Pahalgam Attack: Why is the Indian Media Not Asking Hard Questions?
A recent terrorist attack on April 22 in Kashmir has killed 26 Indian tourists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist government took no time to blame Pakistan for the attack and vowed to "punish" the neighbor for it. Indian media, also derisively known as "Godi media", immediately went into overdrive to demand action against Pakistan. New Delhi followed up with suspending the Indus Basin Water treaty from the 1960s which guarantees 80% of the water from the three western rivers (Chenab, Jhelum and Indus rivers) to Pakistan, while India gets the exclusive use of the water from three eastern rivers (Beas, Ravi and Sutlej rivers). India also ordered Pakistani visitors to leave the country and reduced Pakistani diplomatic staff posted in India. Pakistan responded by suspending Simla Agreement and banning overflights of Indian civilian and military aircraft through its airspace. Pakistan warned India that any attempt to block its share of water from the three western rivers will be an "act of war", adding that it was prepared to respond, “with full force across the complete spectrum of national power”. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country, as is India. Pakistan's nuclear doctrine calls for the use of nuclear weapons if its national existence is threatened by any country.
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| Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati |
The Indian mainstream media has amplified the Modi government's propaganda and abandoned its role of asking the hard questions to get at the truth. Among the few who have raised serious doubts about Delhi's narrative is a Hindu religious leader named Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati. In a viral video, the holy man has asked the following questions:
1. Shouldn't our "chowkidar" (Modi has called himself chowkidar in the past) be held accountable for any attacks on our home?
2. How did the attackers manage to come in, carry out the attack without any resistance and safely escape?
3. How did you so quickly determine that the attackers came from Pakistan? And if you are so good at reaching this conclusion so quickly, why were you unable to stop the attack in the first place.
4. Can India really cut off water flow instantly to Pakistan to "punish" it? Experts say it will take at least 20 years if India allocated unlimited funds to make it happen as fast as possible. It will require building dams, water reservoirs and canals to divert the water from Pakistan.
Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi sees the hand of "Indian deep state" at work in Pahalgam, carried out while the US Vice President JD Vance in India. Sethi recalls what former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wrote in her memoirs titled "Mighty Almighty" about the killing of 35 Sikh villagers in Kashmir that India blamed on Pakistan during US President Bill Clinton's India visit in March, 2000. She said Clinton suspected the hand of Hindu extremists in the Chittisinghpura incident. She quoted him saying that if he hadn’t made the trip, the victims would have still been alive.
Among the Indian journalists, only Bharat Bhushan has raised some questions about his country's government narrative. He thinks India violated the back-channel agreement between Modi's NSA Ajit Doval and Pakistan's then NSA Moeed Yusuf reached after 2019 to spare the civilians on both sides in any proxy attacks. Bhushan points out a warning from Lt General Ahmad Sharif that “the (Jaafar Express) train attack (in Balochistan) has changed the rule of the game”.
Bhushan's op ed mentions Modi's muscular policy toward people he sees as "terrorists". Canada, Pakistan and the United States have all accused the Indian government of a campaign of international assassinations. He writes: "Another development has been the targeted killings of terrorists and militants — both Kashmir and Sikhs, that Pakistan alleges have been initiated by Indian intelligence agencies after the Pulwama terrorist strike in 2019 when 40 paramilitary personnel were killed. India was allegedly inspired to undertake extra-judicial killings on foreign soil, from the example of Russia’s KGB, Israel’s Mossad, and the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia".
Bhushan concludes his Op Ed in Deccan Herald as follows: "How will India react now to what it believes to be Pakistan-sponsored terrorism? The bravado about punishing every terrorist act with greater-than-expected force is not going to be easy to put in action. Geopolitical circumstances have changed since 2019. Public sentiment cannot be the sole basis of military strikes. Thankfully, no crucial election is in the offing where assuaging public emotions becomes an issue. India will also have to provide proof to the world that Pakistan was indeed involved. This would require the arrest and questioning of the terrorists involved. That may take time. Only the tacit approval of the US can ensure that a strike against Pakistan does not spin out of control".
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Riaz Haq
Tejasswi Prakash
@Tiju0Prakash
"India misread, underestimated Pakistan and needs to change the way it views Pakistan."
