The Balochistan coverage Part IV

Subarno Chattarji 

While there was a broad consensus about Bugti¿s killing in print and television media in India, there were a few notable exceptions. This section looks at two such examples in India and one in Pakistan. 

One staple of the Indian media was to draw parallels between the current scenario in Balochistan and 1971. An editorial in the Hindu was predictable in its highlighting of ¿authoritarian centralism¿ in Pakistan, but disputed the 1971 analogy. ¿[…] before getting carried away by prophesies of "Free Balochistan" and a 1971-like situation, it would be good to remember a few facts. When East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh, the Bengalis were the numerically dominant group. The Baloch are a small, scattered minority, comprising not more than five percent of the total population. Baloch militants run a small-scale operation on vast territory and are pitted against one of the most powerful militaries in the world. An insurgency in the 1970s did manage to last out four years against 80,000 troops but now, as then, it lacks resources and the capacity to control territory or carry out big strikes against security forces. Above all, the Baloch demand is not for secession. It is for a due place for the province within Pakistan¿ (¿The Bugti fallout,¿ 12 September). That these facts were not reiterated across the media is indicative not only of enthusiastic bias but of a consensus that was evident across media coverage on the Balochistan issue in India. 

The Hindu editorial represents a partial disjunction within a broad media consensus. K. Shankar Bajpai¿s op-ed piece went further in its debunking of some cherished national and media myths. Bajpai began with the idea of nationhood: ¿Beyond the sympathy it evokes for a fine, long-harassed people, Balochistan¿s continuing torment profoundly underlines disturbing issues regarding both Pakistan¿s nationhood and our own - issues sharpened in our case by Malegaon¿ (¿Balochistan: the wider issues at stake,¿ 14 September). He then went on to mention some constituents of nationhood such as ¿patriotism, nationalism, devotion to country¿ and that ¿Pakistan was conceived as a homeland for the Muslims of India¿. However, ¿religion alone is not enough to inspire nationalism¿ and ¿what remained of Pakistan [after 1971] has not yet found an answer as to what constitutes its nationhood - except hostility to India. […] One Pakistani handicap is that there is no historical antecedent to their state. […] More importantly, the people of those areas had no sense of common group identity until Pakistan was created except one: they were Muslims of India.¿ Thus far Bajpai¿s argument fits in with orthodoxy in India which considers Pakistan an aberration and an entity that will/must be reunited with India or obliterated, by force if required. 

Bajpai deviated from the mainstream when he engaged in some self-reflection, the kind of which we seldom come across in media coverage of issues related to Pakistan. ¿As the tart Pakistani retort to our inept comment on Balochistan pointed out, we in India have more than our fair share of similar problems - and are in danger of being as thoughtless about them as Pakistan. We can preen over what we have achieved, but it is no longer enough to imagine smugly that we are a democracy and that our democracy will find the answer. Far too many groups in our country feel less and less confident that we can provide the framework within which they can look forward to their future with confidence. Whether in Kashmir, the Northeast or in many tribal areas, not least among our Muslim population all over, resentments keep simmering - and keep being ignored when they are not deliberately exacerbated, domestically or externally.¿ 

Bajpai concentrated on the problems within India to gain perspective rather than take pleasure in Pakistan¿s inept handling of Balochistan. ¿The concept of India that inspired our national movement seems to have lost both its shine and its driving force. It needs to be revivified so that all our discontented diversities can feel stronger attachment to a nation, if not devotion to it then at least as confidence that it will give them an acceptable future.¿ That India has ¿discontented diversities¿, that democracy is not in itself a normative value or a panacea for all political ills that beset India is too close to the bone and  mainstream media seldom mentions it. Bajpai knocked off the moral pedestal which editors and reporters assiduously construct to highlight how infinitely superior India¿s polity is in comparison to Pakistan. 

In conclusion Bajpai turned to the Muslim question and how majority, particularly Hindutva, zealotry has further taken the shine off India¿s democratic plurality. ¿[…] only those willfully blind can ignore the damage done to any Muslim sense of belonging to an India that will look after their interests by the frightening banalities of Hindutva zealots, who are only playing Pakistan¿s game in raising communal tensions (including now the alarming appearance of radicalization among Muslim youth).¿ While harping on the repression of Balochis - an unjust and untenable position taken by the Pakistan government - Indian media commentators blithely erased all histories of oppression within the country. It was as if Kashmir, the north east, the 1984 Delhi riots, the Babri Masjid demolition, and Gujarat riots (to name a few random relatively recent events) had no bearing on the credibility and functioning of our democracy. 

Bajpai¿s argument was not only heavily contextualized but also more balanced. Although he did not absolve the Muslim community of responsibility he pointed to the obvious political and moral obligation that the Hindus have towards their fellow citizens. ¿Our Muslims do appear to need a more thoughtful and effective leadership, which will both serve the community (as distinct from a self-serving creamy layer) and strengthen its Indian-ness, as many individuals are trying to do at an intellectual rather than political level. But the supposedly majority community must realize its obligation both to help in the encouragement of such a Muslim leadership and in the re-strengthening of the only concept of India that can make us the great state and civilization we dreamed of being, and which alone can keep us from disasters even greater than Balochistan - or Malegaon.¿ 

