Is it one-sided coverage on J&K?

SEVANTI NINAN
In spite of the massive coverage in recent times, the point of view of the Kashmiris hasn’t found a voice in the media.
Arundhati Roy, who, like Arun Shourie, needs a lot of space to have her say, argues over seven pages in Outlook that the continued military occupation of Kashmir must stop, and that we have there a State whose younger generation ha s been “raised in a playground of army camps, checkposts and bunkers, with screams of torture chambers for a sound track”.
Vir Sanghvi and Swaminathan Aiyar assert in columns in the Hindustan Times and Times of India, after citing different sets of reasons, that the time has come to give Kashmiris the right to self-determination.
On Times Now, on prime time over two days, Arnab Goswami celebrates the patriotism of soldiers who have given their lives for Kashmir. On the day of his funeral, two children of an army officer are put on air to tell the channel’s viewers about their father, with Goswami goading them on. “Are you proud of your father, what would you like to tell people on our show today?” he asks the 11-year-old son. The next evening there is a special report, titled We love Kashmir Too, talking to the families of those officers who have lost their lives in Kashmir.
Voice of India
At the end, Sajjad Lone of the Peoples Conference is pitted against two elderly former officers. One of them voices the sentiment that India cannot leave Kashmir after it has been part of the country for 60 years, extremism etc. is all wrong, and “we are all brothers”. Says Goswami: “Sajjad this is the voice of India, it is very easy to have a TV debate where you pit people against one another (Hinting at Barkha’s Dutt’s show, is he?). This is the voice, Sajjad. You have talked about the sentiments of the people of Kashmir, what about these two, Sajjad.”
Sajjad says, in Kupwara there is a village of 250 widows in a population of 5,000. That is also the voice of Kashmir. If these men have been killed, the question that should be asked is, how can we trust the people of India? Whereupon, one of the two other men on the show says he has been supporting an orphan girl in Kashmir. Lone says that is gracious of him, but people from all over the world are supporting orphans in Kashmir.
Later in the show, Goswami displays more sanctimonious nationalism. Accusing Lone of trusting Rawalapindi more than Delhi, saying at some point that this sort of intolerance happens only in Pakistan while referring to what happened to Mojahirs. To which the PC leader says, if you talk of Mojahirs, I can talk of Gujarat and hundreds of communal riots here in last 15 years. Arnab Goswami then gives ..........

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Read more in The Hindu Magazine.