Rah-rah reporting

IN Media Monitoring | 22/04/2005

Indo Pak Monitoring II

Continuing our Panos-funded monitoring series on Indo-Pak news coverage. The third part of an analysis of TV coverage of the Singh-Musharraf summit in New York, in September 2004.         

Shubha Singh

Private or state-owned, media on bilateral coverage takes its cue from the relations between the two governments. Beyond that, the private broadcasters tend to step up the hype. When India and Pakistan are groping towards peace, TV channels turn cheer leaders, focus on individual milestones, and forget to step back to take a measured long view.

Before the September 25 summit meeting there was a build up in the Pakistani news bulletins. On September 24, PTV showed a clip of Pakistani Minister for Information, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, who said that the entire world was watching for the results that come out of the meeting between the two leaders. "As far as President Musharraf is concerned he is going with an open heart (khalus-e-niyat) and an open mind. It is his wish that both sides resolve their matters cordially. It is the expectation that the meetings will continue and talks will go forward."

Pakistan’s representative at the United Nations, Jafar Bilgrami, echoed this: "It is an important meeting. Pakistan wants to have fruitful talks with India and the issue of Kashmir be decided according to the wishes of the Kashmiri people."

The Indian channels concentrated on the summit itself, especially the atmosphere, which was described as "khusnuma mahaul" (happy atmosphere). Star TV said: "pura mahaul bhavuk ho gaya" (the atmosphere turned sentimental) while Aaj Tak’s Prabhu Chawla said "yani mann milte hue dikhayi pad rahe hain." (It seems that there is a meeting of hearts.) Star TV’s anchor Siddharth felt that a joint statement meant that there had been a cordial atmosphere (suhardpurna mahaul) and some achievement during the talks. Doordarshan, Star TV and Aaj Tak laid special emphasis on the fact that the two leaders did not discuss the issue of terrorism in their meeting. Other issues discussed were the resolution of the Kashmir issue and the gas pipeline proposal.

 PTV highlighted whenever it could, the fact that Kashmir had been put squarely on the table, carrying President Musharraf’s press conference replies on this topic. It took pains to carry clips of the Indian prime minister’s address at the General Assembly, those excerpts when he referred to relations between India and Kashmir.    

Their visual showed Mr Manmohan Singh saying: "Relations between India and Pakistan have been a matter of attention for the international community. It is known that since January this year India and Pakistan have initiated a composite dialogue to resolve all issues including Jammu and Kashmir. Sir, I reaffirm our determination to carry forward this dialogue to a purposeful and mutually acceptable conclusion."

PTV’s special correspondent, Shafiq Tahir reported that the questions at the press conference related to India-Pakistan dialogue, reforms of the United Nations Security Council, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Responding to a question, President Musharraf said that Kashmir was a basic (buniyadi) between India and Pakistan, there had been no progress in the past 50 years. We should give the bilateral dialogue a last chance."

The bulletin showed a visual clip of the Pakistani President responding to a question in English: "The world is going towards multilateralism. We talk of multilateralism everywhere. But here we are taking about bilateralism. It must be given final chance because I think the best option is bilateralism. But if bilateralism doesn’t produce results and we fail and we have failed over fifty years. So what is bilateralism if it fails to produce results? Therefore, if it fails to produce results then the only option left is multilateralism. I only hope that it doesn’t fail this time. So that is the explanation of final chance."

Tahir repeated a question asked by an Indian correspondent on whether a solution to the Kashmir issue could be considered by making some changes (raddo-badal) on the Line of Control. Tahir said that the President promptly made it crystal clear that no such proposals would be considered (kabil-e-gaur nahin ho sakti). The visual showed the journalist asking: "A few kilometres here and there from the LoC, is that one of the proposals that you might consider if it comes to during the talks?" President Musharraf responded: "My mind is closed to that absolutely, because that is the line of control (LoC) has been the dispute. We have fought wars on what? What have we fought the wars for, on the line of control. So, are you suggesting that the conflict should be the solution? How can that be? Isn’t that very unnatural? How can the conflict on which we have fought wars be the solution tomorrow? And that is absolutely ridiculous."

Each Indian channel reported the Prime Minister’s visit in its own style. ZeeTv’s new news bulletin carried the title - Pradhan Mantri ka New York Daura, while Aaj Tak’s studio had a montage of the two leaders in the background with the strap line "Kaho na pyar hai" (say that you love me). ZeeTV had a backdrop of montage images of President George W Bush, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf with the title ‘Khel Kootniti Ka (Game of Politics). You could describe it as triviliazing or saucing up hard news.

Aaj Tak carried a report on a press conference by President Musharraf where it said "he once again repeated that Kashmir is the main dispute between the two countries. Musharraf also said that both countries have been talking on this subject for 50 years but have not reached any objective so multilateral talks can also be held. Though Musharraf expressed optimism that there would be some concrete outcome of the meeting. He stressed the need for both sides to adopt flexibility (lacheeda rukh apnana) and said that Kashmir was not a religious issue but a political one.

