I awoke this morning to a slew of nearly identical emails in my inbox. All of them contained a link to this morning's article in the New York Times about the seven bombs that went off in Jaipur last night. "Did you hear about this?" Most of them said. (Not until this morning.) "Isn't this where you're going this summer?" The less South-Asia savvy emailers asked. (Yes, I am.) "Hope your parents don't read the paper," some of them said. (Of course my parents read the paper. Who do you think trained me to be so vitriolic about the Western press?)

(Speaking of the Western press...) Perhaps predictably, the coverage of the bomb blasts in the Times was remarkably different from the coverage in the other sources I checked. Specifically, author Somini Sengupta was quick to allude to the possible Muslim-terrorist angle, and to imply that the Muslim-terrorists were from (you guessed it) Pakistan, the punching bag of the current election, the Republicans' and the Democrats' favorite new source of terrorist threats. Sengupta's article groundlessly and irresponsibly supports Pakistan's image as the new haven for Bin-Laden-wannabes.

Okay, so let's talk about the Times article. In the first four paragraphs you learn that the bombs were probably planted in the wheels of bicycles, that no group has taken responsibility for the bombings as of yet, and that one of the blasts happened outside the Hanuman temple. As we good Hindus know, Tuesday is the prime day for visting his monkeyness (he's one of my personal favorites, actually). Therefore the blast may have been timed to make Hindus angry - or it may have been timed just to affect as many people as possible. The article then speculates that the blasts may have been the work of Pakistanis:

There were no claims of responsibility, which is typical of terror attacks in India, but the junior minister for home affairs, Sriprakash Jaiswal, immediately said “foreign terrorists” were suspected, using a phrase understood to refer to India’s neighbor and nuclear rival, Pakistan. Pakistan routinely deny (sic) Indian accusations that it is involved in any way in attacks on India.

Note that this is pure speculation on Sengupta's part. Maybe she's right - maybe "foreign terrorist" is usually code for "Pakistani." But the point is that no one explicitly told her that they suspected a specific Pakistani group.

The Hindu, actually, doesn't even mention Pakistan. Instead, it says that authorities have reason to suspect a group from Bangladesh:

Bangladesh-based Harkut-ul-Jehadi Islami(HuJI) is suspected to be behind the blasts that has taken the state authorities by surprise, Home Ministry sources said.

I checked the Deccan Herald to see if they had any news on the people responsible, but their site seemed pretty outdated - they said the death toll was 15, while the other news outlets I read said that it was probably more like 50 or 60.

Later in the Times article, Sengupta adds:

Mr. Singh, speaking by telephone from Jaipur, said it was too early to say who was responsible, but that the attack, on a summer’s evening when the walled city was thronged, appeared to be designed to ignite religious fury between Hindus and Muslims. Similar terror attacks targeting religious sites in recent years have not succeeded in setting off sectarian violence.

Which is cool and everything, except that the article also says that bombs went off in lots of crowded areas, including the Hawa Mahal and the Johri Bazaar, two major tourist attractions.

In fact, the BBC coverage was not as quick to call the blast an act of religious violence, although the article did say that Indian police had deemed the bombs a terrorist attack. Instead, it focused on how the blasts affected major tourist destinations. It mentioned the Hanuman temple as a place that would be crowded on a Tuesday, rather than as a place that had unusual religions significance - in fact, it didn't even mention the temple by name:

On Tuesdays many devotees flock to a popular shrine in Jaipur's old city.

And that one sentence is all our friend Hanuman gets from the Brits. Of course, the temple is significant - but it also one of multiple blast sites, and it was the only religious site. Maybe, just maybe, the attack wasn't designed to kill Hindus. Maybe it was designed to kill as many people as possible. Or maybe it was designed to kill tourists. Or maybe it was just designed to create chaos, and chaos is something you get by planting bombs in crowded, non-religious places.

Now, look. I'm no terrorism expert, and I'm certainly not one to deny the existence of religious violence in India or to exculpate Hindus from partial blame for this violence. And, in fact, I do believe that there was probably some kind of religious motivation behind the attacks. But the fact is that when a widely read paper like the Times makes a claim that Pakistan is responsible for a terrorist attack - even when sources say that they are NOT Pakistani - this claim affects Muslims, and especially Pakistani Muslims, everywhere, including here in the US.

Yes, India and Pakistan have problems. Yes, these are related to religion (and history - partition, anyone?). These are facts. Pakistan is a country with a rich and wonderful history. This is also a fact rarely seen in textbooks or the newspaper. Every time I see an article like this I think of students I've had or currently teach who complain about their classmates calling them terrorists and making jokes about them bombing the school. I think of the students themselves wondering if they should forsake their claim to their own country, a country that is so often reduced to a land of terrorists rather than a land of history and culture and general awesomeness (that's a technical term). Articles like this perpetuate the idea that it's natural to think of Pakistanis as terrorists, even if government officials don't explicitly say so. ( Just for the record, it's not natural, and it's not okay.)

So please, Madam Sengupta, before you go blaming attacks on Pakistan, check your sources. If no one has claimed responsibility, that's all you need to say. Don't go speculating based on your own biases, because when you have the power of the Times before you, your speculation affects more than just you.