What do Rakhi Sawant and Aamir Liaquat Hussain have in common?

Both are given to hectoring, passing arbitrary judgements and being shameless to the core.

Perhaps the only difference between the two is that while the holier than thou TV anchor uses the religion card to ensnare the indiscreet and undiscerning viewer, the brassy Rakhi Sawant resorts to shock and awe tactics.

Now, both have another point of similarity: murder allegations.

With this Bollywood item girl’s messy track record, it is indeed surprising that NDTV thought it appropriate to hand her a reality show on a platter. Rakhi is seen in the role of a judge who arbitrates disputes of domestic violence and marital discord. Having Rakhi Sawant as a judge seems somewhat akin to handing OBL the nuclear trigger.

True to form, within a month of going on air, her reality show has been mired in murder allegations. Lucknow’s Laksham Prasad and his wife Vineeta appeared on “Rakhi Ka Insaaf” in October, with Vineeta alleging that her husband allowed his uncle to harass her. Prasad was upset after Rakhi Sawant termed him “impotent” on the show.

The 24-year-old Prasad died on Wednesday, and his family alleges that it was because of Sawant’s televised remarks while trying to settle the dispute between him and his wife. “My son was so upset with the indecent remarks that he stopped meeting any outsiders or neighbours, who used to laugh at him referring to the remarks by Rakhi Sawant. They had seen the show and how that girl referred to my son,’’ said his mother. “He started suffering from acute depression and even stopped eating. He gradually became weak and frail and died. No one other than Rakhi Sawant is responsible for the untimely death of my son.”

Playing the judge

Prasad’s family members have registered a case against Rakhi Sawant. She has now been charged on three counts and is facing imprisonment if the court finds her guilty. Notwithstanding the merits or demerits of this particular case, it begs the question that doesn’t great power come with great responsibility? The electronic media in our part of the world enjoys greater freedom now than ever before, but whither their sense of professionalism or ethics? Whatever happened to the concepts of neutrality and objectivity which should be the cornerstone of any anchor, whether dealing with a reality show or a religious programme? Who gave the media the right to sit in judgement on others and dispense warped justice as they see fit?

Is Rakhi Sawant to blame for this suicide or the villagers who teased and tormented the man? Undoubtedly, their taunts were directly influenced by Rakhi’s programme which only serves to illustrate the great influence exerted over the hearts and minds of television viewers. Closer to home, we have the example of the Aamir Liaquat Hussain, former host of Aalim Online. On  September 7, 2009, Aamir Liaquat declared in his programme that killing members of the Ahmadi community was justified calling it ‘Wajib ul Qatal.’

Eighteen hours after the broadcast, on September 8, six persons entered the Fazle Umer Clinic in Mirpurkhas and shot Dr Abdul Manan Siddiqui 11 times. The killers remained at the hospital until the doctor was declared dead, then they walked out of the building’s front entrance. Police registered the killers as unknown. On September 9, forty-eight hours after the broadcast, Mr Yousaf, a 75-year-old rice trader and district chief of the Ahmadi sect, was shot and killed by motorcycle assailants on his way to prayer in Nawabshah. No one was arrested. Thus, two Ahmadis were murdered within two days of the telecast the programme.

Not only were there no legal repercussions for the anchor, he was allowed to continue his programme as well. Sadly, this was not the only time that Aamir Liaquat made questionable statements on TV. Earlier, he had also condemned the British author Salman Rushdie and said that he should be “killed for blaspheming the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in his book, Satanic Verses”.

Then, we have the example of the trendy singer turned preppy designer turned enthusiastic televangelist, Junaid Jamshed, who invited the luminary Maulana Tariq Jameel on his TV programme ‘Hayya al Falah’ to enlighten us as to the real reason behind the devastating floods in Pakistan.

Asked about the flash floods, the learned Maulana cited a verse from the Quran that meant fasad, either on earth or oceans, was of man’s own making. Another verse quoted suggested that a disaster befalling human beings was caused by their own actions. According to this interpretation, Allah when pleased allows rains to fall on time and when angry, withholds the rain. Maulana Tariq Jameel went on to blame the rulers for bringing into play God’s wrath. Hence, we sinners were advised to beg god’s forgiveness. No mention was made of relief work or the gargantuan scale of the humanitarian disaster facing our fellow citizens or the need to give generously. Far, far better to invoke visions of God’s fury to a beaming and approving Junaid Jamshed in his avatar as a Maulana.

