A Game of Perspectives – Role of Indian Media

By Hamza Shams

‘Pakistan breeds terrorists, has snooping ISI generals, and is home to influential figures who export weapons in the name of civilized trade to create insurgencies in India.’

This happens to be one of the most accurate descriptions of what Pakistan is all about to India and the Indians have ensured the idea is convincingly reinstated again and again to endorse the image further. On the account of Bollywood movies such as Kurban (Saif Ali Khan), Sarforosh (Amir Khan), Fanaa (Amir Khan), and many others preceding and following them, Indian film makers have played a dual perspective role since time immemorial. ‘Dual’ because they are the same who also happen to make ‘friendship-with-Pakistan’ statements on international forums.

On accord of 2 blogs published in Express Tribune, Bollywood, please stop demonizing Muslims and Are you kidding me? Bollywood loves Muslims by a Pakistani and Indian author respectively, comparisons have been made against, and in favour of, the industry with regard to this specific perspective. Ideally the comparison holds valid since the authors have been clear to identify areas which mold their opinions, however, rightly put, that’s not entirely the case. Judging on this particular perspective, Indians hate the idea of Pakistan but being blood relatives to Muslims of the subcontinent, they don’t mind having a ‘Qureshi’ living in UP as long as he presents himself to be an Indian.

The Anti-Pakistan propaganda is continuously seen on national channels across India time and again to deny the existence of 2-Nation theory by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. The propaganda goes back to the 19th century when Sir Syed actually proposed the idea, so it seems India still finds it hard to digest that Pakistan is an independent sovereign state, and like all other nations of the world promotes diplomacy as a core tool to reach mutual decisions. That said, Barkha Dutt, an Indian journalist, has been known to use Anti-Pakistan sentiments to set the mood for her shows, a simple strategy to increase show ratings. In doing so she creates wide-spread ‘Awareness’ as to how Pakistan has been involved in creating a mess at LoC for the brave Indian soldiers, totally undermining the information from UN Control programmes employed in the area that determine the occurrence of ‘First Shot’. The recent murder of the Pakistani prisoner, Sanaullah Haq in retaliation to the death of Sarabjit was again a move of aggression promoted by the Indian media.

The only benefit India draws out of this whole scenario is a massive increase in the military capacity of India over the recent years. A 48.6% increase in the defense budget is a strong indicator of the fact as to how Indians have started believing in a war against Pakistan and are willing to aid through taxation and aids to save the lives of their countrymen. This might not have happened had India made the same claims for China. Pakistan and India have a history, they have a relation, and India in particular uses that as a driving force to mold the opinions of their people through their media.

What India needs to realize that all this might eventually lead to the creation of a civil unrest in their own society, a constant fear that has been driving people of many nations crazy for years now. A fear that was originally created by Americans has now infiltrated the people of India. Only time can tell as to what follows.