While the horror of the Pahalgam attack was unambiguous, the words used to describe it have become a flashpoint between one of the world’s oldest broadcasters and Asia’s largest democracy.
This week, the BBC drew flak from the Narendra Modi government for avoiding the word “terrorist” in its coverage of Pahalgam, where 26 civilians were killed last week “in a hail of gunfire”, according to the British public broadcaster.
In response, the BBC maintained that it reported the attack “accurately, impartially, and responsibly” and included PM Modi’s response to the attacks “prominently in our coverage”. It further pointed out its long-standing position, reflected in the BBC’s editorial guidelines, to use the word ‘terrorist’ with attribution. “Anyone who has seen or listened to our coverage will have heard the word attributed and used in various quotes and interviews.”
The broadcaster further said that this approach has been followed for decades and is determined by the BBC’s editorial policies. “The BBC’s approach is set out in our publicly available Editorial Guidelines, Section 11: War, Terror and Emergencies. We have included Prime Minister Modi’s response throughout our coverage, including his post on X and his statements. For example: ‘Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakeable and it will get even stronger,’ Modi wrote on X; and ‘Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed that India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers, and pursue them to the ends of the Earth.’”
What the guidelines say
Section 11.3 of the BBC’s editorial guidelines says that terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and “care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements. We should not use the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution”.
As per the BBC news style guide, the word “terrorist” is not banned, “but its use can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding”.
“We should not use the term without attribution. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as bomber, attacker, gunman, kidnapper, insurgent and militant. We should not adopt other people's language as our own. Our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom. While care is needed when describing perpetrators, an action or event can be described as a terror attack or an act of terror.”
“When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services, and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy. It is also very important that we strive for consistency across the international and UK facing sites. If a BBC World story uses very measured language but a UK version does not, a user will rightly question the different approaches.”
“Beware of paraphrasing and selective quotation, eg: ‘The Israeli prime minister said that while ‘terrorist’ attacks continued he would not back down.’ Putting the single word ‘terrorist’ in quotes may give the impression that the BBC is sceptical about the prime minister’s assessment of the nature of the attacks. Domestically, we tread a similar line on Northern Ireland. The IRA is so well known, worldwide, that a label is not necessary.”
The policy represents decades of editorial evolution that can be traced back to conflicts in Northern Ireland, Palestine, South Africa, and numerous other global hotspots where one side's freedom fighter has often been another's terrorist.
Under fire across the globe
However, this is not the first time the BBC has drawn flak for not using the word “terrorist”.
In a piece after the outlet faced criticism – including many pro-Israeli occupation voices – for not calling Hamas operatives as “terrorists” after the October 7, 2023 strikes, BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson wrote that “it’s always been like this in the BBC”.
“During World War Two, 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. It was hard to keep that principle going when the IRA was bombing Britain and killing innocent civilians, but we did. There was huge pressure from the government of Margaret Thatcher on the BBC, and on individual reporters like me about this – especially after the Brighton bombing, where she just escaped death and so many other innocent people were killed and injured. But we held the line. And we still do, to this day.”
This mirrors broader global patterns where the label sometimes reflects political distinctions rather than objective criteria. Nelson Mandela remained on the United States’ terrorism watchlist until 2008 due to his leadership of the armed wing of the African National Congress, which carried out bombings against South African apartheid institutions. Once considered a terrorist by some Western governments, Mandela eventually became a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and global symbol of reconciliation.
But the BBC’s application of its policy, despite being robust, has not been perfect.
Cracks and consistency
Have derivatives of the word “terror” never appeared in BBC reports linked to attacks on Indian soil? They have, even this year in reports on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. The perpetrators have been termed terror accused and the incident termed a terrorist attack – a terror trial had followed the attack. A survivor from Pahalgam whose husband was shot dead told the BBC categorically this week that it was a terrorist attack. But the BBC has never referred to any attack in Kashmir as an act of terror.
Several headlines where the word “terrorist” was used without attribution referred to cases where individuals had been convicted of terror charges. There have also been some instances where the term has been used without attribution in the copy, some without naming a perpetrator.