After the ratings – the viewers’ role

What kind of a message does such an unrestrained and dangerous spiel send to the viewers of a country with an abysmally low literacy rate? Why can’t there be a code of ethics for the media which could monitor such programmes? One has to only look at the level of discourse in talk shows to see what prime time TV has been reduced to. Almost invariably, it is the TV anchors who encourage such misbehaviour and abandon moderation to sit complacently as guests bicker and almost come to fisticuffs. The esteemed Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) appears to be hand in glove with the media mandarins since it is clearly uninterested in enforcing any code of ethics. Most media channels are manned by seths and charlatans who are willing to turn a blind eye to such a flagrant abuse of media ethics as long as their television ratings remain high.

But in the final analysis, it has to be said that we viewers also share some of the blame for this pathetic state of affairs. If the media is supposed to hold up a mirror to our society, why is the reflection so increasingly unpalatable? Does this bigotry, arrogance and desire for instant gratification not reflect what we have been reduced to? As long as television viewers are willing to subscribe to such vitriol, there will be more and more Rakhi Sawants and Aamir Liaquats and their legions of crazed followers who can go to any lengths to follow their Master’s voice.

Earlier this week, investigative editor for The News Ansar Abbasi wrote the article titled ‘Ex-MI chief, commanders Quetta, Pindi involved’ which claims that Lal Masjid operation and Bugti killing both were the responsibility of Pervez Musharraf alone as he had bypassed GHQ.

Analysis of this article by blogger named Peja Mistri concludes that the article is actually part of an internal struggle within the military establishment and attempt to clear the army name regarding Lal Masjid and Bugti, possibly to ease the concern of ideological factions within the military. Whatever the intent of the article, the question has been raised whether Ansar Abbasi is writing news articles to inform the public or is a puppet for intelligence PR.

This question was raised again today when the same reporter Ansar Abbasi published the article ‘5,000 Jiyalas likely to join Sindhi police‘. When Abbasi interviewed Sindh Inspector General Police, Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak, he was told in detail the process for publicly advertising for applicants and determining final results based on merit. So what is Ansar Abbasi’s source for this conspiracy?

According to the article Ansar Abbasi was told this conspiracy by ‘an official source in the Sindh government’ who told him that “the Sindh chapter of an elite intelligence agency had also raised similar apprehensions and reported to its headquarter”. With only this evidence, Ansar Abbasi accepts the conclusion that only the intelligence agency is giving him correct information.

Like other parts of the country, the province of Sindh, whose capital city Karachi saw one of the worst terrorist attacks on Thursday, is in dire need of professional police, a well-trained investigation department and skilled prosecution; however, political considerations of rulers are pushing things from bad to worse.

These recent events begin to remind us of the debate that raged earlier this year about another journalist, Hamid Mir, and the secret connections between journalists an intelligence agencies.

The agencies have always had personnel on their payrolls operating as reporters, anchors, and ‘analysts’ ever since the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the 1960s. Respected journalist and author, late Zamir Niazi, in his book, The Web of Censorship, suggests that the agencies recruited a number of ‘journalists’ during the Ayub dictatorship, specifically to check leftist sentiments that were all the rage among journalists at the time.

Then during the Z.A. Bhutto regime, Niazi hints that the populist government and the conservative ‘establishment’ fought a battle of ideas through paid journalists. But the phenomenon of agency-backed journalists upholding the military establishment’s agenda and ideology in the press  really came to the fore during the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s.

As left-leaning journalists were forced to exit newspapers during the Zia dictatorship, the corridors of these newspaper offices were suddenly stormed by large groups of pro-establishment personnel, mainly consisting of anti-Bhutto journalists and pro-Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) men.

With the role of the ISI and other intelligence agencies expanding due to Pakistan’s direct involvement in the so-called ‘anti-Soviet Afghan jihad,’ many of these journalists were brought under the wings of various agencies, triggering a trend that still disfigures prominent sections of mainstream Pakistani media. What’s more, between early and late 1980s, the agencies were also able to plant men in the administration and finance departments of various mainstream media groups.

