The Pahalgam attack was more than a national tragedy. It was a moment that could have been projected as a blow to humanity itself. Indian media’s initial response to the massacre was swift, unified, and emotionally resonant. Columns across The Hindu, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, and The Times of India struck a chord of moral clarity: civilians had been slaughtered by cross-border terrorists, and there could be no moral ambiguity about the crime or its perpetrators.
Yet, even as the media admirably asserted India’s victimhood and demanded justice, a certain shortfall revealed itself. It wasn’t a flaw in passion or patriotism, but a kind of insularity: the lack of an outward gaze. The tragedy was treated overwhelmingly as an Indian wound requiring Indian healing. But in the intricate choreography of global politics, solidarity is not spontaneous, and sympathy must be earned.
In other words, India’s columns presumed, rather than argued for, international support. They reported—almost with a sense of vindication—condemnations from Washington, London, Riyadh. There was visible satisfaction in noting that the UN Security Council issued a statement of mourning. Few writers paused to ask a critical question: In a crowded marketplace of tragedies, would the world really see Pahalgam?
Today’s international stage is thick with blood and sorrow. Images from Gaza, reports from Ukraine’s ravaged cities, the unsung suffering of Sudan and Congo—the world’s humanitarian ledger grows heavier by the hour.
Against such a backdrop, even atrocities risk becoming background noise. Would policymakers in Europe and North America—grappling with domestic polarisation and economic anxieties—prioritise a terror attack in Kashmir when closer, politically loaded crises demanded their focus?
In India’s immediate commentary, there was little reckoning with this cruel arithmetic. Instead, there was an implicit assumption that righteousness would guarantee visibility; that because India had suffered, the world would naturally align in sympathy.
History, however, suggests otherwise.
What was missed
Adding to the challenge is the battle of terminology, where narratives are often won or lost before a single policy decision is made. International media—particularly influential outlets like The New York Times, BBC, and The Guardian—have long shown a maddening elasticity in vocabulary. An attack on civilians in Paris is labelled “terrorism” instantly, but in Kashmir, perpetrators are often described as “militants” or “gunmen,” softening the moral blow.
Some Indian editorials criticised this semantic discrepancy. Hindustan Times highlighted congressional pushback in the US against The New York Times’ euphemistic reporting. But this response was reactive rather than strategic. There was little proactive engagement or effort to frame Pahalgam not just as an Indian tragedy, but as part of the global war against indiscriminate, nihilistic violence that spares neither geography nor creed.
Had Indian opinion-makers taken this step, they might have better equipped policymakers and diplomats to push India’s case globally, not merely as a grievance to be acknowledged, but as a cause to be joined.
In an increasingly multipolar world, sympathy is a scarce commodity. Moral self-evidence—the idea that the sheer horror of the act will suffice to rally support—is no longer enough. Every crisis now competes for oxygen, airtime, and emotional bandwidth.
In such a world, the absence of a deliberate strategy to internationalise India’s pain risks diminishing its moral weight abroad. Domestic media could have acted as a bridge here, offering frames of reference that would resonate globally. They could have tied Pahalgam to the broader global narrative: the struggle against unaccountable non-state violence, the defence of civilian life as a universal principle, the commonality of grief from Christchurch to Colombo to Kashmir.
Instead, their focus remained firmly at home, reinforcing domestic solidarity but missing a larger opportunity.
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Pahalgam as world’s loss
Imagine if the columns following Pahalgam had explicitly drawn connections between the ideologies that drive gunmen into synagogues, churches, and tourist meadows alike.
Such a framing would have made Pahalgam not only India’s tragedy but the world’s loss. It would have demanded that global actors, who often advocate solidarity after terrorist attacks elsewhere, recognise the same moral clarity when the victims are Indian.
Moreover, by speaking in the shared language of humanity rather than nationalism, Indian writers could have disarmed sceptics and muted inevitable critiques about Kashmir’s political complexities. Violence against civilians is wrong, without caveat or clause, wherever it happens. That is the universal truth Indian media should have hammered home.
To be clear, the emotional sincerity of the Indian press’s reaction is beyond reproach. The columns captured national grief with dignity, avoided gratuitous jingoism, and resisted the temptation to dehumanise the adversary wholesale. In a time of easy outrage, these are notable achievements.
Journalism, at its highest calling, sometimes demands thinking beyond borders, beyond the instinctive circle of one’s own pain. If the world is to truly respond to India’s suffering, it must be shown how that suffering mirrors the threats faced everywhere.
In the valleys of Kashmir, the echoes of gunfire linger. In the crowded corridors of international conscience, they grow fainter by the hour. In that vanishing echo lies a truth that India’s storytellers must learn to hear.
OP Singh is Additional DGP and head of Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau. He tweets @opsinghips. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)