P A G E
Saturday, June 12, 1999
today's calendar
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, June 12, 1999 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Barbarism v heroism Return of the charkha Towards peace in Balkans
Pakistan’s cunning loss of
memory Neglect of ex-soldiers |
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TV ban — old fashioned
censorship
To ban, or not to ban?
Cricketitis
Dr Legard’s New Life Tablets |
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Pakistan has put itself and the entire noble Islamic civilisation to shame by brutally murdering Indian soldiers after keeping them as hostages for more than three weeks. A repulsive chapter of barbarism was opened before the world when six bodies were handed over to the Indian Army at Post Number 43 near Kargil on Wednesday. The victims' eyes were gouged out and their facial features, besides other vital organs, were mutilated. The bodies were sacrilegiously dismembered. Torture was written in Satanic ink over the scarred skin of those who were guarding their country's borders and sacred space. They became captive during peace-time in an area aggressed upon. At the very worst, the barbarians could have called them "Prisoners of War" (PoWs). The term is commonly used to mean "any person captured or interned by a belligerent power during war". In the strictest sense, it is applied to members of regularly organised forces. Our tormented officers and jawans fell into this category of the brave. The updated Geneva Convention (1949) gave them clear basic human rights. They were to be removed from the combat zone and humanely treated. The Convention says that physical mutilation is "expressly forbidden". The PoWs are obliged to give no information under duress other than their names, dates of birth, service numbers and ranks. The flouting of the normative rights amounts to war crime. The six martyrs followed the death due to torture faced by Sqn Ldr Ajay Ahuja who was shot in cold blood in captivity. Other missing officers and men cannot be expected to have been given less inhuman treatment. Here is a confirmation
of Pakistan's blatant aggression against India and its
own national values. All captive Indians would be given
"hospitality in the best Islamic tradition":
this was the declaration made by the Pakistani
authorities. The post-mortem reports concerning the
butchered defence personnel confirm the extent of cruelty
the beasts in uniform are capable of perpetrating. Why is
that military set-up acting thus? Is the Army above or
beyond the State? Have the crimes been committed in
disregard of the State's wishes? Does Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif not represent the State of Pakistan which
maintains the Army? Gen Pervez Musharaff was in China
just before the Kargil aggression started. Now Foreign
Minister Sartaj Aziz has gone on an unscheduled
pilgrimage to Beijing. Mr Nawaz Sharif is going there on
a week-long "sojourn" soon. Meanwhile, China is
silently occupying at least 40,000 sq km of Indian
territory and it has been keeping itself ominously silent
all these days. There is a second LoC in Jammu and
Kashmir between India and China. The Dras-Kargil-Batalik
invasion should be seen in the context of the Pakistani
designs in Ladakh and the Siachen glacier area. The
territory coming under attack is increasing daily. Much
precious blood is being spilt. From Kashmir to Cochin
through Haryana, Punjab and Himachal, a saga of soldierly
sacrifice is being written with bright blood. The people
are united — and angry. The Army is waiting to
realise the full price of every drop of blood caused to
be shed by the Pakistan Army. We have no hatred for the
Pakistani people. But we cannot forgive the captive
political masters and the savage military men with
serpents in their heads. What kind of talks will be held
in New Delhi with Mr Sartaj Aziz against the backdrop of
escalating aggression and murders committed by Mr Nawaz
Sharif's Army? We hug no illusion. Our martyrs like Ajay
Ahuja and Saurabh Kalia are national heroes. All our
enthusiasm has now to be organised into a defensive
military-mindedness. Some of those who have gone to the
mountains may never return but they will always be
remembered. And, as the poet says: They shall not grow
old, /As we that are left grow old,/Age shall not weary
them,/ Nor the years condemn./At the going down of the
sun/And in the morning,/We will remember them. |
