How a Mother’s Grief Became a Public Spectacle in Kashmir |
A mother in Kashmir recently lost her child in the waters of Shopian’s Dubjan area during a picnic. Within moments, mobile phones rose into the air.
Videos captured her screams, her collapse, and her devastation. Clips spread rapidly through Facebook pages and WhatsApp groups while strangers consumed her grief like breaking entertainment.
That scene should disturb far more than our emotions. It exposes a dangerous collapse in public morality and legal restraint.
Kashmir, like the rest of India, now lives inside a digital culture where private suffering turns into viral spectacle within minutes. Phones record first, humanity comes later.
India’s Constitution speaks clearly on this question.
Article 21 guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union of India, affirmed privacy as a fundamental right inseparable from human freedom and personal autonomy.
That protection extends far beyond homes and bank accounts. It includes dignity during moments of pain, tragedy and vulnerability.
The grieving mother in Shopian received none of that protection.
A civilized society understands that some moments belong only to the people enduring them. Death, trauma and shock call for compassion and restraint. Social media culture has produced the opposite instinct.
Public tragedy now functions as raw material for engagement, clicks and online visibility.
This crisis also exposes the widening gap between journalism and what many Kashmiris now describe as “Facebook hawkers.”
Journalism rests on ethics, verification and........