Journalists must remain steadfast about their independence and transparent about their facts. They should ask if a story is about police recruiting process, why is an intelligence agent giving some information? What is he trying to achieve? Reading Ansar Abbasi’s articles one is likely to conclude that Ansar Abbasi believes intelligence agents are simply honest angels who have come to give him some secrets out of their own kindness.

Certainly Ansar Abbasi would be furious if news was being written not based on facts but under direction of PPP leadership. So why is it different if the direction is coming from intelligence agencies? Journalism cannot be free if it is not independent. If reporters are writing front page stories at the direction of intelligence agencies, they have stopped being journalists and become propagandists. Actually, even the perception of such shenanigans is enough to destroy the credibility of the media.

Another excellent source of media fact-checking is by another dear reader, Aamir Mughal’s blog ‘Chagatai Khan.’ Mr. Khan has been a commenter on this blog since the beginning, and I always look to his blog for inspiration as he is one of the best media fact-checkers around!

In addition, there is some excellent media fact checking available on the blog Let Us Build Pakistan. This is a blog that is openly supportive of PPP, so that must be considered, but their media fact-checking is quite excellent and provides and important alternative to the commercial media commentary that still dominates public dialogue.

Hamid Mir: Media Bully

Commercial media giant GEO TV has launched an attack on a small blog in a disturbing case of media bullying as popular TV Host Hamid Mir and investigative editor for The News Ansar Abbasi lashed out against the blog “Let Us Build Pakistan,” a blog of PPP supporters that was started in 2008 and is run on the free service “Blogger.com“.

Unlike Hamid Mir and GEO TV, “Let Us Build Pakistan” bloggers Abdul, Sarah, Abbas Zaidi and Socrates, are quite transparent about their political affiliation and agenda and do not misrepresent their beliefs. Despite the transparency of the bloggers, these commercial media giants have bashed them for being propaganda.

Unfortunately, the commercial media journalists embarrassed themselves when they accused the bloggers at different times during the show of being both puppets of the President and CIA and Mossad. Of course, the so-called journalists present no evidence of these preposterous claims. The journalists also accuse the bloggers of causing a rift between media and military as if “media” were the government. Note to Mr. Mir and Mr. Abbasi: despite your face being on TV, you are not elected by anyone to any office.

Furthermore, while Mr. Mir and Mr. Abbasi make accusations against these bloggers, they fail to report that it is the commercial media giants that are causing a rift between military and civilian government and threatening to destabilize Pakistan during wartime.

In addition to presenting no facts or evidence for their accusations, Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi have engaged in the sort of media bullying that can create a “chilling effect” that results in citizens being afraid to speak their opinions freely. This is a direct assault on the Fundamental Rights of free speech provided in the Constitution.

Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of the press, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, [commission of] or incitement to an offence.

Other Pakistani bloggers have begun coming to the defense of “Lets Build Pakistan,” in particular the “Views on Pakistan News” blog by Umair Wasi.

At last media has attacked the websites with all their so called “fair journalism” weapons, last night in capital talk that is hosted by Mr. Hamid Mir on “Geo News” with his 3 guests including Nisar Abbasi a “The News” journalist and Mr. Javaid Hashmi of PML(N) and Sumsam Ali Bukhari of PPP, Hamid Mir has exclusively shown the blog Let Us Build Pakistan maintained by my fellow bloggers Abdul Nishapuri, Socrates, Abbas Zaidi & Sarah, Mr. Hamid Mir and Mr. Nisar Abbasi criticized the blog through out the program with all their white journalism’s’ words, Mr. Hamid Mir highlight the program with the tag of “PPP members criticized army and media” and Mr. Nisar Abbasi added the statement that Let Us Build Pakistan is operated from the presidency.

This is not the first time that media is raising fingers on bloggers and webmasters, but the bloggers are ready to face the situation and will not sit quite at this time it will be dealt accordingly.

GEO TV and The News should immediately reprimand their two employees, Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi, for their irresponsible acts and poor journalistic ethics. Additionally, GEO TV and The News should require Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi to publicly apologize for their unfounded accusations and promise to never again accuse others without presenting any facts.