Journalists in the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir report from behind a barricade in 2022. Photo: Zainab

 

Earlier this month, India and Pakistan engaged in a military conflict over a course of four days, until a ceasefire was brokered on May 10. Alongside, the two nuclear-armed countries were embroiled in a hailstorm of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda, fuelled by state-backed mainstream media and unverified social media content.

Mainstream TV channels showcased bombings, drones and “invasions” using unverified footage, speculating hour upon hour, and goading their respective militaries to annihilate the other. Internet and network blackouts disrupted communication and the people, desperate for news, had no option but to sift through the barrage of information and videos to judge the truth for themselves.

In the middle of this, journalists on both sides of the border fought a parallel war where they struggled to access impacted areas and report from the ground.

“Independent journalists are the first to reach [impacted] areas, and often the only ones who continue coverage when legacy media goes silent, without any TRP-led bias,” says Suhail Bhat, a Delhi-based journalist from the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir. TRP refers to Television Rating Point, a metric used by channels to measure the popularity of a segment to determine revenues. “But still, I was  stopped by forces many times simply because I’m not affiliated with any particular media house,” Bhat adds. 

National and international media outlets are able to provide press cards and appropriate gear to their journalists, while freelancers operate without them. But reporting under editorial mandates of legacy media often means that some crucial stories and aspects can slip through the cracks — a gap that needs local and independent journalism.

“[Non-local journalists] will report that this many people are dead, this many injured, but it’s as if bhed bakriyan mar rahi hai [sheep and goats are dying]. The people have names, families, homes and towns they’re leaving behind. But they’re confined to numbers, or not treated as humans but subjects for stories,” said Gafira Qadir, an independent journalist from the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

The media industry also prioritises viewership and ‘story breaks’, which often means that reporters are sent to the ground at the last moment to capture the first impressions – irrespective of the context. At that, legacy media houses ensure appropriate gear, security checks and access for their journalists. These assets are not provided to freelancers by the newsrooms hiring them on contract for specific assignments.

“TV news channels based in New Delhi always have the upper hand when it comes to access as compared to local reporters. We see it in front of our eyes—a TV reporter can cross a line that other reporters cannot,” said L*, another journalist from the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

 

Crew from a prominent Indian TV news channel at a local residence in South Kashmir’s Tral in April 2025. Photo: Zainab

This inequality of access leaves opportunities for sensationalism by certain sections of the media in order to influence public sentiment.

“We’re in these times when the health of the industry isn’t looking good, and people’s faith in the media is at its lowest. At the same time, great journalism is still happening and a lot of it’s coming from independent journalists,” said Karan Deep Singh, an independent journalist and a former Staff Reporter and Visual Journalist with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Reporting from the frontlines is a different ballgame, and media watchdogs like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highly recommend the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like vests and helmets while covering war zones.

While that is often not an option for independent journalists, proper safety measures aren’t a priority even in established newsrooms, says Kunal Majumdar, CPJ’s India representative.

“There are no mechanisms, no due diligence, not even a basic safety checklist. Does the journalist have a backup plan? An exit strategy? No one takes safety seriously, and the excuse is always cost. Newsroom managers need to understand that journalist safety isn’t just about expensive equipment—it’s about having a clear safety strategy in place,” adds Majumder, formerly a Delhi-based editor with media houses like Tehelka and The Indian Express.

In Kashmir, access is particularly challenging, and journalists are already at risk due to government clampdowns on both sides. During a full-blown conflict, these challenges were exacerbated.

Singh, the Delhi-based journalist, believes that the industry pressure to be the first to publish, combined with how hard it is to make a living off journalism, means that safety and training often take a backseat.

“Most journalists can’t think about it because they’re really trying to get the story, and their entire situation has been so perilous. The industry puts a lot of pressure, and only if they get the story do they get the paycheck. So safety, even for some newsrooms, is an afterthought,” said Singh.

Bhat says that the contracts he signs for a story as an independent journalist for international organisations might be 50-pages long, with clauses on deadlines, compliances and legal liabilities. But safety is not addressed.

“Rarely, if ever, do they mention what happens if the journalist gets injured, arrested or harassed. There is no word on insurance, safety briefings, ethical trainings, or even equipment support,” said Bhat.

On the other side of the border, Islamabad-based journalist Haroon Janjua said that even as drones hovered overhead, the organisations he works with did not provide any protective gear, nor has he received any HEFAT [Hostile Environment and Emergency First Aid Training] yet. This experience was mirrored by all journalists Asian Dispatch spoke to, in both India and Pakistan.

“This lack of gear significantly impacted my ability to work, preventing me from going on the ground to gather accurate and fair information about casualties and the emotions of those affected by the war,” said Janjua.

