"Where's your free media?"

HERE’S LOOKING AT US
Jyoti  Punwani

A recent visit to Pakistan by a team of 14 Mumbai journalists, 12 of whom were going there for the first time, turned out to be, as it was bound to, an eye-opener in many ways. Perhaps the most disconcerting discovery was the way media professionals there see the media here. 

Everywhere we went, we heard complaints about the hawkish Indian media, seen as reflecting the hawkish Indian establishment. Pakistan-bashing was pretty much the norm in our media, our Pakistani counterparts felt, while India-bashing had ceased to be so in theirs. 

There is some truth in this. 

Consider the trip itself. Part of an agreement between the Mumbai Press Club and the Karachi Press Club, this is the second trip of Mumbai journalists hosted by the latter. Compared to the visa problems encountered by the first team in 2011, this one was a breeze, says Gurbir Singh, president of the Mumbai Press Club, who headed the team. According to Gurbir, this was the first time such a large team of Indian journalists had got visas for three cities - Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, exempt from the mandatory police reporting of course. The Pakistan High Commissioner was personally involved, and the Islamabad leg of the trip was hosted by the Pakistan Information & Broadcasting Ministry.  

There had to be an agenda in this generosity. But for one meeting with the Islamabad Press Club, the rest of the day in Islamabad was spent meeting senior officials. A meeting with the Foreign Secretary was followed by a meeting with I & B ministry heads, including the I & B Secretary, and the heads of Pakistan TV and the Pakistan Film Council. The team also met the President. From the Foreign Secretary's statement: "Why not open a consulate in Mumbai?'' to the I & B officials'  appeal that Pakistan TV programmes be allowed to be beamed in India the way Indian programmes are beamed in Pakistan (though the Lahore High Court has just stayed this), the agenda was clear --- improve Indo-Pak relations. 

While the English press in Pakistan may not have this as an agenda, one thing is clear -- it doesn't necessarily toe the official line when it comes to matters relating to India. Said Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani: "Since 1947, the media of both countries were following the government line. As the media got to know each other, they found there could be an alternate line. Our media expression today is ruthless when it comes to the government." 

The editorial team of Jang, reportedly Pakistan's biggest newspaper group, pointed out that not only was the media very critical of the Establishment, but it also reflected the lack of consensus on national issues. Counter-narratives on Baluchistan and Kashmir were published, and many voices found their way into the media on the issue of Indo-Pak relations. It was the media that was pushing for peace, and political parties were falling in line. At a seminar in Karachi on the role of the media in Indo-Pak relations, a journalist pointed out that it was the Pakistani media that had, at considerable risk, investigated Ajmal Kasab's background and confirmed that he was a Pakistani. 

Amin Hashwani of the influential Hashoo Group, founder of the Indo-Pak CEOs Business Forum, who has led several trade delegations to India, spoke about how India had failed to play the role of an elder brother in the sub-continent, and recounted how his comments in an Indian TV discussion had been edited out. "In Pakistan, we have a very rebellious culture. In India, we saw what happened to L K Advani and Jaswant Singh when they praised Jinnah. Where's your free media?" Retired Air Marshal Riaz Shaikh, part of the Karachi Council for Foreign Relations which hosted a dinner for the delegation, pointed out that while the Pakistani press downplayed the irritants in the relationship between the two countries, the Indian press hypes them. "If they continue doing so, we'll never be able to bring normalcy between our countries." 

"Breaking News in your TV channels is almost always anti-Pakistan news," said a group of activists in Lahore that included trade unionists, lawyers, artists and media professionals. Even the Governor of Sindh recalled having heard a threat to eliminate Pakistan during an Indian channel discussion. Arnab Goswami was of course mentioned by many. Observed one journalist: "As media persons, why should we become defensive or over-react when the establishment makes accusations against our (the Pakistani) government?  We should not become a party to these games, calculated at keeping the tension high. The large majority of our people want peace." 

There's little one can say in defence. Forget TV coverage in India which is always over the top. Even in the press, the image of Pakistan remains what it always has: that of an enemy. While LOC violations by the Pakistani army legitimately make front page news, there's little reported about similar violations from our side. In the hysterical reportage about the decapitation of our soldier last year, only The Hindu quoted "sources" saying the Indian army had done the same. Stories about the shared history, culture and even religion between our countries rarely make it to Page one, though they shatter stereotypes and make for "news" in every sense of the term. 