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THE inaugural function of the Nationalist Congress Party was apparently organised around the theme of the charkha. Mr Sharad Pawar harked back to the historic Congress session of 1942 which gave the “karo ya maro” call. He did not ask his followers to do anything so drastic. But he quoted Gandhi to denounce the unruly behaviour of party members outside the house of today’s eminent Gandhi, Mrs Sonia Gandhi. The Gandhi topi sat incongruously on all heads, on many for the first time. Even in a state where it is the regular headwear in villages, the sea of neatly pressed topis was dramatic. The riddle of the fondness for the topi was soon solved as Mr Pawar got up to deliver his presidential address. He wrapped himself in ultra nationalist ethos and bitterly attacked the Italian intruder into Indian politics. Unusually for him, he read out a prepared riposte to Mrs Gandhi, a sarcasm-packed response to her emotion-soaked defence at the AICC meeting some days earlier. Of course, he did not want to “join issue with her” but had to put the record straight and it took much of the 45 minutes he stood before the microphone. His speech was noted for two things. One, a sharp, personal and sustained attack on Mrs Gandhi and, two, his failure to criticise the Vajpayee government. The main political resolution did commit the party to keeping equal distance from both the “authoritarian” Congress and the “communal” BJP. But Mr Pawar is keeping his options open in Maharashtra. For now, his group has easily emerged as the more dominant one, but that is reckoning without the likely impact of Mrs Gandhi’s appeal. If she were to click in her pre-election tour, there will be a shift at the ground level and Mr Pawar would have to realign the political forces to thwart the Congress bid for power. His short-term priority is to reduce it to marginal significance, and he could take on the saffron forces later. What this means is that the talk about striking a third path will hold good only if it does not defeat his basic policy. The NCP has said that it
is in contact with some leaders with a view to forming an
alliance of like-minded and secular parties. But the
names it has mentioned enjoy all-India recognition but
not one of them command genuine popular following. A
party of leaders with no supporters, as is the case with
the Janata Dal, hits the exit door faster than some
batsmen do in the World Cup. The new party has loftily
dedicated itself to inner-party democracy and freer and
fuller discussion. Obviously this is related to the
description of the Congress as an authoritarian outfit.
But inner-party democracy cannot be a gift from the
leadership; it is determined by the party’s
adherence to ideology. Ideology provides the frame for
debates and the shaping of both policies and responses to
developments. In a milieu in which all parties barring
the Left, have shed their ideological baggage, it is
being brave to commit the party to democratic functioning
and hence by implication to a set of clear-cut policies.
But the sense of satisfaction should stop here. A reading
of the NCP constitution reveals only fuzzy thinking, and
no vision. In this Mr Pawar’s Congress pedigree
shows, even if he left the party for nearly a decade only
to rejoin it in 1986. |
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After the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia for over two and a half months a peace agreement has finally been reached between the two parties. But it is a wholely one-sided affair. The beleaguered Balkan nation has been made to accept what may ultimately turn it into another Iraq. The G-8 sponsored resolution moved in the UN Security Council to implement the peace plan does not specify a time-frame for achieving the objective. This means the peace mission will continue so long as the Western powers — specially the USA, Britain and France which have veto rights — want their wish to prevail in Yugoslavia. Any move to conclude the mission will obviously have to be brought to the Security Council to seek its approval which will be vetoed unless it suits the Western powers, as is happening in the case of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. This is one reasons why China and Russia have been pressuring, though unsuccessfully, for a fixed schedule for the implementation of the peace plan. This single weakness in the whole scheme will make it difficult for Yugoslavia to regain control over its belligerent province, Kosovo. It will continue to remain under the occupation of the 50,000 peacekeeping troops, drawn mainly from NATO countries, which will move into Kosovo as soon as 40,000 or so Yugoslavian forces leave the area to ensure the return of the refugees, the Kosovo Albanians who left their homes after the NATO airstrikes began. This is in accordance with the agreement, which also has it that the moment the Yugoslavian troops and the Serbian special police personnel vacate Kosovo the US-led NATO action against the Balkan country will come to an end. This is the only gain , if at all it is accepted as one, Yugoslavia has been offered. There is not much
difference between the present agreement and the one
Yugoslavia was being pressured to accept in March. The
three major conditions which were there in the earlier
plan were almost like this: NATO control over Kosovo,
withdrawal of Yugoslavian forces from there, and
substantial autonomy for the warring province with a
provision for a referendum after three years. All three
points have been incorporated in the current pact minus
the referendum idea. The only addition is the creation of
conditions for the return of the refugees to their homes.
