The Bugbear Named Jingo

The Indian media loves to engage in Pakistan-bashing. Sure, the media operates independent of the government, but it seems to turn into an extension of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) when it comes to Indo-Pak relations. I don’t believe the MEA directs the media to toe the official line. I believe that it’s more to do with public pressure—despite its mind-boggling diversity, the Indian nation is decidedly conformist on certain issues.

Take cricket, for instance. Every Indian is expected to express euphoria over their team’s World Cup victory even if he or she gives two hoots about the sport. Indians would be surprised to learn that had Pakistan won, we wouldn’t have witnessed the kind of spectacle we saw in India. The euphoria displayed by India was abnormal and a result of the hype generated by the media. The conglomerates operating the media are now so powerful that they exploit the public’s weaknesses to manufacture a massive build-up—out of thin air—before a chosen event. Their motive: nab as many advertising contracts to reap obscene profits.

This is why the Indian media seldom takes up causes that are not in consonance with the sentiments of the majority. An example of this is the plight of Indian Kashmiris—it’s an unpopular cause as the majority of Indians are either indifferent to or, worse, approve of the state’s brutal suppression of people’s rights in the Valley. This, despite the Kashmiris having a legally tenable case for independence. And should someone like an Arundhati Roy dare to raise the issue, then she has treason cases promptly clamped down on her. Obviously then, it’s simply unthinkable for any Indian to come out in support of Pakistan on any issue.

This is so unlike what we have in Pakistan, where the entire media seems to be on a crusade to pillory, and even crucify, its own country, including the military and the ISI, irrespective of what has happened to journalists like Umar Cheema and Saleem Shahzad. The Pakistani media fires salvos against the ISI even though many journalists are on its payroll.

It is now routine for the Pakistani media to criticise the isi’s policies on Afghanistan and Kashmir. In India, by contrast, one can find few articles that are criticial of the official policy on Kashmir; you’d be lucky to come across a TV programme doing the same. The unanimous view in India is that Pakistan is the villain and India, the hero. There are no grey areas—just like in Hindi movies. You oppose India’s policy on Kashmir and you become Arundhati Roy. Stick to it and you become India’s Salman Rushdie. And if you’re a Pakistani and so much as twitch against the official Indian line, the media will drop you like a hot potato.

Some Indian friends justify this national phenomenon by arguing that they do not need to oppose their establishment because, unlike in Pakistan, theirs has always been an elected government. There is, therefore, a sense of ownership of government, a sentiment Pakistanis simply don’t have, my friends contend. This explanation may only be partly true. Look at the Indian media’s hypocrisy. It expresses impatience with Pakistan because of the tardy progress in the trial of the militants behind the Mumbai attacks. It, however, has nothing to say about Indian courts taking 60 long years to deliver a verdict on the Babri Masjid case, and how the trial of the accused in the Gujarat riots has been lingering for the past decade. Tell me, how many Indians have been convicted of committing human rights abuses in Kashmir?

No doubt the state of affairs in Pakistan is deplorable. As a Pakistani citizen, I fervently wish my country rectifies its mistakes. But the rampant Pakistan-bashing in the Indian media, and the mass hysteria it generates, completely deviates from the track that leads to the station called ‘Peace’.

(Anees Jillani is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a member of the Washington, DC Bar.)