Across the border the Dawn carried an edit page article by Kaiser Bengali which was introspective in the manner of Bajpai and critical of Pakistan in ways that Indian media seldom is in times of crisis. Bengali was scathing in his assessment of Musharraf¿s actions: ¿That such disproportionate force was used to kill a 79-year old ailing man and that his bereaved family has been denied the opportunity to offer their last respects and accord him a proper burial is deplorable¿ (¿Whither Balochistan?¿ 14 September). He too referred to 1971 as well as to Kargil to underline the futility of ¿arrogant faith in military solutions¿. ¿Questions about the general¿s judgment had risen immediately after the inane militarily untenable Kargil misadventure. […] These questions are not frivolous, given the increasingly apparent absence of any degree of political intellect in general Musharraf¿s policy decisions.¿ While such pronouncements are music to Indian ears it is important to note the paradoxical strength of free press commentary in a military state. Bengali¿s critique is scathing and accurate in a way that Indian media was not during and after Kargil. The general Indian media tendency to herd together in patriotic solidarity eschewing critical analysis is shown up by this piece. In the Balochistan scenario, barring Bajpai, Indian media seemed to believe in India¿s unblemished democratic record and took great moral pleasure in highlighting Pakistan¿s lack thereof. 

Bengali was unflinching in his focus on Balochi deprivation in terms of economic, social, or political indices. ¿Admittedly, Balochistan¿s underdevelopment is a product of over half a century of exploitation and neglect. Unfortunately, however, General Musharraf¿s seven years in power has merely seen an extension of the past record. […] The Balochi intelligentsia has seen through Islamabad¿s colonization game and the general insurgency is merely a response.¿ 

Finally, Bengali called for a change towards more democracy. ¿If the damage to the federation is to be repaired, the military establishment will need to withdraw from the political, economic and commercial arenas and a genuinely elected government will need to take effective charge of the country to assuage the deep wounds that have been inflicted on Balochistan.¿ 

Reading Bajpai and Bengali in a media field that is awash with tawdry nationalism is refreshing because it shows that self-reflective, in-depth media analysis is still possible. That they are exceptions is evident from this survey; that their influence is limited is proven by the ways in which prejudices projected by the media are then regurgitated by its consumers. 

Consumer ventriloquism in new media: 

A few responses on the cnnibn.com message board are indicative of media influence on opinions. One respondent, ¿Ramanand¿ wrote: ¿Nawab Bugti Singh was a Hindu and he has been eliminated because of his religion. This is not fair and acceptable by any Hindus in India.¿ The religious angle led inevitably to the thesis of Akhand Bharat and the need to dismember Pakistan (the latter an idea propagated, among others, by India Today during the Kargil War). ¿This is the right time,¿ declared ¿sandy¿, ¿to repeat 1971. Break Pakistan again and the country will be in turmoil. The indo pak problem will be solved once and for all.¿ ¿This is the best time to break the pakis to pieces,¿ stated ¿Hk¿. 

¿Sachinsuri¿ referred to the Pakistan spokeswoman¿s reaction to Indian reporters questions on Balochistan: ¿it was very disgusting by the way that spokeswomen (sic) answered to all the questions. don¿t we have any self respect when she said that India should mind their own business, then she said that india should look at their own problems as they are many and not at pakistan […] being an indian i feel hurt when she spoke like that.¿ The answer to the rhetorical question is of course that Indian media and politicians have neither self respect nor a capacity for self reflection, or else such questions would never be raised either by the MEA or the media. ¿sachinsuri¿ felt ¿hurt¿ in much the same way that mainstream media took umbrage at the spokeswoman¿s reaction, and that ¿hurt¿ is a form of non-rational response to major problems within the country. So long as we can dream of ¿break[ing] the pakis to pieces¿ will our nationhood be firm and unambiguous. 

New media such as the internet has enabled modes of query and discussion that are unavailable in mainstream print and television. Protests against war and injustice have been empowered by the virtual communities created over the internet. The excerpts from the cnnibn.com message board cited above are examples, however, of the ways in which prejudices aired in mainstream media are repeated by its consumers. What the Glasgow University Media Group wrote of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is equally appropriate for the responses to the coverage of Balochistan in the Indian media. ¿If you do not understand the Middle East crisis it might be because you are watching it on TV news. This scores high on images of fighting, violence and drama but is low on explanation.¿[i] Indian media not only highlighted the violent protests in Balochistan and elsewhere, but it continually stressed the ¿failed¿ nature of the Pakistani state, thereby feeding Indian fantasies of Akhand Bharat and the idea that India was a perfectly equitable democratic state. The power of mainstream media in fostering prejudice is perhaps best revealed in these snippets as they highlight the extent to which opinions are internalized and disseminated by the media consumer. 

Postscript: 

On 4 September the Press Trust of India put out a news item, ¿Pak to crack down on websites¿, which reported the Pakistan government decision to monitor and/or shut down ¿websites with objectionable contents¿ or those which carried ¿anti-state material.¿ It concluded: ¿The government has already banned all the websites relating to Balochistan nationalist struggle.¿ Without doubt this was a knee-jerk and retrogressive move that did not in any way further the cause of Pakistani unity and harmony and least of all of press freedom. What is significant is that PTI carried the story to highlight the lack of these freedoms across the border and, by implication, to bask in the glory of a free press in India. PTI was quite oblivious of certain paradoxes and contexts, such as that of the freedom of commentary in a military state - most notably available in Kaiser Bengali¿s article and in earlier coverage of the Kargil War in Pakistani media. PTI conveniently ignored the Indian contexts of censorship during the Emergency, of the blocking of PTV and of Pakistani internet sites during Kargil. Finally, PTI - nor any other Indian media under survey - considered the websites of the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which are not censored despite their despicable stereotyping of Muslims and Hindus. While gleefully casting stones at our neighbour Indian media, with a few notable exceptions, was indifferent to problems in its backyard.

 

 

Concluded.

Contact: chattarji_s@yahoo.com