The new clause has been given in such a manner that it
can be easily interpreted to suit NATO designs. After the
adoption of the G-8 resolution Yugoslavia will find
itself fully in the web created by the Western powers. It
will have to suffer the way Iraq is doing. There is yet
another discriminatory clause which says that Yugoslavia
will have to ensure cooperation with the War Crime
Tribunal . But it has structured to save the USA and
other NATO members from the crime they have committed
first by deciding to find a military solution to a
problem which could have been solved otherwise, in a
little longer time. The tribunal has already indicted
President Slobodan Milosevic. He may have to suffer for
his alleged involvement in ethnic cleansing. The
agreement is a classic case of the imposition of the will
of the powerful over the weak, ignoring the crime of the
former and highlighting that of the latter. |
LINE OF CONTROL IT seems surprising that Mr Sartaj Aziz, a man of few words who seemed so happily minding the finances of his country before being shifted from the Finance to Foreign Ministry, should be compelled by the demands of his new office to make observations that would make even his Punjabi mentors blush. The latter have an amazing capacity to defend the indefensible. One was, therefore, dumb-struck to hear Mr Sartaj Aziz making the statement that the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir was not clearly defined. Defending his government’s indefensible armed intrusion in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir he defied reason and reality both, to pronounce as if the LoC were a toy in his hand. Like a schoolboy, flush with the excitement of having a chalk and a blackboard in front of him, he seemed to suggest that he was free to redraw the LoC anyway he liked. He apparently did not like the line delineated by his peers and accepted as such for generations. Therefore, he saw nothing sacrosanct about the reality of the LoC. So, to justify his country’s intrusion in the vast mountain spread of Dras-Kargil Batalik Mr Sartaj Aziz, saying goodbye to his avuncular charm, decided to act the spoilt brat out to change the alignment of the line drawn the last time after the Pakistani debacle in the Bangladesh war. He wanted a new toy. Even that most cunning of Pakistani politicians, the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, had accepted the LoC much the same way as his original promoter, whom Bhutto destroyed in the end, the late Field Marshal Ayub Khan, had done in the wake of the 1965 war. Three decades and more after Ayub Khan and 27 years after Bhutto, Mr Sartaj Aziz has come out with the preposterous suggestion that his country is free to enforce an alignment of its choice all along the LoC. Mr Sartaz Aziz, the gentle face of the Pakistani establishment wants us, the ugly Indians, to forget the LoC, as established after the 1965 and 1971 wars. For his part, he chooses to forget the gestures which the Indian leadership of the day had made to his country courtesy Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965 by handing over control of the key Haji Pir pass to Pakistan and, again in 1971, when Indira Gandhi made those unusual and uncharacteristic gestures to a humiliated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on Shimla (accepting several verbal commitments made by Bhutto) and by letting go unconditionally some militarily strategic territory, in addition to giving away over 92,000 Pakistani prisoners of war. The Pakistanis seem to have suffered a loss of memory; the line was drawn and accepted by both sides during Bhutto’s visit to Shimla and in followup talks at the military level. Again, driven by their raving desire to internationalise the issue they want more UN observers to be inducted to “supervise” the LoC whose very existence Islamabad conveniently seems to forget. Having failed in repeated attempts to involve the international community, particularly the US and China, with whom Islamabad has very close relations, the Pakistanis have come out with the absurd suggestion that the Pakistani intrusions in Kargil and firing across the ceasefire line in Rajouri, Poonch, Doda et al is the handiwork of “Kashmiri Mujahideen” for whom “it’s really no big deal to reach such heights” (Kargil mountain ranges of between 14,000 and 18,000 ft. above sea level). This is the explanation Mr Aziz has to offer for the occupation of Indian posts in high ranges. He will not hear about Pakistani involvement. The bodies of Pakistani soldiers handed over by Indian