Kashmir in the Media: Misinformation, Bias, and the Global Narrative

I. Conflict, Perception, and the Power of Narrative

The Kashmir dispute is one of the longest-running and most complex political conflicts of the modern era. Its roots go back to a time before the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, when the region was made up of princely states and mostly under British colonial rule. Among them was Jammu and Kashmir, ruled by the Dogra monarchy. For years before partition, many Kashmiris, especially the Muslim majority, had already begun resisting the autocratic and discriminatory rule of Maharaja Hari Singh. After 1947, the region became a flashpoint for territorial claims between the newly formed states of India and Pakistan. Although often viewed through a geopolitical or military lens, Kashmir is also the site of deep and ongoing humanitarian suffering. These realities are too often ignored or misrepresented in global conversations.

One of the main forces behind the distortion of Kashmir’s reality is the global media apparatus. From the days of radio to the rise of social media, the way Kashmir has been portrayed has deeply shaped public perception, influenced policymaking, and contributed to the widespread international apathy toward the region. Instead of acting as neutral observers, both regional and international media often function as tools of power, framing Kashmir through lenses of nationalism, security, and calculated neglect. The Kashmir issue is not only a political conflict but also a crisis of representation. It is marked by systemic violence and deliberate efforts to block information from reaching the outside world, further isolating the people of the region and silencing their lived realities.

II. The Role of Media in Conflict Zones: Informing or Influencing?

Under military occupation, the media’s informational and persuasive power takes on a far more dangerous significance. It can either reveal the lived realities of conflict and injustice—or conceal them entirely through selective coverage and manufactured narratives. Kashmir is a stark example of how media does not merely report reality—it actively shapes it. In such environments, media templates become integral to constructing what the public sees as truth.

Conflict journalism in occupied regions like Kashmir demands a delicate balance between ethical responsibility and state pressure. But far too often, especially in highly nationalist societies, that balance is lost. The media abandons its role as a critical observer and instead becomes a willing participant in silencing dissent and masking state violence. In Kashmir, journalistic neutrality is frequently sacrificed at the altar of ideological conformity. Narratives of occupation and resistance are routinely reframed as national security concerns, effectively criminalizing the demand for justice.

Even when media appears to “report” events with precision, it does more than explain isolated incidents—it assigns meaning to entire peoples. It constructs false binaries between the so-called civilized and the barbaric, legitimizing occupation while dehumanizing resistance. In Kashmir, this plays out through the consistent branding of Kashmiri resistance as terrorism. The political aspirations of millions are not just ignored—they are deliberately erased.

In such a context, media is not simply failing—it is complicit. It sustains the occupation not just through silence, but through active distortion of truth.

III. Misinformation and Disinformation: The Fog of Fabricated Realities

In today’s digital age, misinformation and disinformation have become powerful weapons in shaping the narrative around conflicts—often distorting them beyond recognition. In the case of Kashmir, this manipulation has been longstanding. Fake news, doctored visuals, and misleading slogans have deeply skewed public understanding of the conflict—not only within India but also internationally.

Much of this disinformation is state-sponsored or at least state-tolerated, aimed at discrediting Kashmiri voices that challenge the official narrative. Resistance is frequently branded as extremism, and nuanced political demands are flattened into dangerous caricatures. These distorted narratives are then widely circulated online, amplified through hashtags, AI-generated deepfakes, altered statistics, and coordinated troll armies—creating a manufactured consensus that reinforces the state’s position.

Social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram have also emerged as vital spaces of resistance. Kashmiri activists and members of the diaspora use these channels to document human rights violations, share testimonies, and push back against state propaganda. But these efforts are often met with harsh retaliation—shadow banning, account suspensions, and digital surveillance that systematically silence counter-narratives and shut down dissenting voices.

Cyberspace, therefore, has become an epistemological battleground—where truth is not only contested but aggressively manipulated. In a conflict zone like Kashmir, where accurate information can be a matter of life, dignity, and international accountability, this war over narrative poses grave risks. It obscures justice, confuses intervention, and prolongs the suffering of an already silenced people.

IV. Kashmir in Indian Media: Nationalism as Editorial Policy

Though often praised for its pluralism, Indian media has long held a monolithic and territorial stance when it comes to Kashmir. Regardless of which political party is in power, the dominant editorial posture has remained rooted in a nationalist framework that views Kashmir not as a place of people, suffering, or history—but as a possession. The rise of right-wing majoritarianism since 2014 has only intensified this tendency, transforming the media into a more brazen extension of state ideology.

Occupied Kashmir is routinely omitted from coverage on human rights, yet aggressively spotlighted in discussions of national security. When the Indian government abrogated Article 370 in August 2019, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, most mainstream outlets framed it as a patriotic milestone. Legal critiques and human rights concerns were either sidelined or silenced entirely. Reports of mass detentions, communication blackouts, and military curfews were glossed over, if not dismissed outright.

Prime-time coverage has consistently caricatured Kashmiris as stone-pelters, separatists, or terrorist sympathizers. Journalists who attempt to tell more honest or human-centered stories risk harassment, arrest, or sedition charges. In such an environment, ethical journalism is not just difficult—it is dangerous.