Others said that the lack of gear doesn’t affect the coverage, because the story must still be told.

“Journalists risk their lives to get the story out. The public sees the news, but they don’t see the emotional, mental, and physical toll it takes on the person behind the camera or mic. That’s the real cost,” said Pakistan-based journalist D*, who requested anonymity to protect their identity over fears of industry backlash.

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The Journalist versus ‘Creators’

On May 10, Badar Alam rushed from Islamabad to Lahore to his daughter, who was nervous about the conflict. Upon reaching, he found that the major source of his daughter’s anxiety were Instagram accounts that were posting updates on areas that had been attacked. One of the recent updates that had shaken her was a post about  blasts less than 2 kilometers away from her Lahore home. This was not true.

Alam, a seasoned Pakistani journalist, was aghast, and told his daughter that if there really were blasts that close to their home, she would have heard something. “Wouldn’t people around them feel the impact?” he asked her.

Pakistan-based journalist D* said this conflict saw many emotionally-charged local people filming and sharing content using smartphones, without verifying facts.

This negative impact of social media content creators is twofold: It can spread falsehoods, and it undermines journalists trying to find out the truth.

“Local ‘citizen journalists’ were quick to report from their areas whenever a missile or drone hit. They filmed what they could and gave live commentary – often without using the right words, checking facts or understanding journalistic ethics. The rush for instant content and social media engagement is replacing responsible reporting,” said D*.

Journalists and independent newsrooms in both countries are being increasingly targeted and silenced through raids, censorship, intimidation via legal actions, corporate takeovers, court summons, and outright arrests and detention.

This problem is amplified in the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir, where the Kashmir Press Club – an independent media body –  was shut down, making it difficult for freelance journalists to get accreditation, which is an official acknowledgement of a journalist’s credentials.

“Since 2019, we have had ‘Facebook journalists’ who found an opportunity [in the lack of accreditation], resulting in some of them operating very unethically while calling themselves journalists. They don’t ask people before filming and upload their videos online. And then [when we approach people for actual journalistic work], people won’t talk to us because they have been mistreated by these social media creators,” said Qadir. “They put [their content] on Instagram, and make Reels. They’re not reporting, they’re selling.”

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Divided by Borders, United in Suppression

Since their partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have come to blows three times over disputed territories, particularly in Kashmir. Currently, different parts of Kashmir are administered by India, Pakistan, and China.

But it’s not just disputed borders that separate the two countries. India and Pakistan’s separation was influenced by an enduring belief that one should be a nation for Hindus, the other for Muslims, and that these two identities are incompatible.

 

1) An archival image from the Chicago Sun-Times of the Lahore train station in September, 1947, where coils of barbed wire separate the waiting areas. Source: Fran Pritchett’s Archive
2) An archival image of a Delhi train station during Partition, published in The Manchester Guardian in September, 1947. Source: Fran Pritchett’s Archive

Attacks and persecution of minority populations in both India and Pakistan have been increasing. In Hindu-majority India, over 200 million Muslims face rising discrimination, hate and violence, while in Muslim-majority Pakistan, Hindus are among the top minorities who face religious persecution and violence such as forced conversions.

And with restrictions on cross-border communications, travel and trade, successive governments and militaries have controlled public perceptions.

“We’re working in an atmosphere that’s politically charged on both sides, and both sides seek to gain politically from the conflict. So as journalists, our job is very crucial because we are media-literate, and we can see through propaganda versus hard-core evidence-backed information,” said Singh.

Often, it’s the local journalists who are able to get that evidence.

“Independent journalists can move anywhere, without any kind of set direction in our heads, or from our bureau chiefs. So in that way, we are free to document what’s happening on-ground,” said Adil Abass, a 30-year-old independent journalist from the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir.

Alam, co-founder of Islamabad-based magazine Earthwise, says that the media response on both sides during this conflict was worse than any he had ever seen, not during the Kargil war, during terrorist incidents, slug fests or shouting matches.

“During this conflict, journalists simply lost their ethics in a way that they never have on both sides of the border. This was something different. The state was following what the media was doing, and the media was egging the state to annihilate the other side. And journalism really died in that battle,” he said.

But he believes that like all challenges, it presents an opportunity, even a collaboration between like-minded sane voices from both sides.

“Journalists who do not monger war, who are sick and tired of the lies and fabrication in the news, social media and by the state, must step forward with the courage to hold hands across the border and work together,” said Alam. “It’s a huge challenge for Pakistani and Indian journalists, but that’s what the spirit of journalism is—to be able to take the first step in that direction.”

In a historic victory, an alliance of opposition political parties has won the assembly elections in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Omar Abdullah – who previously held the office from 2009 to 2014 – will make a comeback after nine years.

