By Ranjona Banerji
A “brave†reporter from CNN News18 phoned a Pakistani police officer in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, claimed to be his boss and found out that India did attack several spots in POK, kill and wound several jihadis and that these jihadis were supported by the Pakistan army.
This was obviously played up by the channel as “proof†that India did conduct “surgical strikes†inside the Line of Control because it had been confirmed by this one police official, even if the Pakistani authorities were denying anything happened.
Some questions: sting journalism itself is questionable. Journalistic ethics demands that you declare who you are to the person you are questioning. Journalists are not interrogators either authorised by or employed as spies by the Indian state. There is another intriguing aspect to this “sting†– it suggests that the news channel did not believe the Indian Army’s statement on the strike. The news channel of course would like to dress it up as trying to gather evidence for the naysayers and doubters within India and for the Pakistani authorities. It shows a distressing naivete about the way geopolitics works or of the complicated nature of Indo-Pak relations.
Not surprisingly this “coup†was not picked up by rival TV channels or by newspapers as a major event.
In fact, what has overtaken everything else is Bollywood. Because no matter what happens in the world it is vital that film stars, directors, producers, extras, dance directors, make-up artists, singers and stunt doubles et cetera comment on it. For Indian news television, this remains the biggest question of the hour: Patriotism for Indian news anchors is Bollywood saying all Pakistanis should go somewhere else. And for Pakistanis in India, here is a new kind of Tebbitt Test: if you want to work in India, publicly denounce Pakistan and its actions. What was seen as wrong in the UK in the 1990s when put forward as proof of loyalty for Pakistanis and Indians by a Conservative politician is now seemingly proper for Indians to use on Pakistanis. Talk about double standards.
Actually, what is the use? Television in times of patriotism dances to a very different tune. Vineet Jain is Managing Director of Bennett Coleman and Company Limited, owner of The Times of India and Times Now among other properties. This is what he had to say on Twitter on October 6, 2016:
“By supporting Pak artists v come out stronger globally.we get known as a liberal&peaceful nation.We isolate Pak even more among pak citizensâ€
Contrast this with what Times Now and its editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and his colleagues have been doing every day on the news channel. Jain’s tweet is wise and wide-seeing. It looks at the importance of soft power and its undeniable influence on choices. It is a long-term view on how to “infiltrate†Pakistan with culture and thought. Perhaps such subtlety of thought is beyond Times Now or it just does not care. As BCCL already informed us a while ago, the organisation is a “federal structure†where every editor is free to project whatever point of view he or she wants. Sigh. If only that were completely true.
Meanwhile, forcing Pakistanis in Bollywood or random film people in India to denounce Pakistan is just smoke and mirrors. An attempt by Times Now to create drama and more noise than the next news channel one touch on the remote away.
So, luckily, is the viewer’s choice to save himself or herself from idiocy.