At a lunch in his hour hosted in Lahore by the Council of Newspaper Editors shortly after he became Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif’s attention was drawn to increasing acts of violence and intimidation — terrorism — against the press by armed thugs of various political parties. What steps do you intend to take to protect our freedom, asked the Editor of The Herald, Sherry Rehman.
The PM feigned ignorance. But he assured us, nonetheless, that he “would look into it”.
Since then, a number of serious injuries have been perpetrated against our community. Last week, armed terrorists of the MQM attacked Mr Zafar Abbas (BBC correspondent and staffer on The Herald) and his family in Karachi and sent him reeling to hospital. The distribution of Pakistan’s leading daily, Dawn, was chocked in the city and a number of poor hawkers who resisted the gangsters met with Mr Abbas’s fate. A day later, the offices of Taqbeer were ransacked and its expensive typesetters destroyed.
Needless to say, there has not even been a squeak of protest from the Prime Minister. We may rightly presume that he is still “looking into it”. However, his foreign press adviser, Mr Hussain Haqqani, who is a past master of the art of adding insult to injury, says he has sent a bouquet of flowers to Mr Abbas wishing him a speedy recovery. Until next time, that is.
As for the Chief Minister of Sindh, Mr Sadiq Ali, the less said the better. How can his alliance partners possibly get up to any misdemmeanors, he wants to know. We may assume, therefore, he is not even inclined to give us the time of day.
In private, members of the CPNE and the APNS have thundered against these excesses. In public, however, they appear to have meekly yielded before the mighty Altaf Hussain who hectored them into a refresher course on the do’s and don’ts of responsible journalism. Lamentably, too, they have sought to convey the erroneous impression that perhaps The Herald was at fault for misreporting news.
A couple of important issues are at stake here.
First, the attitude of the chief executive. Far from initiating measures to preclude such brutalities against the press, the Prime Minister has seen fit to fire a couple of broadsides against us himself. He thinks we are wrong or irresponsible or sensationalist most of the time, especially where news about his doings and undoings are concerned.
The curious thing is that he didn’t always think thus. When the press was muzzled under the long years of martial law, during which he enjoyed his Chief Ministership of the Punjab without having to worry about the press, the question of any transgressions on our part didn’t arise, of course. Later, however, when he was doing out plots to a bunch of greedy hacks and successfully urging urging them to have a go at the PPP, a ‘free press’ was absolutely the first world in his refurbished public vocabulary. But it seems now that those long years of life under the umbrella of the Generals has left an indelible mark on his politics. She he is rapidly reverting to form. And we may have to wait a long time before someone else arrives on the scene and “looks into it”.
Now, examine the pitiable nature of our ‘press barons’. Having lives off the fact of government advertisements and newsprint quotas all their lives, they have lost all sense of integrity and courage. Weak-kneed and weak-willed, they cannot even drag themselves to effect a nominal response to the thuggery about them. For sure, no one expects these ‘freedom fighters’ to take up arms against the terrorism. But an itsy-bitsy one day strike in protest, merely to draw attention of our pathetic plight? A token news boycott of the MQM, or of those who are shielding the terrorists, like Mr Sadiq Ali? No. Nothing of the sort. Apparently, the press lords were reluctant even to point a finger at the MQM. It’s a wonder how they plucked up the courage to beg for an audience with the Great Man himself.
If they can no longer expect protection from the state or from their bosses, working journalists must look to themselves for their personal and collective well-being. The fact is that it is their necks which are on the line. Literally. So what we need is a formal body of working journalists which is not as insecure or constipated as the several which exist today. If we could assemble such a country-wide group and demonstrate an active, civil front against the excesses of politicians, we might succeed in stemming the high tide of violence which threatens our profession.
The ‘press barons’ may not find this idea totally misplaced. After all, if journalists succeed in taking the heat off their bosses in potentially violent situations, leaving them free to make their money, what more could they possibly want?