authorities, complete with their identity kits etc, makes no sense to them. Nor are they interested in telling us who enabled the mercenaries to reach these heights and who is providing the logistic support. It’s an incursion that has occurred on the Indian side of the LoC and Indians alone can explain their (mercenaries’) presence, says Mr Aziz. Such irresponsible utterances by Pakistani leaders are, to say the least, shocking. Who for instance has been providing artillery cover to these so-called Mujahideen of Pakistan’s creation? Who is supplying them with sophisticated arms, including hand-fired surface-to-air missiles? Who is constantly shelling the Highway No 1 in the Dras-Kargil-Batalik region trying to disrupt traffic on this vital road link to Leh? How does one account for the large number of foreign mercenaries, including Afghans, killed in encounters across the 700 odd kilometres of the LoC? Is it the ISI’s comrade-in-arms, Osama bin Laden, the Afghanistan-based Saudi chief of the Islamic militants, or the Harkatul Majahideen or the Lahore-based Lashker-e-Toiba? Pakistan, try as it might, can no longer convince anyone, including its friends, about its non-involvement in the low-intensity proxy war it has masterminded in Jammu and Kashmir for the past decade and which has acquired a newer dimension in Kargil. The misadventure in Kargil may inevitably have ended the good faith and trust which India has been trying to painstakingly build with Pakistan over the years. It’s quite likely that the Pakistani establishment, goaded by the ISI and the Army, has misread India’s sincerity in its attempts to resolve outstanding bilateral issues, including Kashmir. It has in the bargain miscalculated that the decade old insurgency in the J & K has softened the Indian State. This is what may have tempted the Pakistani leadership to conclude that a new dimension to Kashmir’s status could be added by shifting the Line of Control unilaterally through armed intrusions. Pakistani assertions in the wake of their massive intrusion in Kargil-never mind the colour they try to put on it — are of a piece with its desperate efforts to keep the Kashmir pot boiling and somehow make it appear a flash-point, with nuclear possibilities not ruled out. This is a grave miscalculation which Islamabad has made. And its friends in Washington and Beijing are aware of it. Both the American and the Chinese seem to have realised that Pakistan may yet turn out to be its own worst enemy by trying to question the sanctity of the LoC as a binding instrument for the both countries. Mr Nawaz Sharif and his Foreign Minister should understand that while talks are an essential medium for understanding each other’s views these cannot serve any useful purpose when one of the parties chooses to alter the ground realities unilaterally. If the idea is to infuse a new seriousness into the mechanism of talks, Pakistan must immediately withdraw its men and mercenaries back to its side of the LoC. If the LoC is allowed to develop into a line of conflict and contention the consequences can be very serious indeed. The inviolability of the LoC is an abiding Indian interest and everything else comes only next. The clarity of purpose which the Armed Forces have shown in Kargil should convince the Pakistani politico-military establishment that throwing out the intruders from Kargil is only part of the overall Indian interest in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistani intrusion offers a direct threat to India’s other interests. In these circumstances while India must ensure that the intruders are sent back to wherever they come from, it will undoubtedly not be found wanting in a resolution of the crisis through negotiations. But, for such negotiations to be fruitful Pakistan must quickly end its intrusion and then, and then alone, can the dialogue be resumed in a meaningful way. The spirit of Lahore Declaration beckons Pakistan to put an end to its Kargil misadventure and reaffirm its faith in the sanctity of the LoC. It equally requires
India, once the intruders are out, to vigorously pursue
negotiations with neighbouring Pakistan. Luckily, barring
one or two aberrations, there is a national consensus in
this country on developing a fair and friendly
relationship with Pakistan. At the moment though,
Pakistan has, by disputing the validity of the LoC in
Jammu and Kashmir, thrown the process of negotiations
into jeopardy. Mr Sartaj Aziz must assure his Indian
counterpart about the continuing validity of the LoC. The
rest will follow (ADNI). |
Neglect of
