Yesterday, the Indian Army announced it had conducted surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh was the picture of composure when he made his announcement to the media. There was no chest-thumping, literal or figurative. To make up for this, the news media has been at fever pitch ever since. If you were hoping that the fact that newspapers are a silent medium would mean that the coverage would be more restrained than what we saw on TV, let it be known that the print media did as much as the medium allows to up its melodramatic ante.

The coverage was, by and large, along expected lines: India’s claims, Pakistan’s denial, reactions from politicians, fear along the border, stock market crash, and cross-LoC trade. Of course, how those themes were represented in print varied wildly depending on where you were.

How India saw it

The conventions of journalism and print journalism in particular warn its practitioners against one cardinal sin: editorialising, or presenting facts in a way that they are actually a camouflage for opinion. It was obvious from the major Hindi newspapers and many of the English counterparts that this convention is now passé.

Despite the fact that the Indian Army strenuously maintained that the surgical strikes were to neutralise a specific set of terrorists and not motivated revenge, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala informed its readers that not only had Uri been avenged, Indian forces had apparently gone across the LoC. The Navbharat Times and Hindustan were equally convinced of this. So what if the Army specified that the launch pads had been “along” the LoC and not across it?   

Dainik Jagran: Uri ka badla: Gulam Kashmir mein ghuskar 7 aatanki camp kiye tabah, 4 ghante mein 40 dher (Uri’s revenge: Entered enslaved Kashmir to destroy 7 terrorist camps, 40 killed in 4 hours)

Amar Ujala: PoK mein ghusi Hindustani fauj, Uri ka badla lekar Pak ko diya muhtod jawab, 38 aatanki maare, 7 thikane tabah kiye (Indian Army enters PoK, gives befitting reply to Pakistan by taking revenge for Uri, 38 terrorists killed, 7 camps destroyed)

Navbharat Times: Muhtod jawab: PoK mein Bharatiya commandos ne maar giraye 40 terrorist (Befitting reply: Indian commandos kill 40 terrorists in PoK), and Le liya badla surgical hamle se: PM Modi ki nigrani mein anjam di gayi karvahi (Revenge taken using surgical strikes: Action taken under PM Modi’s watch)

Hindustan: Bharat ne PoK mein ghuskar mara (India entered PoK and attacked)

The only difference lay in the number of terrorist casualties. Punjab Kesari was a little more conservative, though how they found out how many “commandos” had been deployed is a separate matter:

Punjabi Kesari: POK mein surgical strike, 40 aatanki dher: LoC par helicopter se utre 150 commandos, Lashkar ke 7 camp tabah (Surgical strikes in PoK, 40 terrorists killed: 150 commandos descend on LoC from helicopters, 7 Lashkar camps destroyed)

Over on the English side of the print media fence, The Times of India, had the pick of the morning’s headlines: “Pak crossed the line, India crosses LoC”.

As ToI knows better than anyone else, though, nationalistic zeal tends to get out of hand pretty easily. If it was the Twitter gaffe yesterday, today it’s the escalation of casualties to “40-55”. Never mind the minor detail that all the Army has told the media is that there were “heavy casualties”.

To add a flair of drama, the strikes were equated with the United States’s hunt for Osama Bin Laden in a box accompanying the lead package was titled “Raids began at Zero Dark Thirty”. Pakistan’s reaction, calling the attacks “just a border skirmish”, was predictably not given much space on the front page. Inside, two special pages gave details. Titled “LoC, Shock & Barrel”, they were proof of the print medium’s characteristic love of puns.

Interestingly, each and every one of the national dailies had a map depicting the locations of the strikes. The Indian Army did not reveal any such details, so where did the media get it from? Why, Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), of course! In a statement on its official Facebook page yesterday, ISPR had said: “Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing on LoC in Bhimber, hotspring, kel, and Lipa sectors.” Those are the places on every map in every Indian newspaper today. However, barring Indian Express and The Telegraph, none of the papers attributed the locations to the Pakistan army.

As prime time television news debates have repeatedly shown us over the past decade or so, screaming is the best cover for a lack of content or creativity. What newspapers lack by way of volume, they made up for with font size. Everyone – Hindustan Times, Mail Today, Indian Express – was screaming, in all caps.

Mail Today screamed “Payback” on its front page and “Surgical treatment”. Pegging the death toll at 38 and the distance to which India travelled beyond LoC at “1-3km” (ToI‘s corresponding figure was “1.5-6.5 km”), HT dedicated both the front of its ‘flap’ and its front page to the strikes. “Army exacts Uri revenge”, the paper informed its readers. Pakistan saying “it was only cross-border firing” was given prominent display (second lead on page one). Like ToI, HT also had two ‘spotlight’ pages inside that were relatively subdued. One of the pieces talked about “Modi’s ability to spring surprises”, while a box listed four “reasons why India might get away with it”.

Indian Express went with “India Strikes”. Unlike ToI and HT, half the front page was not taken up by ads, so it was all about the strikes, but without a specific mention of a death toll or a distance. Full points for factual accuracy. The page one anchor was about cross-border trade and the inside pages focused on fear among civilians living in border areas, with one report on the support for the strikes at Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s ‘progress panchayat‘ in Muslim-majority Mewat district of Haryana.

They were also screaming over in Kolkata-based The Telegraph, but on behalf of both sides of the border. “Day of Thunder: India crosses Line of Silence” in huge font, with “Day of Denial: Re-branded Border Fire: Pak Army” in slightly smaller font underneath. Like IE, it did not hazard a guess when it came to the casualties or the depth of the incursion.

South of the Vindhyas, some like New Indian Express (“First strike”) and Deccan Chronicle (“India raids PoK after 45 years”) were screaming. Others like The Hindu (“Target terror: India strikes along LoC”) and Deccan Herald (“Army targets terror camps in PoK”) were not.

How Kashmir saw it

In the Valley, the Indian Army’s claims of having conducted an operation were received with a healthy dose of scepticism. The phrase surgical strikes was put in single quotes by some publications, which is a not-so-subtle indication of just how credible Kashmiri media finds the Indian Army. Rising Kashmir said “Army conducts ‘surgical strikes’ across LoC”, but gave almost equal prominence to the other side’s rejoinder: “India’s claim of surgical strikes fabrication of truth: Pakistan”. 

Incidentally, “PaK” is not a typo – it refers to Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Kashmir Observer said “Strikes across LoC: India prepares for possible Pak retaliation”, with an analysis piece titled “What are the aims and who is the real audience?” Kashmir Monitor screamed “Crossed LoC, destroyed launch pads & killed militants: Army”. 

Only The Mirror of Kashmir kept its focus local. A small, three-column item on page one said “Pak army rubbishes surgical strikes”.

How Pakistan saw it

Across the border, there was even greater scepticism. Dawn asked a question: “Escalation or brinkmanship at LoC?”, adding “India says its troops made ‘surgical strike’ across LoC; Pakistan rejects claim”.

The Express Tribune did not mince its words. It described the surgical strike as a “farce” and “fabrication of the truth”, backing the Pakistani military to the hilt. An offbeat page one item was “Curtains fall on Indian movies in Pakistani cinemas”.

The News claimed the surgical strikes were an “Indian delusion”. Daily Times said “Army rubbishes Indian claim of ‘surgical strike'”. The Nation, meanwhile, went with the headline: “India fails to sell ‘surgical strike'”.

Pakistan Observer went with another narrative, saying “Pakistan captures one Indian soldier, eight others killed at LoC overnight”.