V. Bias in International Media Coverage: A Crisis Simplified

While Indian media often exhibits overt bias in its coverage of Kashmir, international media too has contributed to the erasure—albeit through subtler, more polished narratives. The Kashmir conflict is frequently reduced to a bilateral dispute between two nuclear-armed nations, India and Pakistan. This framing repositions the issue as a matter of sovereignty between states, conveniently sidelining the lived experiences, aspirations, and suffering of Kashmiris themselves.

Western media coverage tends to be reactive and episodic, rather than sustained or principled. Outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and The New York Times have occasionally documented communication blackouts, curfews, or human rights abuses in detail. But these moments are rare and often short-lived—treated more as spikes in a news cycle than as part of a protracted, unresolved crisis. Editorial fatigue toward “long conflicts” and the challenge of maintaining reader engagement often leads to a quiet sidelining of Kashmir.

Geopolitical interests further distort this lens. India is seen by many Western powers as a critical economic partner and a strategic counterweight to China. This alignment tends to temper or mute international criticism—even when legal freedoms are dismantled, dissent is criminalized, or internet blackouts become routine. When India unilaterally abrogated Article 370 in 2019, much of the international response was cautious at best and indifferent at worst. It was a moment that exposed the double standards often at play in global human rights discourse—where strategic alliances outweigh moral clarity.

VI. The Global Narrative: Control, Complicity, and Consequences

The framing of Kashmir in the global narrative is not shaped solely by journalism or editorial choices—it is steered by state actors, transnational corporations, and geopolitical alliances. These powerful entities determine which crises command international attention and which are quietly sidelined. In this system of selective coverage, Kashmir has been repeatedly pushed to the margins.

By continually casting Kashmir as either a bilateral dispute or a counterterrorism issue, the international discourse erases its deeper legal, historical, and human dimensions. The foundational reality—that the people of Kashmir were promised a plebiscite under multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions—has been steadily buried. Since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, India has implemented demographic and legal changes that many scholars and rights observers have labeled as the beginning of a settler-colonial project aimed at reshaping the Muslim-majority region.

International human rights organizations face bureaucratic blockades in accessing Kashmir. Most are denied permits or forced to rely on second-hand sources, weakening their ability to conduct thorough investigations or sustained advocacy. This silencing renders the Kashmiri people effectively invisible—trapped under military occupation, but also obscured by a global system that often chooses willful ignorance over moral responsibility.

It is an urgent ethical imperative for international journalism to reframe Kashmir—not as a geopolitical bargaining chip or a security challenge, but as a people-centered crisis rooted in systemic denial of rights, justice, and voice. The media must resist the replication of state-crafted narratives and instead foreground the lived realities of those caught in the grip of occupation. Until then, global complicity will continue to shield injustice behind the language of diplomacy.

VII. Voices from the Ground: The Missing Perspective

The most glaring omission in mainstream media coverage of Kashmir is that of Kashmiri voices themselves. Despite living under a prolonged military occupation—marked by curfews, surveillance, internet blackouts, and arbitrary detentions—the lived experiences of ordinary Kashmiris are rarely centered. Instead, narratives are too often shaped by journalists, analysts, and diplomats who have never set foot in the region or lived its everyday realities.

Local journalists, who attempt to report truthfully from the ground, face immense and often life-threatening risks. They work under the constant threat of harassment, violence, or incarceration by both state and non-state actors. The arrest of independent journalist Fahad Shah in 2022 and the repeated targeting of photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo illustrate the high price of truth-telling in Kashmir. Many more remain unacknowledged, operating in the shadows, risking everything to ensure that the world hears what is happening.

And yet, despite these hostile conditions, brave Kashmiri writers, artists, scholars, students, and civil society actors continue to resist erasure. They document atrocities, preserve memory, and build counter-histories with whatever tools they have. Their voices must not only be heard—they must be centered. It is time to create and support platforms where Kashmiris can speak for themselves, rather than having their reality filtered through distant commentators who often flatten or distort the truth.

VIII. Conclusion: Reclaiming Truth, Dignity, and Representation

The conflict in Indian-occupied Kashmir is not a mere territorial dispute, nor an abstract geopolitical puzzle—it is a humanitarian crisis rooted in decades of disenfranchisement, violence, and impunity. At its core lies a people denied their right to self-determination, subjected to systemic oppression, and persistently silenced.

In today’s world of manufactured narratives and strategic forgetting, the misrepresentation of Kashmir is not just an oversight—it is a moral and political failure. Far from serving as instruments of accountability, too many global media institutions have become passive accomplices in maintaining the status quo. Their selective coverage, securitized framing, and erasure of Kashmiri perspectives enable a global discourse that is deeply complicit in the injustice.

The time for silence has passed. It is now the responsibility of global citizens, especially those who claim to stand for human rights and dignity, to challenge the myths, lies, and convenient narratives that continue to suffocate Kashmir’s truth. To reclaim the truth is not merely an intellectual act—it is an ethical and urgent response to a moral crisis.

Justice demands more than words. It demands action. And that action begins with listening—to Kashmiris, in their own voice.