South Central 25 | Pahalgam attack: How will India strike at Pakistan? and World Press Freedom Index

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, how is the Indian government striking back at Pakistan? What does declining press freedom mean for a State’s intelligence gathering capacity?

Published on:

02 May 2025, 2:34 pm

In Episode 25 of South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran, Pooja Prasanna, and Leena Reghunath discuss India’s response to the Pahalgam attack and what India’s rank in the World Press Freedom Index reflects. Also part of the discussion are international relations expert Professor Amitabh Mattoo and senior journalist Nirupama Subramaniam.

On India’s response to the Pahalgam attack, Amitabh says, “At the moment, it’s very calibrated, almost muted. There has been a slate of measures announced, including keeping the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, which is probably the most significant. The others are more symbolic, like reducing the number of staff within the High Commission, or closing the Attari-Wagah border.”

He adds, “These are more symbolic measures designed to activate the immediate sense of anger. Given that the credibility of the establishment is at stake, I would certainly say that the odds are hugely in favour of military action.”

Nirupama points to a deeper policy failure in Kashmir: “It is a failure to understand that your adversary has changed beyond imagination. That is where there is an intelligence failure and a policy failure. You did not anticipate that your enemy could come and do this to you in Kashmir. I think that we are not talking about enough.”

On the targeting of Kashmiris across India, Dhanya says, “Immediately after the Pahalgam attacks, we are seeing a series of attacks on Kashmiris across India, especially students. That’s outrageous.”

Amitabh concurs, “The worst thing you can do, in terms of winning the hearts and minds of the Kashmiris, is to attack Kashmiri students. That is unpardonable.”

As the conversation shifts to India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index, Dhanya says, “RSF has consistently highlighted the problem of media ownership in India. Mukesh Ambani is believed to own around 70 media outlets. That kind of ownership concentration leads to self-censorship.”

Leena warns, “Journalists are assuming they think they’re free while they’re self-censoring. And that to me, is a far more worrying trend.”

Nirupama reflects on the growing demand for ‘positive’ journalism over accountability: “I think there is very little understanding that journalists have to question the government, that they exist not to do positive stories about good governance and how great the country is doing and all that, but to find out, to hold them accountable, to talk truth to power.”

All this and more—tune in.

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Audio Timecodes

00:00:00- Introduction

00:01:57- Support TNM

00:05:30 -Headlines

00:10:23 -Pahalgam Attack

00:57:47- Press Freedom Index