The BBC is not alone. Almost every major international, English-language news organisation across continents has described the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam as the work of “militants” or “gunmen”.
News agencies such as Reuters, along with newspapers like the UK’s Financial Times and The Guardian called them “suspected militants”. Even non-Western news outlets, such as the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, referred to the terrorists as “armed men” in the opening line of its report on the 22 April attack in Baisaran, which killed 26 tourists. In a later story, titled, ‘Act of war: What happened in Kashmir attack that killed 26 tourists?’, it wrote: “Suspected rebels killed at least 26 people on Tuesday in the picturesque tourist resort of Pahalgam…”
Modi government, we have a situation here: Will you issue a formal warning to each of them — or have you already done so?
Recall that earlier this week, the Government of India complained to the BBC about its coverage of the Pahalgam attack, specifically citing the story ‘Pakistan suspends visas for Indians after deadly Kashmir attack’, in which it had described the Resistance Front terrorists as “militants” and gave space to Pakistan’s viewpoint.
However, news organisations such as Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Fox News, and CNN— besides the others named above — do the same. This presents the Modi government with an awkward problem: do you want to take on the Western media’s leading newsrooms and invite more criticism of the BJP’s record on press freedom?
Also Read: How ThePrint’s small newsroom brought you Pahalgam from every angle, minus the noise
Terror by any other name
Guess which news outlet called a terrorist attack a terrorist attack? The Russian media outlet RT, although it also used terms like “the attackers”.
In its report titled ‘At least 26 killed in terror attack targeting tourists in India’s Kashmir’, RT wrote: “The terrorist group The Resistance Front (TRF), which is believed to be linked to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has claimed responsibility for the attacks.”
For the rest, “militant” was the norm. Across different parts of the world, newspapers such as the Israeli Haaretz ran agency copy. So did The Globe and Mail in Canada and Gulf News in Dubai, either taking stories from AFP, AP, and Reuters or basing their coverage on them.
Interestingly, Gulf News avoided naming the attack or the attackers in a follow-up business story: “The Indian rupee and stock markets have managed to hold the line in the last 38 hours even as political tensions escalate over the brutal killing of tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir.”
Other outlets took a similar approach. Read this from Reuters:
“More than half of the tourist destinations in India’s insurgency-torn Kashmir region have been closed to the public from Tuesday… The assailants segregated men, asked their names and targeted Hindus before shooting them at close range…”
The reference to the terrorists as “militants,” “gunmen,” “armed men,” “attackers,” or “assailants” hurts Indian sensibilities and also reminds us that the Western media generally treats Kashmir as a disputed territory between India and Pakistan.
This line from The New York Times sums up the overarching narrative in most international coverage: “…India and Pakistan have each laid claim to the region since war broke out following the nations’ partition in 1947, and border skirmishes have long created instability.”
Thus, in their reports, they will refer to the region as “India-controlled Jammu and Kashmir” (Financial Times), “India-administered Kashmir” (Al Jazeera), or “insurgency-torn Kashmir region” (Reuters).
Australia’s Sky News, quoted in The Australian, called it “the disputed Himalayan region”. The Sky reporter in India alternated between “militants” and “terrorists”.
Also Read: ‘For one death, 10 necks’—India’s news TV calls for revenge after Pahalgam terror attack
Memories of Mark Tully
So far, despite the Indian government’s protests, BBC still refers to the Resistance Front as “militants”. It continues to report as it did before the official complaint, as is evident in this report from Wednesday.
The New York Times was called out by the US House Foreign Relations Committee Majority in an X post after its first report on the Pahalgam attack carried the headline: ‘At least 24 tourists gunned down by militants in Kashmir’.
In subsequent reporting, the newspaper sidestepped the ‘militant–terrorist’ issue. “After 26 people, most of them tourists, were killed last week in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, India’s government called the massacre a terrorist attack and cited ‘cross-border linkages’ to Pakistan,” it wrote in one piece.
So, what happens now? In the 1970s, the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government expelled BBC correspondent Mark Tully twice. But no one wants a repeat of that.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
“What happens now”, the author asks. It seems it is a full circle, almost all International media consider Kashmir a disputed region and India is now hyphenated with Pakistan. After 9/11, the Nuclear Deal between USA and India, the 26/11 the international media were convinced that Pakistan was a sponsor of terrorism and was kind of shunned by all major countries except only China and North Korea. But then came a 56-inch authoritarian PM in India who used hugging diplomacy, managed events and showing-off bravado in public to improve India’s image abroad. All this was just soft power. The hard power on the other hand increased only a little. The inter-governmental agreement to buy 36 Rafale fighters was a good move, that too was entrenched with crony capitalism when the PM wanted a specific business entity to get the deal. The Agniveer Scheme doesn’t seem to give any benefits, in fact it seems to decrease the hard power. The Surgical Strike, the Balakot air strike were surprise attacks and hence succeeded because of surprise element. It made Pakistan look weak, but it didn’t deter Pakistan from its policy of sponsoring terrorism. So in reality there is hardly change except that the article 370 was removed which unnecessarily created confusing power struggle between J&K and India. The unnecessary hype is now forcing India to take some action and all the pressure is falling on the Indian Defense forces. Since independence, the Indian Defense forces have never made any mistakes. It is the civilian leadership which forced it to fail as in the case of 1962. However in 1965 and in 1971 it proved how disciplined and great this organization. It 1971 specifically it stood against some politicians who wanted India to attack soon. It patiently waited for around 6 months, choose its own time and gave India the most spectacular victory in the biggest war after the second world war. Now also the Indian Defense Force should act as per its own choice of time and place.