The visual clip on the screen then switched to President Pervez Musharraf addressing the press conference in New York. It showed President Musharraf saying: How can any confidence or any normalization take place, without addressing the issue on which we have fought three wars and the number of skirmish and we kill each other everyday on the line of control. Is it possible to deal in anger, with anyone?

But apart from this the Indian reportage tended to harp on cross border terrorism. Basically, the Indians harped on it, speculated about it, and had anchor-reporter discussions on it, much of it based on conjecture. The media on both sides, thus, was setting the agenda for itself.  PTV in doing so was on track because Kashmir was on the agenda, the Indian channels harping on cross border terrorism were less so because the issue did not figure in the joint statement. This, they proceeded to rationalise.

 As the summit meeting began, Sanjay Brarta of Aaj Tak said: "We can only guess on what was said from Manmohan Singhji’s side on reining in crossborder terrorism or about the Kashmir issue on Musharraf sahib’s side. In the first part both are meeting by themselves. As soon as the meeting starts the issue of cross border terrorism will be raised. Dr Manmohan Singh does not want to raise it in the open meeting (panchayat mein sawal nahi uthana chahte hain) so he will raise in this meeting - that if you do not stop crossborder terrorism then we will not be able to take our dialogue much further. This issue will not be solved, Dr Manmohan Singh is saying this very strongly." (Ye mudda solve nahin hoga ye Dr. Manmohan Singh bade jor shor se unhe keh rahe hain aur usko badhane wale hain.)

Doordarshan also stressed the absence of terrorism from the issues that were discussed. Anchor Neelam said that the Prime Minister had repeatedly said that he will raise the issue of terrorism with Pakistan, the terrorism that is being spread in India from Pakistani territory. "So was there any mention of terrorism in the joint statement," she asked. Ashish Joshi replied that there was no mention of terrorism in the joint statement. "As I said, confidence building measures that were present in the joint statement issued on January 6 in Islamabad, that is measures to build confidence between the two countries will be continued. But there is no specific mention of terrorism. Jammu Kashmir is mentioned clearly. Both leaders said that whatever steps that can be taken to resolve the issue should all be considered. They spoke of a peaceful solution."

Star TV used the term ‘chuppi’ (silence), as Star TV’s correspondent, Ajay Kumar said: "It is difficult to say why there was silence (chuppi kyun rahi) on the subject of terrorism, but it is obvious that some discussion did take place on the issue of terrorism because when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his tour he had said that the complete end to terrorism is the first condition for a dialogue. So there must have been some discussion, but in the joint statement that has been issued there is greater emphasis on the issue of Kashmir. That it would be resolved through a dialogue and negotiated settlement." It was seen that the meeting took place in an atmosphere of great warmth, in an atmosphere of friendship. But like you just said, it should be noted that there is nothing about terrorism in the joint statement, he told the anchor.

The Indians made much of the atmospherics, the painting President Musharraf presented to Prime Minister Singh of his childhood village and so on. ZeeTV’s Alka Saxena began the news saying that Mr Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf had a meeting in New York. As the discussions started, President Musharraf presented to Mr Manmohan Singh a picture of his village and childhood friends. Saxena then asked Sheetal Rajput, the correspondent in New York that how the meeting went between the two leaders - one whose ancestral home was in India and the other whose ancestral village is in Pakistan.

Sheetal Rajput reported that the meeting lasted one hour and it was being termed successful and historic (safal aur etihaasik). Both leaders issued a joint statement and addressed a joint press conference. They said that the confidence building steps that were being taken would be continued and whatever will be practically possible will be done to continue them. They discussed the Kashmir issue, and said that they will consider all possible solutions, evaluate them, and explore them to find a peaceful resolution.

Star News, Zee and Doordarshan asked their correspondents about the gas pipeline between India and Pakistan, and this issue got quite a bit of play., To Saxena’s question on the gas pipeline on Zee, Rajput said that on the gas pipeline through Pakistan the joint statement stated that the project could serve to strengthen the relations between the two countries, especially increase trade and bring people closer to each other.  Doordarshan’s bulletin carried a phone conversation with its correspondent Ashish Joshi in New York after the joint press conference. Joshi said that it was quite a happy atmosphere (kaafi khushnuma mahual). According to Joshi, the one-to-one meeting lasted for more than an hour, which was a significant event since it was rare for such a long meeting to be held.

To a question on the gas pipeline issue, Joshi said that there had been uncertainty for a long time on whether Pakistan was ready for a gas pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan, since the pipeline had to pass through Pakistani territory. He said that the two leaders discussed the issue and Musharraf sahib agreed that if implemented the pipeline will improve the economic relations between the two countries.

For the rest, there was much gushing on the Indian channels about  positive body language, comfort levels between the two leaders, the gifts, the warmth and so on. There was little backgrounding or contextualizing of the way the meeting went, not enough interviews with officials to assess  the outcome or ask why certain issues did not figure. If the respective governments wanted the story to be one of a successful summit, the TV channels were there to relay that script.