Blood and Thunder

Performance art as resistance in Kashmir

01 December, 2024

Two men, wearing white gowns, stand in the Jhelum river, water above their knees. Their faces are painted red, and they are covered in mud. One holds an ornate turban, partly encrusted in mud, half in the water.

A man is submerged in water. Only his forehead is visible, just above the surface, and the turban on his head has an upright feather. Next to him, floating in the water is a sheet of paper painted a rusty colour, resembling blood.

At a disused mining site, under grey clouds, a man in a dark red robe, the traditional Kashmiri pheran, poses with outstretched arms. In white, the letters “PSA” and “AFSPA” are scrawled on his back and sleeve—referring to the Public Safety Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Beside him is a white cloth, dipped in red ink. His arms encircle an earthen mound, a little hill that resembles the hump of a camel. A spool of concertina wire surrounds the artist and the mound. It is entangled in his hair and pheran, and circles his limbs. A khasa—a headscarf worn by elderly women in Kashmir—is stuck in the wire, too.