Kashmir: An unsolved conflict between the ‘Arch Rivals’
Kashmir has been an ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan since 1947. Just two months after independence in October both countries went to war because of their self claim on the city.
In August 1965 the neighbors fought another brief war over the same issue. In 2001, a deadly attack was carried out on the state assembly in Indian-administered Kashmir killing 38.
An attack on the army base of Uri on 18 September 2016 in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 19 soldiers. Later in the same month, India claimed that they had carried out surgical strikes on militants in Pakistani Kashmir and the attack was denied by Islamabad.
Last year was a series of quite a few incidents as well. On 14th February 2019, suicide bombings in Pulwama kill almost 40 Indian policemen in Indian occupied Kashmir. India replies two weeks later with trespassing of Pakistani border with fighter jets, claiming that they have shot down 300 militants in Pakistan.
While Pakistan retaliates with an aerial dog fight on 27th February and shoots down an Indian fighter jet, capturing their squadron leader. He was released after some time as a peace gesture by Pakistan. Since August 2019, the Indian government has stripped Jammu and Kashmir’s state of the special status that gave it significant autonomy.
This day last year, India scrapped a law “article 370” that grants special status to Indian-administered Kashmir amid an indefinite lockdown and massive troop deployment in the disputed region.
Mostly the events that have occurred between the two countries so far over Kashmir, every event seems to be aligned with the state narrative. Hardly there has been reporting on the issues which have facts and point of views with data from both sides.
The discussion of war was fueled from both sides through the media. Indian media demanded action against Pakistan while here the media informed the public that Pakistan will not think before retaliating if India takes any such step.
Media can escalate the war or it can actually help to calm down the situation by just the way you report on the conflict. This is a fact that both the countries were at a brink of war last year just because of this could have been avoided easily if the media had made an attempt to provide the audience of both countries with facts and figures. Only one-sided image has been portrayed from both sides on almost every occasion.
