We welcome the Lahore High Court’s decision to lift the ban on broadcasting television dramas and series produced in India. The court has rightly observed that the world is now a global village. With the onset of information and telecommunication technologies, the line between the foreign and the local has blurred like never before. Thus, no country can afford to shut itself off from cultural influences from others, let alone a neighbour whose people have shared both fortunes and misfortunes with the people of Pakistan from what seems like time immemorial. Importantly, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) told the court that ban on Indian dramas and TV series had been imposed to reciprocate a similar ban on Pakistani dramas in India in the wake of Uri attacks in October 2016. Regardless of its merits, this tit-for-tat approach is the stuff of governments and not of regulators. We don’t expect a media watchdog to ban content on such flimsy grounds. There is no reason why PEMRA can’t apply a uniform yardstick to TV content, regardless of its place of origin. When, of course, it frees itself up from body shaming female cartoon characters. That being said, we do realise that there exist lobbies in Pakistan as well as in India that thrive on selling xenophobia and hatred by turning either inwards to target religious and ethnic minorities — or else to target those on the other side of man-made borders. And what better instruments can these hate-mongers find to pursue such agendas than cultural currency like dramas, films and TV series. There is an entire genre of chauvinistic TV and film in both countries that has been instrumental in influencing public opinion in favour of religious fundamentalists and other right-wing political forces. On this front, the media watchdog would do well to heed the Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice’s directive that it can censor anti-Pakistan content, without imposing a blanket ban. Earlier in the year, PEMRA had initiated the process for starting direct-to-home (DTH) satellite transmission service as part of its efforts to curb the sale of satellite dishes that transmit Indian TV channels. The lesson, then as is now, is that the regulator ought to listen to the public. Going by the widespread market availability of those satellite dishes — it is fairly obvious that Indian TV and film remain in high demand in Pakistan. Against this backdrop, the regulator would do well to not concern itself with the place of origin of TV content when it examines it for probity. * Published in Daily Times, July 19th, 2017.