhandare went on to say that she was the target of vicious trolling because she "appealed for peace rather than succumbing to the narrative of revenge." Ms Narwal was not the only survivor of the attack to face online abuse.
After speaking about her ordeal in front of the media, Arathi R Menon, the daughter of a man from Kerala state who was killed in the shootings, was also the target of trolls. When she talked about her father's death, some people said that she spoke too calmly and didn't show much emotion. Her praise of two Kashmiri men, who she claimed helped her and cared for her "like a sister," was criticized by others. Ms. Bhandare says, "It is the same old story - women are always the easy targets." She also says that female victims of online abuse are more likely to be sexualized and to be threatened with violence. "Being faceless online gives people the courage to say whatever they want," she says. "Of course, there is patriarchy at work, and women are singled out regardless of their identity." Ms. Narwal also received online support in the midst of the abuse. On X, activist and writer Gurmehar Kaur wrote, "Your [Ms. Narwal's] statement in the face of that loss was an act of grace and unimaginable strength." "My mother lost her father in the [Kashmir] valley when she was your age. This kind of loss is real to me." In 2017, Kaur, then a graduate student, became the target of a vicious social media campaign after she spoke against a Hindu right-wing student group after a clash at a college in Delhi. A lot of the people who trolled her disagreed with a previous campaign in which she claimed that her soldier father, who died in 1999, was killed by war, not Pakistan. The NCW's statement in support of Ms. Narwal was welcomed by journalist Rohini Singh, but she questioned why no action had been taken against the social media accounts "blatantly abusing and slandering her." The opposition parties in India have also urged the government to act. Priyanka Chaturvedi, an MP from the Shiv Sena (UBT) party, tagged federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in a post, asking him to "stand with the widow of an Indian officer" and take action against the trolling.
On the trolling campaign, no Indian minister has commented, and no police complaint has been filed. Meanwhile, Ms Bhandare says that, like many online hate campaigns, this too may follow a familiar pattern: "It will run its course and then the people will move on to their next target."
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