ex-soldiers IT is time the country and powers that be looked inward to correct the drift caused by various governments undermining the social and political rights of veterans of armed forces who have given so much for the security and integrity of our country in the past 50 years of Independence. But for them the secular fabric of the Indian society would have been torn to shreds by the manipulative tendencies of some of the politicians. In our country the political parties and self-interests of political bigwigs are ruling the roost. The hastily collected figures by the sluggish but over-worked revenue departments regarding census of ex-servicemen notwithstanding, the exact number of these veterans crosses the 26-lakh mark all over India. Nearer home in Punjab officials have accounted for less than three lakh exservicemen whereas the number is over five lakh. Every year the wastage touches the figure of 60,000 men. It is a fact that continuous shortage of officers in the armed forces persists because of lack of interest of country youth in the military service. As per press reports 12’000 officers are short in the defence services and this deficiency is persisting for the past over a decade or so despite the propaganda blitz by the Army. The powers that be refuse to see reason as to why the armed forces lack attraction and why this profession has turned into a curse rather than a blessing. The fault lies in the scant attention being paid to the welfare of ex-soldiers for re-rooting them honourably back into society. Politicians pay lip service to these brave and hardy people. Tele-films and movies superficially glorify their courage and dedication but under-cut their pride by projecting them as macho straight and un-thinking human beings. After release from the Army they feel abandoned and find themselves in an alien land saturated by corruption and full of cheats. They find themselves out of tune in all the spheres of civil life, and earn the title of “SIDHA HAI, BECHARA HAI.” The welfare channels at Centre, State and district level have become too centralised and politicised. The role of NGOs (Indian Ex-Services League), which used to contribute the most towards the welfare of ex-soldiers, has been nullified as the rulers prefer to nominate their own cronies to various boards and grievances and development committees. No criticism even healthy one, is accepted in a positive way and positive feedback from the NGO — from the ground where it has cells in almost every village — is lost in babudom. Complaints of the serving soldiers for sorting out the problems of their families in the villages do not have the desired effect. The district welfare channels fully know about the positive activities of the NGOs among the ex-soldiers but they cannot do much to influence the government-officials, who prefer to place their own political men in each and every forum. One can easily imagine the effectiveness of a solitary welfare worker who visits a block or tehsil comprising 70 to 80 villages once a week. Some of the blocks do without welfare workers for months at a stretch. It is here that the role of NGOs is imperative, but these have almost been knocked out by the politicians and officialdom to serve their narrow interests. The political and social
rights of ex-servicemen have been put into jeopardy and
the welfare activities nowadays are confined to charity
and doles at the whims and fancies of the government in
power. The desire of providing social justice to
ex-servicemen who are naturally not rowdy and gate
crashers is almost missing. The result is that the
veterans feel bitter, helpless and subdued. When they are
sidelined they have to perforce kneel before petty
politicians who not only harass them but also fleece
them. The vital question arises as to what a veteran
should do when he is not heard and his honour is at stake
in the society to which he has come back after
sacrificing his youthful years. Will he take it lying
down or consider himself a fallen man? The answer is an
emphatic NO. He will start nursing a deep grudge towards
the system. That is why corrective measures are called
for to set the welfare effectively on the rails in the
interest of the country and society as a whole. |
