Pahalgam and India’s media narrative one year on

 

In the year since the Pahalgam attack in Indian-illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), the incident has refused to settle into history as a closed file. Instead, it lingers, unfinished, contested, and repeatedly reinterpreted, caught in a wider struggle over who gets to define reality in South Asia’s most politically sensitive theatre.

What should have been a matter of investigation and judicial clarity has instead unfolded as something far more familiar to the region: a battle of narratives. Official statements, media reporting, political messaging and cross-border rebuttals have ensured that the event remains suspended between fact and framing, between what happened and what is believed to have happened.