{"id":3546,"date":"2025-05-11T03:21:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T03:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/?p=3546"},"modified":"2025-05-11T03:23:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T03:23:31","slug":"when-truth-becomes-first-casuality-of-war-a-letter-from-the-land-between-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/when-truth-becomes-first-casuality-of-war-a-letter-from-the-land-between-guns\/","title":{"rendered":"When Truth Becomes First Casuality of War: A Letter from the Land Between Guns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\r\n    <div class=\"custom-author-box\">\r\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img-20250330-wa00126079622880044327934.jpg\" alt=\"Author Image\">\r\n        <span class=\"author-name\">Ikkz Ikbal<\/span>\r\n    <\/div>\r\n\r\n    <style>\r\n        .custom-author-box {\r\n            display: flex;\r\n            align-items: center;\r\n            position: relative;\r\n            width: 250px; \/* Set the total width of the author box *\/\r\n            margin-top: 20px;\r\n            margin-bottom: 10px;\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        .custom-author-box img {\r\n            width: 70px; \/* Set the image width *\/\r\n            height: 70px; \/* Set the image height *\/\r\n            border-radius: 50%;\r\n            object-fit: cover;\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        .custom-author-box .author-name {\r\n            position: absolute;\r\n            left: 80px; \/* Adjust if the image width changes *\/\r\n            top: 50%;\r\n            transform: translateY(-50%);\r\n            font-size: 16px;\r\n            font-weight: bold;\r\n            color: #fff;\r\n            background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);\r\n            padding: 5px 10px;\r\n            border-radius: 12px;\r\n            white-space: nowrap;\r\n            text-overflow: ellipsis;\r\n            overflow: hidden;\r\n            max-width: calc(100% - 50px); \/* Ensures it doesn't overflow *\/\r\n            width: auto; \/* Allows width to adjust automatically *\/\r\n            display: inline-block; \/* Ensures it only takes necessary space *\/\r\n        }\r\n    <\/style>\r\n\r\n    \n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Somewhere between primetime debates and political posturing, something precious has died. No, it\u2019s not the enemy across the border\u2014it\u2019s the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, truth. That fragile, flickering flame which once guided journalism, now snuffed out by a blizzard of nationalism, \u201cunconfirmed sources,\u201d and mindless hysteria. Truth didn\u2019t die in the crossfire. It died in the newsroom\u2014slowly, publicly, and most tragically, with applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we\u2019re witnessing now is not a war of two nations. It\u2019s a war of narratives. And sadly, the foot soldiers are not soldiers\u2014they\u2019re journalists, shouting from their air-conditioned studios, armed with hashtags and half-baked headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From Delhi to Islamabad, the trend is terrifyingly similar. The job of journalism, once to question power, has become a karaoke act for the state. \u201cSources say\u2026\u201d is the new gospel. \u201cBreaking News\u201d breaks no news at all. And if you dare ask for facts, you&#8217;re either anti-national or irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s be clear. Wars are not won. They are survived. And the worst survivors are not those who fought\u2014but those who had no say in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, know this too well. Every time tempers flare in New Delhi or Islamabad, it&#8217;s our soil that burns. It\u2019s our skies that roar. It\u2019s our children that stay home from school. It\u2019s our fields that become frontlines, and our silence that\u2019s mistaken for complicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are not a party to this war. We are the playground of its politics. We are not the voice behind the cannon. We are the echo after the explosion.<br \/>But we are never asked. We are only explained\u2014by people who\u2019ve never seen what a border village looks like after a shelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear anchors, this is not chess. This is not your studio battleground where you pit two shouting guests against each other and call it \u201cdebate.\u201d This is real life. Real death. Real families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet, every time the cannons cough across the Line of Control, the Indian and Pakistani media rise in competitive hysteria. The body count becomes a scoreboard. \u201cWho started it\u201d becomes the national sport. And facts? Facts are the first casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I write this not with anger, but with sorrow. Because when truth is betrayed, trust dies with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a time we turned to the media for clarity in chaos. Now we avoid it to preserve our sanity. Journalism has become a theatre of war. Not to inform\u2014but to inflame. Not to serve democracy\u2014but to distract it.<br \/>In February 2021, India and Pakistan agreed to reaffirm their commitment to the 2003 ceasefire agreement, according to the New York Times. It was celebrated. For a brief moment, life returned to normal in the border belts. Children played outside. Weddings happened in peace. Farmers tilled fields without fear. And then, the silence was broken\u2014not by bombs, but by bytes. It wasn\u2019t the soldier who fired first. It was the TV channel that screamed \u201cEXCLUSIVE\u201d and lit the fuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This madness must stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You cannot build peace on propaganda. You cannot protect borders by blinding people. If you\u2019re a journalist, be one. Confirm before you claim. Verify before you vilify. Think before you trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We understand the temptation. War sells. Peace bores. But the moment you choose ratings over reality, you betray your own profession.<br \/>Please don\u2019t become stenographers of the state. Be the eyes and ears of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If journalism is the fourth pillar of democracy, it\u2019s starting to feel like a crumbling ruin, riddled with termites of misinformation and apathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most tragic part? They still wonder why trust in the media is dying.<br \/>Let me explain it plainly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because instead of speaking truth to power, you&#8217;re now speaking power as truth.<br \/>Because you\u2019ve replaced field reporting with studio screaming.<br \/>Because your \u201cbreaking news\u201d broke our belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we, the ordinary people, raise a quieter but firmer slogan: Choose ceasefire over war. Choose peace over conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not because we\u2019re cowards. But because we\u2019ve seen enough coffins.<br \/>Not because we\u2019re unpatriotic. But because we understand that peace is a bigger act of courage than conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Journalism must rediscover its purpose. It must return to facts, fairness, and most of all\u2014humanity. Let the microphones record not just politicians, but the farmer near the LoC, the mother who lost a son, the child who lost a school year to shelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let the truth make a comeback, even if it doesn\u2019t go viral.<br \/>And let those who profit from fear be seen for what they are\u2014not patriots, but profiteers of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because in the end, wars don\u2019t just destroy villages.<br \/>They destroy values.<br \/>And the biggest bomb is not the one dropped on land\u2014it\u2019s the one dropped on truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ikkz Ikbal is a columnist and educationist based in Jammu &amp; Kashmir. He X&#8217;s @Ikkz Ikbal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somewhere between primetime debates and political posturing, something precious has died. No, it\u2019s not the enemy across the border\u2014it\u2019s the truth. Yes, truth. That fragile, flickering flame which once guided journalism, now snuffed out by a blizzard of nationalism, \u201cunconfirmed sources,\u201d and mindless hysteria. Truth didn\u2019t die in the crossfire. It died in the newsroom\u2014slowly, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3549,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions\/3549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}