Cricketitis EVERY time I enter or leave my Mumbi flat — often with a rubber ball missing my specs by inches — I breathe an imprecation upon the wannabe Sachin Tendulkars and Anil Kumbles who use the building’s lobby as a makeshift cricket pitch. They are not bothered if their pitch has a roof: in fact, this makes fielding easier. They make do with ersatz stumps in the form of three sticks planted in used car-battery case; the crease is represented by a pair of slippers. But these deluded youngsters don’t care if they have only a one in a billion chance or so of becoming a Mohd. Azharuddin, who started his cricket career in the lanes of Hyderabad. Or if their role models become burnt-out cases by the age of 35. Time was when mock cricket was played only when cricket fever was high, during Test matches. Nowadays it has become a year-round rage. During a series, the more dispensable office employees report sick; the others sit with transistor radios glued to their ears, the drugged expression on their faces showing that mentally they are at Leicester or Nottingham. Cricket has undergone a sea-change since the days when George Bernard Shaw described it as a “game played by eleven fools and watched by eleven thousand fools”. The players are still eleven, but there is a third umpire. One-day matches have put more pace into the somnolent game. The “eleven thousand” have been multiplied manifold by radio and television, though the latter medium thrusts “commercials” upon the watchers every few seconds. The print media unabashedly mix cricket and advertisements. More women now chop vegetables in their sitting-rooms and watch Sachin Tendulkar make mincemeat of the Kenyan bowling. “The flanneled fools at the wicket” (as Kipling described them) have also gone in for more colourful garb, inscribed with their names and sporting the logos of multinational companies. They are no fools and often earn more from sponsorships than from the game itself, even if the allegations of match-fixing and throwing away wickets are untrue. To the Englishman, cricket has been more than a game. It has stood for a way of life that included concepts like fair-play and the rule of law, as implied in the phrase “it ain’t cricket”. To the non-Englishman, cricket has been a leveller, especially vis-a-vis the original wielders of the willow. The British no doubt lost their Empire, but on another plane they have regained it through their game and their tongue. In fact, there is a synergy between cricket and English. With matches being played at Sharjah, the cricket infection could well spread beyond the Commonwealth countries. Cricket has become an outlet for surrogate nationalism. Indians in Britain, who have settled for a mess of pottage, nonetheless cheered “their” side when it won against England in the World Cup. Cricket has not succumbed to the hooliganism of football matches, but with pitch invasion by crowds after the last ball, that day is not far distant. In India, cricket has become the Lowest Common Denominator, a universally understood language of inanity. Like the formula Hindi movie, it belongs to no particular region — though Maharashtra has produced more than its share of cricket stars. Everybody wants to be on
the cricket bandwagon during a World Cup series. In the
midst of his second bid for a “stable and able”
government, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hastens
to pat Sachin Tendulkar on the back for his first ton in
the World Cup: he might still have his second innings at
New Delhi. |
IN Delhi, ever since the trouble began in Kargil, journalists whenever they get together have marvelled at our government’s astounding ability to constantly lose the propaganda war. Mr Vajpayee’s government has, since its inception 13 months ago, shown considerable ineptitude in this department but on Kargil his spin doctors excelled themselves with the ban on Pakistan Television coming as final proof of their stupidity. Friends in Lahore, with whom it’s been possible to remain in constant touch via e-mail through the crisis, report that Nawaz Sharif’s main communicator, Mushahid Hussain, has been publicly gloating over the ban pointing out that PTV must have been telling the truth for it to be banned. In fact, PTV lies so blatantly about Kashmir that middle class Indians, the only ones with access to cable TV, learned a long time ago to disbelieve nearly everything reported about India. The ban was unnecessary and evocative of those long ago times when the government decided what we could watch and what needed censorship. Instead of concentrating on such foolish measures the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting would have done much better to expend its energies on monitoring what BBC and CNN were reporting and using their reports to our own advantage. Let me give you a few examples. A colleague, who is an avid watcher of international news bulletins, tells me that last week there