Barkha Dutt On J&K Controversy

Barkha Dutt talks about the cyberbullying and death threats she received after her offer to help Kashmiri students.

- Barkha Dutt

I am a journalist who has been reporting from Jammu and Kashmir for the last 23 years. Recently, I was reporting on the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack in Kashmir in which more than 40 soldiers were martyred.

Like every Indian, I was outraged and even wrote a strongly worded column in the Washington Post talking of how Pakistan must be made to pay for backing terrorism; and so, too, must the countries that have shielded it.

This visceral anger has reflected in all my work—my comments on social media, television shows and writings. As a reporter who cut her teeth covering the Kargil war of 1999 from the frontline, I have a deep attachment to our soldiers. Ironically, while the right-wing would want to classify me as a bleeding heart “lefty”, my thinking can be quite militaristic. I am among those who have argued that some sort of military response (combined with coercive diplomacy) to Pakistan after the terror strike in Pulwama is not just inevitable; it is appropriate and necessary.