Pahalgam Terror Attack: Who's really responsible - terrorists or militants? Here's why the label matters

Pahalgam Terror Attack: The Union government has reportedly written to Jacky Martens, South Asia Bureau Chief of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), on the media organisation's reporting about last week's Pahalgam terror attack. The government has objected to terming terrorists as 'militants' in its letter, according to government sources.

Last week, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee slammed The New York Times' coverage of the Pahalgam terrorist attack for using terms like ‘gunmen’ and ‘militants’ to describe the attackers.

The Pahalgam terror attack that was carried out on a day when United States Vice President JD Vance was in India and Narendra Modi was on a state visit to Saudi Arabia killed 26 people, mostly tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir on April 22.

The militant vs terrorism debate is not a new one. LiveMint does a deep dive.

What is Terrorism under UAPA?

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, a reference perhaps used by the Government of India, a terrorist means “whoever does any act with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, [economic security,] or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or in any foreign country”.

Who is a militant?

A ‘militant’ is a more generic term, according to experts. 

“The term is used to describe any person who resorts to violent methods in support of a political or social cause, irrespective of whether those violent methods seek to create a climate of terror or fear in the general population or among adversaries for achieving desired political objectives,” according to Adil Rasheed, acclaimed author and research fellow at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA).

In Encyclopaedia Britannica, John Philip Jenkins calls terrorism “the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.”

According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), terrorism refers to “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”

Terrorists and Militants not identical: Expert

Rasheed said in a response that the three words – ‘terrorist, militant and radical’ – are not identical in meaning and should not be used interchangeably.

“Although there may not be consensus over a common definition, there is a great deal of consensus over the conceptual and essential constituents of the term,” he said in the response, posted online in December 2023.

Newsroom Style Sheets

News organisations worldwide do not necessarily follow the definitions by respective governments in their coverage/reportage. The BBC, for example, has a stylesheet called ‘BBC News Style Guide,’ according to which the word militant is used instead of terrorists. 

So has the Associated Press – the US-based news agency. "Since the 1990s, The Associated Press has advised against the use of the words 'terrorist' and 'terrorism,' other than in direct quotations or when attributed to authorities," John Daniszewski, the Associated Press vice president for standards, was quoted as saying in Voice of America in 2023.

Most US newsrooms, including New York Times follow AP stylebook.

‘No Universal Definition’

Terrorism has no universally-accepted definition under international law.

While there is no current agreement regarding a universal legal definition of the term ‘terrorism’, there has been some debate regarding the possible existence of an, at least partial, customary definition of terrorism, according to the United Nations.

This customary rule to define terrorism, the UN says, requires the following three key elements: (i) the perpetration of a criminal act (such as murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, arson, and so on), or threatening such an act; (ii) the intent to spread fear among the population (which would generally entail the creation of public danger) or directly or indirectly coerce a national or international authority to take some action, or to refrain from taking it; (iii) when the act involves a transnational element. ( Interlocutory Decision, 2011, para. 85).

'So much narrative force and depth'

But debates over the word ‘terrorist’ have proliferated because, like the word ‘genocide,’ it carries a heavy political and emotional weight, according to Maxim Pensky, of Institute of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University in New York.

"The word has so much narrative force and depth," he told VOA in the report published in 2023..

BBC’s Earlier Response

In 2023, John Simpson, the World Affairs Editor at the BBC responded to questions on why the British news organisation doesn't call Hamas militants as 'terrorists'?

The answer goes right back to the BBC's founding principles, Simpson wrote.

“Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” he said.

The clarification highlighted that the BBC regularly pointed out that the British and other governments had condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization. But that's their business, it adds. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists, the response said.

“The key point is that we don't say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds,” Simpson wrote.

'We don't take sides'

And it's always been like this in the BBC, he wrote. “During World War II, BBC broadcasters were expressly told not to call the Nazis evil or wicked, even though we could and did call them "the enemy".

"Above all," said a BBC document about all this, "there must be no room for ranting". Our tone had to be calm and collected.

“We don't take sides. We don't use loaded words like "evil" or "cowardly". We don't talk about "terrorists". And we're not the only ones to follow this line. Some of the world's most respected news organisations have exactly the same policy,” Simpson wrote.

What's the practice in India?

Almost every English publications in India used the militant word for terror attacks in Kashmir until recently. But the 'style' changed, especially after the September 11, 2001, terror attack in the US, after which the use of terrorists became common. Some publications use militants while others use terrorism.

“We have been using militants. We have never used terrorists. Although, the word terrorists gained prominence in recent times and some publications published from Delhi now use terrorist in headlines. But even today, you may find terrorists in the headline, but the story inside will have militants," said a journalist who did not want to be named.

For some, mostly freelancers for international publications, it is a Catch-22 situation. “Even if I write terrorists, the editors sitting in New York or London will make it according to their own stylesheet. It is not in my hand, actually,” said a journalist who writes for international news organisations.