Indo-Pak Talks---We¿ve Reached The Summit But Can We See The Plain?

Indo-Pak Talks---We¿ve Reached The Summit But Can We See The Plain?

By Shailaja Bajpai

The papers have failed to provide the average reader with a comprehensive background to the Agra Talks. Nobody seems to think it is important for readers to understand the past. As the leaders journey to the city of the Taj Mahal, we’ll recognise the milestones along the way, but in name only.

There’s no need to state the obvious but we’ll state it any way to strengthen the subsequent argument: the Agra talks between Vajpayee and Musharraf have dominated the media since the Indian Prime Minister extended his invitation to the Pakistan President at the end of May. No event in recent memory comes close to matching the centimetres of print and reams of television footage devoted to the forthcoming Indo-Pak summit.

Media coverage of the talks has been of three kinds: factual reports on the build-up to the meeting on both sides of the border; analytical pieces by journalists, academics, military men, politicians _ even the layman’s views _ on what the talks can or may achieve. And `colour’ pieces, literally and metaphorically, ranging from interviews with the President’s mother and his wife on Pervez the son and Musharraf the husband, to the condition of his ancestral haveli in Old Delhi.

Media coverage has overtaken the Summit even before the Agra Talks move
into first gear. In particular, political punditry, has raced far ahead: its focus has been on the agenda for the talks. Scrutinise media coverage of the Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting and you will find that prescriptions for the summit have been offered so generously, from so many quarters on both sides of the border, that Indo-Pak relations, should be cured as easily as the common cold.

While reading and listening to the analysis and expert commentary, it really does seem rather simple. Makes you wonder why we haven’t solved our differences long since. That, partly, is the problem with the coverage. It has reduced a very complex relationship between the two countries, to ABCD… For, as you read, you realise most of the coverage is devoid of any in depth background material.

In the wealth of material, history comes out looking like a pauper.

A careful reading of 7 days newspaper coverage in Times of India and The Hindu on the summit, reveals that the past is being left behind by the future (2 July –9 July). Terms and signposts are bandied about by reporters and analysts in the mistaken belief that that average reader understands the terms and has seen the signposts. That, or the experts are really addressing (a) themselves and their peers, and (b) the political establishment in India and Pakistan. The average reader, then, takes the back seat.

The average reader will be hard put to understand many of the issues at stake in the Agra Talks because the perspective of the past is missing. Let’s begin with the smaller matters: how many readers or viewers can explain where the Line of Control is in Kashmir and the exact nature of the problem there? C Raja Mohan in The Hindu (2 July) talks at length on the Line of Control and draws parallels with the Line of Actual Control on the China side and the 1974 border agreement with Bangladesh. But what was the agreement and what is the Line of Actual Control with China? He doesn’t enlighten us.