For example, after the 2015 Paris attacks, this report stated: “Any proof that the refugee routes have been used by terrorists will pose further problems for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.” After Belgium raised its terror threat to the highest level after the 2016 Belgium attacks, a BBC report noted that “there are still dozens of passengers being escorted out of the Brussels airport security zone, a day on from the biggest terrorist atrocity to hit Belgium”.
After the 2017 Manchester bombing killed 23, the BBC reported that “less than 24 hours after the worst terrorist attack in Manchester’s history, its people came together to remember the 22 victims who went to enjoy one of the city’s favourite pastimes - going to a gig - but never came home”. An explainer on the “growth of terrorism” and terrorists mentioned the IRA and nationalist groups in Wales. Another listed out the major “terrorist” attacks in the UK between 1996 and 2017.
Has the BBC completely avoided derivatives of the word terror while reporting on the right-wing? No. Several BBC reports have used the term but with attribution. Be it after the 2011 Norway attack or the 2020 Germany shootings. After the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand, the BBC attributed the word “terrorist” to police or government statements. Interviewing an American politician after the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting, a BBC presenter asked if it was time for the investigators to tackle White supremacist terrorism as they had tackled Islamist terror.
The Christchurch and El Paso examples were also cited in a report by the UK-based Centre for Media Monitoring when it pointed to worrying trends within the rest of the British media landscape.
“During the period 2015-2019, over half (51 percent) of individual online news pieces in 31 of the mainstream British news websites, magazines and newswires which mention the term terror, terrorism, terrorist(s) one or more times, also mention Muslim(s) and/or Islam, Islamic, Islamism or Islamist in the same piece. The equivalent total for far-right, White supremacist, right wing and neo-Nazi terrorist(s) is 6 percent,” it said. The report also pointed to a significant disparity in the association of terror with Muslim and non-Muslim suspects despite official statistics revealing that the proportion of those reported is far less disparate.
In Indian newsrooms, specifically while referring to attacks in Kashmir, most media outlets use the words “terror” and “terrorist”. The few who use the words “militant” and “militancy” replace it with the former in cases where civilians have been targeted or where foreign entities are involved.
Lack of consensus
The term “terrorism” itself has a complex history. It first described the “Regime de la Terreur” in France (1793-1794) under Maximilien Robespierre, characterised by violent repression including mass executions and arbitrary violence. It later shifted to describe non-state actors using violence to overthrow state structures.
The League of Nations defined terrorism as “criminal acts directed against a state,” while the United Nations General Assembly uses a broader definition including “acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes”.
Depending on the context in which terrorist acts occur, they may also constitute crimes under international law, according to a factsheet on human rights, terrorism and counter-terrorism by the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights. But there has been a lack of a consensus on a clear definition.
India has repeatedly flagged this lack of a consensus on international terrorism as it could also influence cases of attacks on Indian soil – several of which Indian agencies see as state-sponsored terror.
Pakistan, after all, has a large number of entities designated terrorist by the UNSC and Indian investigators have repeatedly pointed to their role and state-backing in several attacks, including Pahalgam, Pathankot and Pulwama. After the Pahalgam attack, when Pakistan’s defence minister was asked by a British outlet about supporting terror groups, he said, “We have been doing this dirty work for the US for the past three decades”. Pakistan’s foreign minister this week said the country moved to remove the name of terror outfit The Resistance Front – which initially claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack – from a UNSC statement condemning the incident.
The Pahalgam attack meets all broad definitions of terror, but yet India is struggling to build a case. The government’s frustration can be partially understood through the same lens – as resistance to frameworks that appear to implicitly downgrade the severity of violence against Indian civilians relative to similar attacks in other contexts. The letter to BBC also has the same context, since there has been ample scope for immediate attribution – from survivors of the attack to large sections of the state machinery.
Meanwhile, other actors in this landscape continue to have far fewer reservations.
Eight years after The Sun ran its “cut out and keep” guide to what terrorists look like, Hindutva voices seemed eager this month to pick up where the tabloids left off – with the same claim that terror has a religion. Since the BBC is trying to choose its words, there are plenty of others more than willing to do the labeling for them.
In times of misinformation, you need news you can trust. We’ve got you covered. Subscribe to Newslaundry and power our work.
Newslaundry is a reader-supported, ad-free, independent news outlet based out of New Delhi. Support their journalism, here.
