Daily Times

Pakistan’s vibrant media has expanded in the last decade. Dozens of television channels and newspapers are in place to inform public opinion. Most of the time, however, they either misinform or reinforce existing prejudices.

I always took Orya Maqbool Jan as an authority on religious issues. But his knowledge about prostitution in India appears rather lacking, to say the least, as he informed readers in his Daily Express column (March 27): “Seventy percent of prostitutes of Kolkata’s red light district hail from Bangladesh! This ‘beauty-market’ could have never flourished without their contribution!” Orya did not provide any source for this remarkable figure. He must have done the counting himself! He then switches from prostitution to communism: “Maulana Maudoodi was a wall against communism. Jamiat (an outfit of Jamat Islami youth known for intimidating fellow students at educational institutions) is a blessing of Allah that proved to be communism’s graveyard.”

According to Azmat Ali Rehmani (Ummat, March 27), Tahir Ashrafi was paid Rs 69.75m in the last four years to spy on seminary students. He also played an important role in securing asylum for the ‘cursed’ Rimsha Masih in Canada. I have been watching James Bond movies since my school days and a tall and handsome figure such as Sean Connery, Roger Moore or Daniel Craig automatically springs to mind whenever I imagine a spy. Ashrafi is controversial but to call him a spy without concrete evidence is baffling. ‘Since Ashrafi has been exposed, therefore, Imame Kaba will not attend his conference,’ concluded Rehmani.

Ummat (March 27), on its front page, stated that Britain has forgotten the lesson of freedom of expression after the Westminster attack. The paper wrote that since WhatsApp and other messaging platforms have refused access to British intelligence agencies, it has humiliated the British government.

Bol TV aired Zardari’s interview but with non-stop over-the-top background music that proved louder than his voice. His interview with Geo News was comparatively better since the soundtrack to his voice was rather more muted. Journalist Rauf Klasra was not sold on it, however. He excoriated Zardari’s arrogance (Dunya, March 24) probably for denouncing the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) boss as mere ‘small fry’ – an impotent figurehead who didn’t have what it takes to file a case against him. And if he ever does, he will have to get down on his hands and knees and Zardari for mercy like Saifur Rehman.

Yet isn’t the NAB honcho nothing more than a political appointee and a puppet? When institutions fail, the powerful become arrogant.

While Nawaz Sharif wants to make Pakistan a progressive country, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi is hell bent on keeping the lid of retrogression on tight.

Replying to Sharif’s message of love and peace on Holi, Rizvi says Islam forbids us to establish ties with non-Muslims. If it is indispensable then it should be as limited as the human urge for defecation! Rizvi recently aired this message on YouTube.

Aren’t social media, the Internet, video cameras and cell phones among other inventions of ‘infidels’ that allow clerics like Rizvi to air their controversial messages? If the National Action Plan (NAP) were ever implemented, he might be thinking twice before fanning hatred and fanaticism.

Hindustan Times (March 26) quoted BJP MP Subramanian Swamy as saying that Rajiv Gandhi was the only true Hindu leader in the Congress and he truly wanted a Ram temple to be built at Ayodhya! Were all others like Nehru or Indira Gandhi fake when it came to religion and leadership? Glad to know that Swamy is a religious scholar too!

Run by a seasoned writer like Wajahat Masood with the assistance of a creative young writer Adnan Kakar, Hum Sub, has within a year, become a widely read online Urdu publication (1.4m hits per month). It advances progressive perspectives, which are suppressed by the mainstream Urdu print media. Writing for this website, Nouman Farid stated that politicians like PTI’s Ali Mohammad Khan have limited and flawed knowledge about Pakistan’s history. Khan said on March 23 that Jinnah had made Pakistan in the name of Islam.

What Jinnah actually said was this: ‘Neither I, nor the working committee or the All India Muslim League, ever adopted such a motto ie Pakistan ka matlub kia, la ilah ha illal la. However, you (pointing to some Muslim Leaguers) have used it to bag votes from the people!’ Malik Ghulam Nabi, Ek Sadi Ka Qissa (Sang-e-Meel, 2004, page 106). Nabi was one of Jinnah’s colleagues among the youth, a close friend of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and a former Education minister of Punjab.

The list of media madness is long but, Dear Readers, I shall return next week.

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance journalist and researcher. He has been editing Pakistan Media Monitor, a weekly media summary, since 2003 and can be reached at yamankalyan@gmail.com