The election outcome is significant for one of the world’s most militarised zones, which is holding its first assembly elections for the first time in a decade. Voters turned up in historic numbers to elect 90 members for the union territory’s Legislative Assembly.

 

The Kashmir region is at the heart of conflict between India and Pakistan. Both the nuclear-armed countries govern parts of the region but claim it in its entirety. For the last three decades, an armed separatist movement in the Union territory of Jammu & Kashmir has led to the deployment of around 130,000 military personnel, of which around 80,000 are stationed at the country’s border with Pakistan. The fate of Kashmir is an international issue and many of India’s powerful allies, including the US, avoid taking sides while maintaining that the two countries should consider the wishes of the people of Kashmir.

In August 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) revoked a long-held autonomous status – secured within Article 370 and 35A of Indian Constitution – of Jammu and Kashmir. For the BJP, it was an election promise meant to restore India’s administrative control over India’s only Muslim-majority state. For the Kashmiris, the move led to rising unemployment, continued violence and free reign by the federal government over its profitable natural resources.

These elections came three years after the timeline promised by the Modi government, and were held after the Supreme Court issued an order last December. In the past few decades, Kashmiris have boycotted elections in the region as a protest against the demotion of Kashmir.

Autonomous or not, Kashmiris exhibited their electoral choices after a long time this time.

Changing face of Political Participation

The election saw Modi’s BJP pitted against an alliance of the National Conference (NC), the Indian National Congress (INC), National Panthers Party and Communist Party of India (Marxist). The NC and its dynastic Abdullah family have dominated politics in Kashmir for decades.

 

These elections also saw the rise of independent candidates, some of whom had been arrested during the protests after the abrogation of 370 and 35A in 2019. One of them is Abdul Rashid Sheikh, an independent candidate known widely as “Engineer Rashid”, who was arrested under India’s draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019. He defeated Abdullah in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections and last month, he was granted bail to campaign for these elections.

As the Indian opposition accused the BJP of having “non-locals running Jammu and Kashmir”, local representatives like Rashid came to symbolise the rising political participation of Kashmiris.

 

Caption: (from left to right) a) PDP’s Waheed Para, who won Pulwama seat b) Engineer Rashid addressing a crowd c) CPI(M) leader Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami. Photos: Naseer Ahmad

“Since 2019 particularly, a feeling of disenfranchisement has run very deeply in the Kashmiri psyche,” Yaqoob-Ul-Hassan, a research analyst at the Indian government-funded think tank Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, told Asian Dispatch. “[The Kashmiris] may dislike the NC or the PDP as entities, but they still see the representatives from these parties as one of their own.”

For Sumantra Bose, a comparative political scientist and author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st Century Conflict, the popularity of representatives like Rashid is a gesture of protest. But it also reflects Kashmiris’ dissatisfaction with legacy parties.

“Both Omar Abdullah and the NC party have a long history of what many in the Kashmir valley regard as collaboration with Indian authorities,” Bose told Asian Dispatch. “Even though NC is the historic party for the region, Omar Abdullah was Chief Minister during the stone pelting uprising of 2010, which was suppressed very harshly.”

In 2010, Indian Army soldiers killed three Kashmiri civilians, citing it as an anti-militancy operation against Pakistani infiltrators but was later found to be staged. The incident triggered state-wide protests demanding reduction of troops. The Indian government grants special privileges to the armed forces in Kashmir – under the The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act – to operate under impunity and emergency powers. The 2010 protests killed over a hundred people – mostly civilians.

 

Police confront protestors in Kashmir during a December 2018 demonstration. Photo: Seyyed Sajed Hassan Razavi via Wikimedia Commons

Bose added that other legacy parties including the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its leader Mehbooba Mufti are similarly infected too. Mufti was the chief minister during the violence of 2016-17. At that time, her party’s failed coalition with the BJP left the region at the mercy of federal rule.

However, Waheed Para, the PDP candidate from Pulwama constituency who won the seat by over 8,000 votes yesterday, reaffirmed the popularity of his party and told Asian Dispatch that these elections are different.

“For the first time, all sorts of ideologies met at the ballot box. From the so-called ‘anti-nationals’ to the UAPA-accused, to the detained people to mainstream— all political ideologies are participating in the process,” said Para. “Today, democracy is seen as defiance and a means of resistance. It is not about violence anymore. So young people are inspired to vote.”

Bose added: “Rather than the product, it is the process that is more important. The people are getting to vote again, and the turnout over three polling days has been significant. It signals the return in some form of normal cognitive politics.”

In the Hindu-majority Jammu region, the BJP dominated and won 29 seats out of 43. However, that win doesn’t dilute the misgivings Kashmiris have about the events of 2019.