There's also the faithful parroting of the official agencies' accusations of every bomb blast being masterminded by Muslim groups owing allegiance to Pakistan. Just this week, there was a front page report of a "threat" to Delhi and the arrest of two Imams, one of whom had received phone calls from an alleged Pakistani terrorist. Such unquestioning reportage goes on despite the courts having acquitted most such alleged "Pakistani agents" because the police could not back up their accusations against them. Such allegations of Pakistan being behind every alleged act of terrorism, past and future, the linking again and again, of Indian  Muslims with jihadi groups backed by Pakistan, and the fact that the community is still blamed for Partition -all this makes the community a permanent target of suspicion among the majority. The media knows this only too well, but won't change its ways. 

As Kashmiri journalist Tahir Mailik said, the Indian media, with its hawkish mindset, suits the Pakistani military establishment totally. "The Indian media never distinguishes between the Pakistani government and Pakistani citizens. We always say that the Indian media is the biggest supporter of the Pakistani army." Said Fazil Jamili, editor, Jang Group Online Editions, "India as the bigger democracy must support our democracy. "The more our democratic traditions are enriched, the better it is for you." 

In the Lahore discussion with activists, arranged by our hosts, the NGO South Asia Partnership (SAP), one question was repeatedly asked: Despite Pakistanis having suffered dictatorship under Gen Zia for 11 years and the army being very powerful in politics, the Pakistani media is openly anti-Establishment. But India has been a democracy since Independence, barring the 19-month Emergency. How come your media isn't equally defiant when it comes to issues linked with Pakistan? 

This columnist interviewed two journalists - Fazil Jamili in Karachi and Mazhar Abbas in Islamabad - to discuss these issues in detail. Fazil Jamili said that the Pakistani media too used to be jingoistic, specially the Urdu press. But this was the generation that had witnessed the Partition. The new generation of journalists carried little of that bitterness. The media would earlier blame RAW for every act of terrorism in Pakistan. Now, they accepted that their own terrorists were being protected and financed by higher-ups to the extent that they could assassinate Benazir Bhutto. While Kashmir remained an issue, said Fazil, politicians could openly talk about normalizing trade relations and easing visas for Indians. 

Another factor, said Fazil, was the limited reach of right-wing parties and religious groups. The mullah could block the street but could not dictate policy. These groups had never managed to win more than a few seats in elections. He cited the popular slogan: "Sar peer ka, vote Benazir ka." (We bow before the holy man, but we will vote for Benazir.) 

Though there was a reference to the absence of debate on Pakistani TV channels in the discussion with the Jang group, it was senior journalist Mazhar Abbas, addressing a joint meeting at the Islamabad Press Club, who spoke about the "serious ethical issues" in the electronic  media. "We still address each other as enemies, not as neighbours. There is a lack of editorial control over our TV anchors." Criticising the kind of language and expressions used on Pakistan news channels, Abbas said that they were more like tabloid journalism, infotainment rather than news. 

Abbas made the interesting point that such jingoistic hype is not found in regional channels, be they Sindhi, Punjabi or Pushto. Sindhi channels specially are more liberal and open-minded, both because of the distinct character of Sindh as well as its political background. Pushto channels focus more on Afghanistan, whereas Punjabi channels give equal importance to news and entertainment. It's the Urdu channels that are the worst offenders. One wonders whether this would hold true of our regional channels. 

Interestingly, Abbas, who hails from a family of journalists, is also related to another journalists' family in India: that of Saeed Naqvi.  

While the criticism of the Indian media by the Pakistanis we met is certainly valid, some questions arise. There was a general complaint that while Nawaz Sharif won on the plank of peace with India, Pakistan-bashing was one of the planks on which the current election in India were being fought. How did such an erroneous impression get so widely disseminated? Obviously, the Pakistani media had focused on Modi's remarks on Pakistan in his campaign speeches, which certainly haven't formed the main theme of his campaign. 

There was also the disconcerting incident wherein a member of our team was approached by a Pakistani in Islamabad  and asked to pose with his kids, as they were curious to know what "Indian Hindus looked like." Considering that we were constantly told that Pakistanis know much more about India than vice versa, who should be blamed for such ignorance? 

And there have certainly been "alternate narratives" in our press too, and that too by prominent voices. Indian Express editor Shekhar Gupta has always advocated peace with Pakistan whenever tensions have flared up. So has Vinod Mehta. That the Indian army too had indulged in beheading Pakistani soldiers was mentioned by Karan Thapar in his Hindustan Times column, as well as Shivam Vij in Outlook.  

Thapar's words in his January 19 Hindustan Times column on the subject need repeating:   

"As journalists we owe our audience not just the truth but both sides of it when that's pertinent. To not be even-handed is to leave them half-informed. In this instance, we whipped up passions when we should have helped audiences realize the LoC is a tough place, where brutal actions often happen and both sides retaliate in equally gruesome ways. When tempers cool and time lends perspective, our audience won't forgive us for half-truths."

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