For three days during the eighth South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) conference held in Amritsar and Lahore early this month, over 250 journalists heard the leading policy makers from India and Pakistan ensuring their commitment to peace between the two countries. In Amritsar, we heard Indian External Minister Salman Khurshid thanking the journalists for their contribution to break the ice between the two countries and said that we would soon drink the cold water of peace. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who is a graduate from the FC College of Lahore, said that both the Indian and Pakistani Punjab could not develop and prosper without opening up free trade and free flow of people.
In Pakistan, the opposition leader Mian Nawaz Sharif reiterated his consistent position that relations with India have to be normalised. He has been supporting peace initiatives ever since he invited Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999 at the cost of annoying the military establishment. Prime Minister of Pakistan Raja Pervez Ashraf hosted a dinner for the SAFMA delegates and stressed that peace between India and Pakistan was the key to take SAARC’s objectives forward. Many leading journalists and intellectuals of the region expressed the same feelings. Although the conference was regional in nature, the Pakistan-India relations theme dominated SAFMA’s Amritsar-Lahore conferences.
All this has been already reported, but I have recapped it to emphasise that there is a strong lobby of ‘Journalists for Peace’. In addition, there is a surging urge between the leaders and peoples of both countries to fast-forward the peace process. Indeed, there are also chest-thumping ultra-nationalists on both sides of the border. They may not be many, but they have violent tools to derail the peace process. Therefore, the recent clashes at the LOC were not unexpected.
Not long ago the Pakistani military establishment was the biggest impediment in the process of peace moving ahead with India. Around them are their co-evolutionists who have been benefited by the war economy. But both on the basis of my analysis and information I have from people who have access to the establishment, it is safe to say that the Pakistani military establishment is now keen to defuse tensions with India. The recent statement from the army quarters that there is a paradigm shift, as the biggest existentialist threat to Pakistan is from within, i.e. from the growing terrorism in the country, says it all. Sensible analysts in Pakistan have been saying that for the last many years. Therefore, the promoters of peace were happy that finally reality had dawned on our establishment.
I had indicated to the shifting national security paradigm in 2011 in my article ‘Money Matters’ for a national daily, but for my friends my analysis was too good to be believed. Many Pakistani and Indian journalists at the conference were found asking if this good news was indeed true.
While all indicators are that the statement should be believed, it has to be understood that jihadi organisations and their handlers in the establishment cannot be easily convinced to accept this paradigm shift regarding India. They are resisting all such moves and have now started cooperation with each other to attack the armed forces personnel and installments. The Indian government and media need to understand this phenomenon.
Listening to some of the Indian armed forces’ retired officials on TV last week after the gory killings of the soldiers of both India and Pakistan, it was clear once again that India has also many ‘Hameed Guls’ of their own. Although it is a well-known fact that Indian political leaders have more say on matters of national security, it is also true that the military and its co-evolutionists are trying to push the weak Congress-led coalition government to take a hawkish stand on the issue of alleged ceasefire violations and the beheading of an Indian soldier.
However, the good news is that both the Indian and Pakistani governments are not listening to the hawkish politicians, retired army generals and journalists, and they are responsibly showing restraint. But the stoppage of trade and the bus service across the LOC is a bad move, as it would hurt the progress made so far on making life easier for the Kashmiris we ostensibly love. Its continuation would manifest Pakistan’s earnest desire for peace.
A discussion at the conference was particularly devoted to the journalists’ role in times of conflict. My friend, Kumar Ketkar, who is the editor of a Marathi newspaper, defined it rightly. He said, “We should be humanists first, journalists second and citizens third.” Unfortunately, not many journalists around the world subscribe to this golden rule and the order in which it has been laid down by some objective journalists. The real test of objectivity and commitment to humanism comes in the moment of conflict and strife. Otherwise, it is all very easy and enlightened to talk about it over a cup of coffee or an evening drink.
The stand taken by some journalists that they report facts as they are has to be taken with a spoonful of salt. It is not that simple. The journalists in this day and age are opinion-makers and many a time their personal biases are reflected in their reports, articles and comments on TV channels. Take the recent ceasefire violation incidents. Most of the TV programmes telecast on both sides of the border were competing with each other to be more hawkish — all in the name of national interest. In this bid, they inadvertently or consciously forget that pushing the conflict further is not in the interest of over one billion human beings living in the two countries. Worst, it would lead to more killings of soldiers on both sides; those soldiers are human beings first with families shattered with grief.
On an NDTV primetime programme, where I was one of the guests, the anchor Ravish Kumar quoted a leading Pakistani anchor’s sweeping statement that most Pakistanis hate India. Now this is nonsense. No country has monolithic views on such issues. By making such irresponsible statements, journalists are actually building a negative opinion. Both Indian and Pakistani societies are multi-ethnic and multi-class. The opinion of a section of ultra-nationalists cannot be dubbed as the opinion of the people. Take the case of Pakistan: the Baloch, Sindhi and Urdu speaking Sindhis, Seraiki, businessmen of Punjab and progressive politicians of Pakhtunkhwa are not anti-Indian. The political parties they elected were clear on the need to build peace bridges with India. Elections are the biggest quantitative survey. Similarly, most people I talked to in Delhi were upset about the LoC incident but still wanted peace. People in front of a camera are usually different. One, they want to show off their nationalism to the public; two, it is also important how the question by a reporter is framed and posed, and three, which interviews are selected by the TRP-conscious producers.
Journalists’ exuberance for peace after the conference was short-lived, as the ceasefire on the LoC was broken and three human beings were killed. But the resolve that both the countries should not let the hawkish lobbies hold peace hostage was evident in my interaction with many Indian journalists recently.
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