By Uzma Ehtasham
It is telling — and perhaps tragic — that the Pahalgam tragedy, a moment that should have united South Asia in mourning, has instead become a stage for one of the most calculated geopolitical performances in recent memory. The blasts may have silenced the innocent, but what followed was anything but quiet. In Indian newsrooms, the chaos turned to frenzy. In political circles, fists clenched tighter. And in faraway capitals — Washington, London, Beijing — the phones lit up. Ceasefire talks. Emergency briefings. Media narratives sharpened like spears. Everyone had a stake. Everyone had a version. But behind the noise, a more uncomfortable truth lingers. Are Pakistan and India now laboratories for global experiments, their historic animosity manipulated by great powers reimagining a post-American world order? Is South Asia, long burdened by conflict, now reduced to a buffer zone where ambitions clash and old wars are rekindled to test new toys and temperaments?
India’s reaction to the Pahalgam incident was not merely that of a wounded state. It was something else — something rehearsed. There was fury, yes, but also choreography. Within hours, the outrage morphed into accusations, military signaling, and talk-show pyrotechnics. It was not grief that took center stage, but theatre. Accusations against Pakistan were not questioned; they were parroted. The line between journalism and jingoism, never sturdy to begin with, collapsed entirely. What emerged was a shrill campaign of blame — devoid of evidence, but full of purpose. Pakistan, to the surprise of many outside observers, did not shrink from this challenge. It responded. Not with haste, but with remarkable precision. Those watching closely realized: this was not the reaction of a state caught off guard. This was calculated. The missiles were not wild. The targets were not arbitrary. The message was deliberate: we are not to be trifled with.
And so the question must be asked — and asked honestly: would a country like Pakistan, saddled with debt, limping through an economic recovery stitched together by IMF conditions, really provoke a nuclear-armed giant six times its size without being cornered? The answer lies not in rhetoric, but in reality. Pakistan’s response was not about provocation. It was about posture — survival posture. When your larger neighbor repeatedly invokes ancient maps that absorb your territory, when its generals boast of breaking you into pieces, and when its media glorifies surgical strikes as a national pastime, self-preservation becomes more than policy. It becomes instinct. This is not to romanticize Pakistan’s position.
No country is above scrutiny. But in this latest episode, the symmetry of response, the discipline in messaging, and the restraint in escalation paint a very different picture than the one often colored by Indian anchors and Western analysts. May 10 did not just pass as another day in South Asia’s long saga of mistrust. It became a moment of reckoning. India’s sabre-rattling met with silence in its own skies. Its jets did not rise to meet Pakistan’s. And for a state that so often claims to be the region’s security guarantor, this silence was thunderous. America, true to its reputation, waited until Pakistan responded before dusting off the word “ceasefire.” That the US Vice President, with known sympathies toward New Delhi, remained publicly measured while India escalated — and only sprang into diplomatic motion after Pakistan’s reply — should not surprise anyone.
Washington has long played both sides in South Asia, feeding military contracts in one hand and counterterrorism partnerships in the other. Its policy is less about peace and more about balance — maintaining enough tension to justify its presence, but not so much that war derails its broader strategic interests and trade balance. It was during this balancing act that Kashmir, once again, found itself dragged into the light. The international community, having grown accustomed to ignoring the valley, now had to acknowledge it. Not because a human rights violation occurred — those are far too common and too comfortably ignored. But because Pakistan’s precise targeting, and India’s inability to dominate the response, made the crisis impossible to contain within South Asia. Suddenly, what was dismissed as an internal Indian matter was now being discussed in Washington, London, and Geneva. Not as a bilateral squabble, but as a potential flashpoint.
And who delivered this uncomfortable revival? Ironically, it was not a human rights lawyer or a UN envoy. It was President Donald Trump — a man better known for tweets than treaties — who inadvertently gave Kashmir a second wind on the global stage. His clumsy commentary and apparent surprise that Kashmir was still a dispute reminded the world that it indeed still is. But none of this should blind us to the deeper danger. The subcontinent is no longer just two nations learning to live with their tragic past. It is becoming a sandbox for superpowers looking to rehearse tomorrow’s conflicts. The US, the West, and even the Far East, all have reasons to keep South Asia simmering — not boiling over, but never at rest. The region’s volatility makes it useful: a place to test military hardware, measure public tolerance, and calculate risk appetite. Every missile fired, every soldier deployed, is data for someone far away.
It is in this context that the media’s role becomes even more critical. Indian journalism, sadly, has abandoned that role. What we now see is not reportage but rabble-rousing, with veteran anchors reduced to nationalistic cheerleaders. When the narrative becomes more important than the news, truth is not just the first casualty — it becomes irrelevant. Pakistan’s media, while not without flaws, showed rare restraint in this crisis. Its silence, its refusal to match India’s hysteria, stood in sharp contrast to the daily war drums echoing from across the border. This time, Pakistan did not just survive a diplomatic storm. It walked through it with calm. And in doing so, it exposed the insecurity behind India’s aggression. If the region is to have any hope of peace, it will require more than ceasefires. It will require honesty. And the first step to honesty is silence — not of the oppressed, but of the self-righteous noise that has turned real pain into political spectacle.
(The writer is a journalist, public health professional, and possesses expertise in health communication, having keen interest in national and international affairs, can be reached at uzma@metro-morning.com)
