Information is a valuable commodity. Journalists make their living from it. Politicians draw sustenance from it. Establishments try to build regimes on it.
All are active in Pakistan. All are to be heartily welcomed. But with one reservation: that they respect the sanctity of truth. Admittedly, this is not an easy concept to pin down, but flagrant violations are obvious enough. And PTV’s re-reporting of ‘news’ gleaned from an Indian tabloid that implicated the ex-Prime Minister in an attempt to encourage an Indian invasion is as clear an example of the defiance of truth as one is likely to find.
The original story, later to be projected by PTV, reported that an emissary from Benazir Bhutto “suggested to the [Indian] external affairs minister that India could divert the Pakistan army’s attention from the internal problems by launching a united [?] military action along the border. It was argued that apart from diverting the attention of the hawkish generals, a short-term offensive would also lift the image of the embattled Prime Minister in the eyes of the Pakistani public, which would eventually stabilise her position in power.”
Since when did Pakistan’s most influential medium — television — take the word of a third rate Indian tabloid when it comes to important matters of state? The answer is glaringly obvious: when it became a weapon to consciously deceive the public in the battle for power. And this is what we were watching on the Khabarnama that evening: blatant disinformation to vilify an opponent.
Of course this was not the first instance of a concocted and deliberately planted story being given prominence by the state media. Nor will it be the last. It was remarkable only in its viciousness and crudity.
But disinformation rarely expects to impress you with its validity; it works on the principle that if you throw enough mud at someone, some of it is sure to stick. Many politicians swear by the principle as could be seen at Nawaz Sharif’s infamous Mochi Gate rally last year. Even the Republican campaign in the last American elections was tainted by it. The successive claims of Benazir Bhutto that the Military Intelligence and then the drugs mafia were to blame for her downfall were informed by it.
This is bad. But worse, far worse, is the use of the official state media to peddle this calumny. It can only confirm suspicions that the state is waging a battle to elimintate the PPP as a significant electoral force and cast an ominous question mark over its determination to hold free and fair elections. Fairness at the very least demands that the state media refrain from slander, for that is what PTV presented in re-reporting the laughable story from New Delhi.
On the positive side, PTV under the new information minister has tried to improve on the dismal standards of political reporting set by the previous government and offers the PPP more coverage than the PPP offered its opposition. This would be a cause for optimism if one could remain confident of the new minster’s good intentions, or alternatively, of her desire to remain in the job, after this Indian intervention story. Certainly, the BBC will be losing no listeners.
A faint optimism can also be drawn from Nawabzada Nasrullah’s attempt to forge a consensus among an influential section of ex-COP leaders against the vilification of political opponents.The support of Fazlur Rehman must unfortunately be balanced against the opposition of Wali Khan and Chaudhry Shujat which effectively scuppered the endeavour. This is a shame; an agreement within the old COP grouping to avoid the worst excesses of vilification would have done much to lessen the dangerous polarisation in our politics.
And nothing will serve better to widen that fracture than the use of the state media in the witch hunt — with all the attacks on shadows and illusions that a witch hunt entails. That the PPP is the opposition for today’s PTV is clear, but that it is the enemy — as the piece from New Delhi would imply — is a frightening thought indeed. If this is so, then we have left the democratic discourse far behind.