French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot
@jaffrelotc
https://x.com/Tiju0Prakash/status/1929055742469759378
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French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot on recent India-Pakistan military confrontation:
https://youtu.be/M0oFNGU_goQ?si=r8Bi3d4mp4Ka_HyN
um I would first um say that this sense
25:52
of disillusion (in India) has a lot to do with the
25:58
expectations the leaders yeah the leaders of the country are themselves
26:04
nurturing expectations which are completely irrealistic a fight to the
26:10
finish with a nuclear power what does that mean do you think you can really
26:16
break Pakistan create an an independent baluchistan this is complete
26:23
fantasy and of course when you foster this sense of fantasy by
26:31
being almost belligerent belligerent and also there is this sense of hysteria
26:38
that that the that the media are of course also
26:44
cultivating when you expect so much you can only be
26:49
disappointed and and this is really um counterproductive for the BJP to play
26:56
that game because they are bound to create expectations they will never meet
27:02
now will the BJP supporters who are disappointed disillusioned leave BJP
27:09
stop supporting BJP it's too early to say again but
27:15
um where else could they go you know uh it's not as if there were plenty of of
27:22
possibilities now on the other point you raise this comparison between Indira and
27:29
um and and Modi between 71 and and
27:34
2025 there is just no way to compare because in in 71 you did not
27:42
uh destroy Pakistan you helped guerilla
27:50
to become independent it's a completely different game so it's not as if you
27:56
could repeat what was done in 71 in 2025 uh this is this is of course domestic
28:02
politics um but but to return to the to to the number one point that I made and
28:08
I would really like to emphasize that one
28:14
denial vizav Pakistan the kind of imagination of Pakistan that we see
28:21
in India needs to be taken care of you know this is a country that has nuclear
28:28
weapons that is supported by China it will not be finished off it will be
28:34
there and it will be there for a long time so if I say that it's because there
28:40
is one dimension that we have not touched upon yet that worries me a lot and that is the industry
28:47
Jun 1
Riaz Haq
French political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot on recent India-Pakistan military confrontation:
https://youtu.be/M0oFNGU_goQ?si=r8Bi3d4mp4Ka_HyN
uh question just what treaty is yeah because if you continue to to imagine
28:53
that one day you will get rid of Pakistan one day it will be raised to the ground and of course the idea that
29:01
it does not need the water of the industry
29:07
almost is is is natural and and and you use it you use the weapon you know you
29:12
use water as a weapon that is very dangerous that is terribly dangerous
29:17
this is certainly a cases belly because Pakistan is a country with that is
29:25
affected by hydric stress to a great extent and
29:31
if dams are built if the water of these rivers can't flow to
29:36
Pakistan there'll be more than tensions this is something to think about more
29:43
more well I I do not think that dams can be built in fact India saying you know
29:48
all the you know irresponsible statements that not a drop of water will be allowed to flow into Pakistan are all
29:55
highly irresponsible statement with very poor understanding of our hydrarology
30:00
and about where we can actually you know keep the waters you know uh you can't
30:06
really keep water stop flowing in in rivers you know there will be floods entire indogangetic plane would be
30:13
flooded if we actually put physical barriers and damning these rivers is going to be a very long exercise so I
30:19
guess this will eventually I I hope at least you know that this will eventually hope lead to both countries sitting down
30:26
and renegotiating the terms of the IWT yeah the risk also nan is that if India
30:33
does that to Pakistan China can do something very similar yes exactly yes you are and then then we
30:41
enter in a in a kind of escalation where water plays a very
30:47
dirty role and and there is more to do jointly rather than fighting for the the
30:54
problem is that you know it's you know everything starts coming from the top to the bottom you know if the prime
31:00
minister says that water and blood cannot flow together it starts giving
31:06
rise to different kinds of imaginations which we are seeing which has been said by various people you know uh let me
Jun 1
Riaz Haq
Rabia Akhtar
@Rabs_AA
#India If you can not win your region, how do you expect to win the world?
Mani Shankar Aiyar exposes India’s diplomatic miscalculation and cuts through the BS!
In his article (link below), former diplomat and veteran MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, lays bare a dangerous flaw in India’s post-crisis outreach strategy: ignoring its own neighbourhood. While India dispatches MPs to lobby distant UNSC capitals, it has deliberately sidelined Pakistan and alienated its South Asian neighbours, the very region most affected by Indo-Pak tensions.
Aiyar warns that by bypassing regional diplomacy, India not only violates its own, 'Neighbourhood First' mantra btw, but also risks unraveling the bilateral framework enshrined in the 1972 Simla Agreement opening the door to internationalizing the Kashmir issue, something New Delhi has spent decades avoiding.
India’s gamble isn’t just short-sighted as we can see, it is self-defeating.
Read and engage with his brilliant articulation!
Missions impossible
Parliamentary missions sent abroad aim to build support, but face tough questions on India’s Pakistan policy and nuclear posturing.
https://x.com/Rabs_AA/status/1929967029299401183
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https://frontline.thehindu.com/columns/india-pakistan-diplomacy-uns...
Of course, they do deplore terrorism, but specifically, has any of them gone public about Pakistan-sponsored, Pakistan-supported, Pakistan-financed, or Pakistan-armed terrorism? And were they to do so, what answer would our delegations, constrained by the briefings they have received, give to difficult questions such as: how could we not intercept the terrorists deep on our side of the Line of Control? And why have we apprehended none of them a whole month and more after they committed their dastardly deed? And as three of the six alleged terrorists are Kashmiris, does this reflect “normalisation”?
Even if many of those interacting with our MPs know little of India-Pakistan relations, most would want to know the outcome of the first air battle ever between highly sophisticated Western aircraft like Rafale and little-known Chinese military aircraft. Would they be satisfied, as Indians apparently are, by being blandly told that “losses are expected in combat” and detailed information will be made available at the “right time”? Even assuming that our MPs have been vouchsafed the information of our losses, can they share such information with foreigners while it is being denied to Indians? Will our interlocutors not feel short-changed at their distinguished visitors not imparting to them the vital military information they seek, perhaps even to evaluate for themselves how far China has developed in advanced military technology vis-à-vis the West?
The nuclear option
And will the absence of answers from the Indian MPs make them wary of the answers they get about the one question on which our interlocutors are anxious to satisfy themselves: the nuclear weapons option? After all, even the US Vice President J.D. Vance was distancing himself from involvement so long as it was a question of India acting against cross-border terrorism. But the moment we went beyond terrorist camps in Pakistan and escalated to attacking Pakistan airbases, President Donald Trump took upon himself the task of knocking Indian and Pakistani heads together to halt the escalatory prospect before it crossed the nuclear threshold.
But so long as Operation Sindoor remains open-ended—and not terminated—the possibility remains of another terror attack provoking a resumption of armed conflict at a level higher than what Uri and Pathankot or Pulwama and Pahalgam provoked and taking the world closer to a nuclear confrontation. At that point, the issue remains no longer bilateral but of global concern, for any use of nuclear weapons will have global consequences not limited to national frontiers. Little practical purpose is served by our MPs intoning parrot-like that we will not succumb to Pakistani “nuclear blackmail”.
on Wednesday