was a BBC bulletin in which one of their former South Asia correspondents, Lyse Doucet, put Mushahid Hussain, Pakistan’s Information Minister, through a minor inquisition. If the Pakistan government was not supporting the incursion, she asked, how did he explain the fact that hundreds of armed intruders had managed to position themselves at 18,000 feet. People do not live at such heights, she pointed out, so how did these men get there without any help? Mushahid, loquacious at the worst of times, was apparently reduced to squirming silence. It would have been a really good moment for one of the government’s more articulate spokesman (of which there are few around) to call the BBC and offer an Indian comment. Nothing of the sort happened. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister made a similar mistake which we could have made huge capital out of. He told the BBC, repeatedly, that the Line of Control had not been demarcated. Surely, one of the Prime Minister’s spin doctors should have seized the opportunity to point out that if this were indeed true then how had they dared shoot our planes down? As we can see from that other current conflict, Kosovo, we now live in an age when even wars are fought on television. Every day, since the problem in Kosovo began, we have been able to see details of what is going on in our drawing rooms and the daily briefing by NATO is televised live. Since most international television networks are controlled by Western countries they have been able, with extraordinary effect, to make the case that this is a story that does not have two sides to it. Slobodan Milosevic is the villain and that, quite simply, is that. In South Asia it is Indian television channels who control the media and it is a sad comment on the government’s propaganda machinery that, even when we are the victim and not the aggressor, we have been so completely incompetent in putting our view across. The crux of the problem appears to lie in the fact that despite still having an Information & Broadcasting Ministry, obsolete in most other democratic countries, the men who man it remain old-fashioned in their approach to propaganda. The old fashioned way was to censor and propagate semi-truths which are easily caught out. The old fashioned way was also for the government to remain silent in the face of most situations. In fairness to the BJP government it has tried to be transparent on Kargil by allowing spokesmen of the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs to hold daily briefings. It has even permitted cameras to go to where the fighting is but what it appears not to have understood is the importance of presenting us with articulate spokesmen who are TV-friendly in their manner and can back up what they are saying with proof. So, although nobody doubts that the intruders must have included Pakistani soldiers, it was several days before we were given documentary proof of the identity of the dead Pakistanis. It was also several days before the Prime Minister addressed the nation about what was going on in Kargil. Compare this with the innumerable times that the US President has been on worldwide television to give his reasons for the NATO action in Kosovo. In our case when the Prime Minister finally addressed the nation he looked uncomfortable with reading autocue, and inexplicably seemed to be reading from an autocue machine that was placed below eye level so that he rarely made eye contact with viewers. Surely, even Doordarshan engineers should by now know exactly which height to place an autocue machine? The net result was that a man who is famed for his silver tongue, for his exceptional ability to communicate, looked as if he did not know what to say or how. The Prime Minister would probably have made a better speech if he had not needed to read from a written text. If the world still seems to be on our side in the Kargil conflict it is only because it is hard for any country to support Pakistan’s armed intrusion and not thanks to any effort on the government’s part. We can only hope that the government has learned a few lessons from the mistakes made and that in another moment of national crisis, incidentally this has been the worst we have faced in years, they will be able to handle it better. Even the most outdated
of our politicians need to understand that television has
changed the whole method of public communication. It will
not be long before even election campaigning is done
mainly on television and not by spending vast amounts of
money on flying around the country in expensive aircraft.
