Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, often regarded as the voice of a generation, has finally spoken out following widespread criticism over his silence in the wake of the horrific Pahalgam terror attack. On Sunday, the veteran actor returned to social media with a deeply emotional tribute to the Indian armed forces and the victims of the April 22 massacre in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Pahalgam attack, orchestrated by Pakistan-backed terror outfit The Resistance Front (TRF), left 26 civilians dead and shook the conscience of the nation. Since then, Bachchan’s posts on X (formerly Twitter) had turned cryptic, consisting solely of numbered entries without commentary. This uncharacteristic silence drew sharp reactions from fans and observers alike.
However, in a powerful comeback, Bachchan posted a stirring narrative interlaced with poetic lines and raw emotion. He vividly recounted one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the attack, describing how an innocent couple was dragged out, the husband stripped and identified by his religion before being mercilessly shot—despite the wife’s desperate pleas for mercy.
In a chilling detail that emerged from survivor accounts, one of the terrorists reportedly spared a victim with the instruction: “Go and tell Modi.” While Bachchan did not name the Prime Minister directly, the message was unmistakable.
To capture the depth of the tragedy, Bachchan turned to the words of his late father, legendary poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Referencing a verse that describes a woman holding her husband’s ashes while the world expects her to wear sindoor (symbolizing marital bliss), he wrote:
“Hai chita ki rakh le kar, maangti sindoor duniya.”
(“With the ashes from his pyre in her hands, the world still demands she apply vermilion.”)
He then pivoted powerfully to salute the Indian military’s response, referring to the precise retaliatory strikes carried out on May 7 as Operation Sindoor, stating:
“So they gave the sindoor back.”
The strikes, targeting multiple terror bases in Pakistan and PoK, were hailed as a swift and strategic counteroffensive.
Bachchan concluded with a fiery invocation of the iconic poem Agneepath, made famous by his own performance in the 1990 film of the same name:
“Tu na thamega kabhi, tu na mudega kabhi, tu na jhukega kabhi. Kar shapath! Agni path! Agni path!”
(“You will never stop, never turn, never bow. Take the oath—this is the path of fire!”)
The tribute, blending art, patriotism, and grief, has since gone viral, with many praising Bachchan for using his platform to honor the fallen and support the armed forces.