An election in the shadows of 2019

In 1947, when India gained freedom from British colonisation, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was granted special autonomy that allowed self-governance on issues ranging from transfer of land to defining permanent residents and granting state benefits. The provision has been at odds with successive governments, who used presidential orders to gradually reduce those privileges. In August 2019, when the BJP abrogated Article 370 and 35A, it created the Union Territories of Kashmir and Ladakh, which places the region directly under the federal government.

Since then, human rights watchdogs such as Amnesty International have highlighted consistent efforts by the federal government to crush political participation that opposes the BJP. Activists, journalists and academics have been detained and harassed arbitrarily. Dissenters are widely punished through the ambiguous public safety laws. The federal government has announced many plans to bring private investment in, which is likely to be a double-edged sword for a region that is also on the frontlines of climate change.

“Grassroots political activity was stifled through fear and persecution. Even the likes of Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have been imprisoned for considerable periods,” said Bose. “The agenda was to virtually erase competitive politics from Jammu & Kashmir.”

The current election, locals told Asian Dispatch, may have fuelled local political participation. But 2019 looms large in public memory.

INC’s Suhail Bukhari told Asian Dispatch that the people have clearly indicated that the central government’s actions in Kashmir are unacceptable, and that the results favour anybody who stands against the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, BJP’s ideological parent.

“Generation after generation, Kashmiris have given so much to this country. By blood and conviction, we’re Indian — and yet, we are treated differently,” Nasir Khuehami, the National Convenor of the Jammu & Kashmir Students Association, told Asian Dispatch. “Our leadership was stripped away, ignored and detained, and if the condition of local politicians and activists has been so terrible — think of the common man.”

What next?

In the lead up to the current elections, the rhetoric of Naya Kashmir, or “New Kashmir”, has dominated mainstream Indian media narrative, which is in line with the BJP’s co-opting of the 1944 manifesto that outlined the autonomous status of the region. Modi’s government turned the term around to signal massive changes as part of its campaign to dominate regional politics in Jammu and Kashmir.

 

BJP’s Narendra Modi speaks at a campaign rally in Jammu & Kashmir in December, 2014. Photo: Prime Minister’s Office via Wikimedia Commons

Khuehami told Asian Dispatch that many issues such as high levels of unemployment, especially among the youth, directly counter the Naya Kashmir narrative. Since 2019, the Modi government has also been hosting foreign diplomats and dignitaries for guided tours of Kashmir, which critics say is designed to establish an insincere global narrative of a supposed normalcy and acceptance of the BJP’s 2019 ruling among the people.

“[The Modi government] brought all these sheikhs from Dubai, these big businessmen, with promises of jobs and recruitment. But on the ground, the reality is very different. Where is the prosperity? Where is the development?” said Khuehami.

Hassan, the research analyst, says that the BJP’s proclamation of Naya Kashmir isn’t entirely false. “The violence has gone down, there are no protests or strikes, and tourists have been coming in great numbers,” he countered before adding, “But militancy going down does not mean it won’t come back. We’ve seen the decline of insurgency [in Kashmir] in the past also,” he said. “But with some sort of a click, it could go up again. It’s down, but not gone.”

Violence and deaths in Kashmir has continued, with spikes in militant deaths and no sustained decline in civilian deaths, but official figures claim an era of peace. Bose says that figures of declining violence is a myth and artificially generated.

“It’s true that stone-pelting has declined post-2019 but that’s because of extremely draconian repression. There’s no guarantee that just as insurgency hasn’t gone away, that kind of uprising won’t come back,” he said. “(The decline) should come about through a genuine improvement in people’s situations.”

In the current elections, almost all parties promised restoration of statehood in some form. After the results, Abdullah reiterated that his party would work with the central government to bring back Article 370. Previously, Modi had also promised to reinstate statehood too but that “only the BJP will fulfil this commitment”.

National Conference spokesperson Tanveer Sadiq told Asian Dispatch that the people have reaffirmed their faith in them, and they look forward to doing everything to restore Kashmir’s political status while also ensuring jobs and work on everyday issues. However, Safiq added, a working relationship with the Center is vital for any of that to happen.

“The BJP-led government in the Center has to understand that now that people have given the mandate to the NC-Congress alliance, it becomes incumbent on the Central government to have a cordial relationship,” said Sadiq. “The Center and State need each other to ensure that states like Jammu & Kashmir become prosperous.”

Khuehami is optimistic about the question of accountability in the state. “We know that if they don’t stand up for us, we can vote them out. This is why people came out and voted,” he said. “We kept aside our political differences to preserve our identity, to get back our dignity—through this vote.”