While heated confrontations between India and Pakistan have come to be routine over the past few decades, in between the full-fledged wars that they fought, the media has played a critical role in the latest stand-off.
Unlike in the past, the Indian media -- now a vibrant, confident, aggressive 24x7 entity -- as key factor in ratcheting up tensions between the two neighbours, separated by a bloody partition of the subcontinent in 1947, following the end of the British raj.
This media intervention, for that is what it is, has distracted the Indian government from the crucial job of employing rationale and a cool mind towards ways to resume normal relations. Instead, it forced the government to take into account an immature agenda that high profile anchors were setting for the conduct of diplomacy and, God forbid, war.
The agenda that the media, with notable exceptions of course, wants to set is in fact downright belligerent in character. Its fallout has been the creation of a situation where the political leaders, in fear of the media, are apprehensive of even talking about any peace initiative.
This has resulted in the ouster from India of hapless actors, musicians and their like, whose only fault was to be Pakistani, disruption of the women’s cricket World Cup, and the ludicrous barring of two retired Pakistani cricketers from giving commentary on the ongoing one day series between India and England.
What next? If the grounds on which the two commentators were barred was that they should not be allowed to earn a living in India, then that logic should also apply to Pakistani foreign correspondents based in India.
And what about our international commitments such as to conduct the women’s cricket World Cup tournament with all the eligible nations competing? The Pakistani team’s matches are now being shifted to other cities after its safety in Maharashtra could not be ensured, according to the government.
Surely, a country wins the right to stage an international competition on the assumption that it can ensure the safety of the players within its borders at least for the duration of the sporting event. Even North Korea – widely perceived to be a renegade nation -- was allowed to compete in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul by the host nation and its sworn enemy, South Korea. They were merely honouring a commitment to the International Olympic Committee.
Does our media really reflect national opinion? This is debatable, when its parameters, such as protests and candle light vigils are suspect. When the tragic rape and murder of a young woman occurred in New Delhi, there were both protests and candle light vigils in cities across India. Yet, there was hardly a protest against the atrocities committed on the soldiers by the Pakistanis, though there was much more national outrage.
India’s media must, when its interests are concerned, look beyond enlarging viewership. Ratings cannot be supreme, where national interest is involved. The beheading and mutilation of bodies of soldiers, however reprehensible, cannot become another opportunity for primetime grandstanding by anchors, unschooled or unmindful of international perceptions.
Backed into a corner and virtually silenced by the media, the government has allowed Pakistan, by all accounts the perennial aggressor, to steal the world stage with its photogenic foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, offering peace talks.
The dramatic gambit left India’s leadership without response. If it publicly agreed, it would seem to be responding to a Pakistani initiative. If it formally rejected the offer, it would appear intransigent. Without room to manoeuvre, India had to stealthily plant stories attributed to unnamed sources saying that it was not in favour of the Pakistani offer. The media must take responsibility for restricting the government’s space to effectively respond to Pakistani histrionics on the world stage.
The media highlighted Indian Chief of Army Staff, General Bikram Singh’s forthright stand on the issue, leaving the civilian leadership looking weak and confused. Pakistan, whose government is subservient to the army, on the other hand left it to its civilian face to demonstrate its reasonableness. An irony that should make both government and media rethink its relative roles in contributing to national interest.
The US media was heavily supportive of its government in the two Gulf wars, as was most of the British media, an irony lost on their Indian counterparts, who believe the West sets standards for objective news coverage.
The Indian media often takes a stand on issues like China’s aggressive military presence on the border that appears to be a variance with the perceptions of the Ministry for External Affairs and even the military establishment. Whose interests does the Indian media, again with exceptions, serve? If it believes Western media sets the standards, then it may do well to look at how it acts when its own national interest is involved.
(The author, formerly of Reuters, is CEO, TV 99)
