MEDIA jingoism is not new. But what we saw following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, where Indian talk shows turned into makeshift war rooms within minutes is worth unpacking… if for nothing else, then for the headache that I, and I assume many like me, got after carefully monitoring the news reports coming out of there for two consecutive days.
Anchors screamed for retribution, panelists mapped out airstrikes, and headlines called for escalation, all before any investigation had even begun. Objective journalism wasn’t just missing; it had been thrown out the window, probably in exchange for a few more primetime rating points. This wasn’t about reporting news. This was about feeding a narrative. And it played out exactly how one would expect in a media landscape where editorial lines increasingly toe political ones.
To be fair, Indian media didn’t arrive here overnight. The convergence of big business interests, hyper-nationalist politics, and television theatrics has been building for years. The idea of informed debate has gradually been replaced by loud monologues… I’m looking at you, Arnab Goswami. And amid this noise, sanity seems to have little chance.
Of course, I’m not typing this pretending we don’t have our own problems. A part of the Pakistani media has, from time to time, indulged in the same recipe: religious overtones, self-righteous indignation, and blindfolded nationalism. But what we saw recently across the border was on a different scale altogether. The performative war-mongering made me proud to be part of a media fraternity from a country where people—and journalists alike—don’t celebrate a terrorist attack but condemn it, where primetime shows don’t find joy in the killing of a young boy, and where war hysteria is not fed.
For anyone still entertaining the illusion, both across the border and abroad, that a war between two nuclear-armed neighbours can be anything short of catastrophic, a bit of context might help calm your flashing headlines and screaming. Even a limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan—countries that collectively hold less than 1% of the world’s nuclear arsenal, could, and likely would, kill over 100 million people immediately. Not in the long run. Not eventually. Immediately.
What follows is equally grim. Urban centres would be flattened. Hospitals, if they’re still standing, would be overwhelmed or non-functional. Around 5 million tonnes of soot would enter the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and triggering a drop in global temperatures by 2 to 5 degree celsius. This would cause a near-total collapse in food production in the subcontinent and lead to a 30 to 50% reduction in global food output. The result? One in every three people on the planet would be at risk of starvation. And that’s not even factoring in the chaos that comes with civil unrest, migration, and economic collapse.
So the next time a TV anchor yells “strike back,” or a panelist draws up a strike map, maybe pause and think about what that actually means. Not in abstract terms, in real ones.
In a moment of rare clarity on social media, journalist Maria Memon pointed out: if we’re really looking for a war to fight, how about one against the things that are actually ruining lives in this region? Poverty. A broken healthcare system. Widening gender disparity. Failing education. Environmental degradation. Water insecurity. A justice system in need of justice itself.
That’s the kind of war that deserves airtime. But in a media environment where shouting overpowers thinking, and where optics matter more than outcomes, we’re unlikely to get there anytime soon. Until then, the war drums will keep beating, not in battlefields, but in air-conditioned studios, where no one really pays the price for what they’re advocating.
—The writer is associate editor and digital team lead at Pakistan Observer (abdullahgauhar7@live.com)