Television has already reached most of India’s small
towns and many of its villages. By the next election, if
it’s held as it should be in five years, it will
probably cover the whole country. He who wins will be the
one who looks better on television. In Kargil it is
unforgivable that Pakistan should have been able to put
up any fight at all on the propaganda front. |
HITLER tried to and so did Churchill. And perhaps Stalin, during World War-II. To jam the transmitters of the enemy so that their propaganda could not reach anyone. But they failed, because all that they could do was to put a whining noise against the transmission which was very difficult to sustain. And powerful transmitters such as Radio Free Europe and the BBC got through to occupied Europe. Lord Haw Haw might have been executed for treason and P.G. Wodehouse disgraced for sleeping with the enemy. But no one could really jam enemy broadcasts. And now it its telecasts. It is a long haul from the forties to the nineties, when CNN created media history by bringing the Gulf War into our drawing rooms like a tennis match. And now youngsters like Vishnu Som can fly up to the front and report long-distance the Kargil War. So the point is, can and should one ban or not? Coming nearer home, Indira Gandhi wanted to black out foreign broadcasts during the Emergency and expelled respected correspondents like Mark Tully. And what happened? I was driving down from Shimla in 1975 and stopped at a small chaiwallah’s for tea in a cracked cup. I had been listening to AIR on the car radio all the way down. As he handed me the tea, the chaiwallah said to me: “Kuldip Nayar has been arrested”. “How do you know? I asked in amazement. He proudly dangled a little transistor radio before me”. Got it on the BBC”, he said. The BBC was smart enough to broadcast its Hindi and other Indian language programmes on medium wave. And the chaiwallah was better informed than a professional media watcher. Pakistan tried it during the Bangladesh war. And the intrepid radio professionals of Radio (East) Pakistan as it then was, ran away with and set up a mobile transmitter at Rangamati in the Chittagong Hills, with the full support of (then) Major Zia. And thumbed its nose at Bhutto and the rest. Mr Pramod Mahajan may be a canny politician, but when it comes to the media, he remains a greenhorn. Like Indira Gandhi, he says Doordarshan should be a government department and give government news. Brave words, but what little credibility and staff enthusiasm had flourished in the early heady days of Prasar Bharati have now been frittered away and with the satellite channels doing a more professional job, DD’s credibility has slumped still further. It is all very well to
order cable operators to stop relaying Pakistan TV and
ask the police to chase them up. But as has been
repeatedly pointed out, people in the border areas,
especially in the all important Northern regions affected
by the present hostilities, can pick up Pakistan TV as
easily as viewers in Lahore and further can pick up
Amritsar TV. And, worse of all, where India has really
failed is in putting up powerful transmitters of adequate
strength, whether in the North or the North-East and
loading its weak transmitters with poor quality
programmes. So that even if Indian viewers wanted to
watch home-grown TV, it is made as physically difficult
and unattractive programme-wise as possible to put them
off. When viewers in Shillong find it difficult to get
Guwahati TV (because of the hills, is the stock excuse
and the same applies to the Indian viewers in Kashmir)
there is little Mr Mahajan or anyone else can do to win
them back from the technically more powerful and more
attractive serials which come across the border. Like
King Canute, who ordered the waves to go back, one can
order the Pakistan TV and radio waves to go back but the
results will be the same. Besides, there are endless
private dish antennae in homes and other places across
India which are not dependent on cable operators. Will
the police enter each one of them to check? Besides,
Indian viewers are both patriotic and canny and most of
them find the Pakistan news laughable. By banning it, you
make it forbidden fruit and therefore all the more
important. I remember during the 1971 war, visiting some
villages near Delhi. Most villagers had transistor
radios. “To which station do you listen?”, I
asked. One clever youngster, who said he was a school
teacher gave me my answer. “I listen to both All
India Radio and Radio Pakistan and divide by two”,
he replied. See what I mean, Mr Mahajan? Instead of
putting on impractical bans you better get your act
together: put up powerful transmitters in the border
areas, allow DD’s professionals, some of whom are
first rate programme and news producers to do their own
thing, and you will get your viewers back. |
Young
at 50 Imparts to the old and middle-aged youthfulness, energy and fitness, retards mental and physical decay, thus promoting longevity. Preserves the arteries and tissues. Sufferers from deafness with its many distressing accompanying ailments as head noises derive almost immediate benefit. Calm, refreshing sleep is assured. Gloom, depression and nervousness are banished under the influence of these life-giving tablets. Wrinkles, hard lines and blemishes disappear. The skin becomes clear, tight and elastic, and the complexion bright and smooth. Think of the blessings of perfect health, the possession of few; the joy of a clear youthful appearance and tingling blood, of lustrous hair, bright eyes and health-tinted cheeks; the beauty of radiant life and the realisation that time has been put back ten years to the envy and admiration of your friends, and the unbounded satisfaction of yourself. Can you allow a golden opportunity like this to pass? Obtainable only from Dr
Legard’s Laboratories |
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