You can call it great professional bonhomie, or plain old honour among thieves. But over the decades Indian and Pakistani journalists have treated each other rather well. Any Indian journalist, like this writer, who has been to Pakistan only has stories of great hospitality and warmth to tell you, of how his Pakistani counterparts spared their work and family time, shared stories, sources, cars, and even mobile phones — since Pakistan got them nearly a half decade before us. We also have touching, even breathtaking, stories of professional and personal sacrifice made by Pakistani colleagues on the lines of old-fashioned camaraderie. In my case these range from the serious to the sublime. Serious, like Rahimullah Yousufzai, the doyen of the “Frontier” media, based in Peshawar, taking me and photographer Prashant Panjiar under his wing, literally, even getting one of his photographers to sleep in our hotel room for our protection, since it seemed we were getting some “wrong” kind of attention in the summer of 1993. Or one other summer late night in Karachi, 1990, when it suddenly looked like war was about to break out, Parveen Aunty, the most adorable mother of Pakistani media tycoon Hamid Haroon, and so much an older (though only just) sibling that my parents never gave me, sending her driver over to bring me “home”. “God forbid that a war should break out, but if it does, I want all my children in my home,” she said when I protested. The sublime (don’t anybody dare ridicule marital commitments, howsoever quaint they may be) was when, on my last day in Karachi at the end of a tour of duty, I wanted to go shopping to the older part of the city to buy “parandis” (the multi-coloured streamers of thread and string tied with plaits, and that Pakistanis design with such panache) and was asking fellow reporters in the Dawn newsroom for directions. But as I was making my way out, a large mob of the very militant MQM (Mohajir Quami Mahaz) had laid siege to the Dawn building, because they had taken offence at some story the paper had done on their supremo, the now-exiled Altaf Husain. But I wasn’t to be deterred, and my accomplice was none else than Zafar Abbas, who then worked with Dawn Group’s formidable news-magazine Herald, and has since built himself a fantastic reputation with the BBC and as one of the finest reporters in the subcontinent. We decided to escape by scaling the boundary wall that abutted a mosque towards the rear, and I had just jumped, when the crowd spotted us. They let me go, a guest from India. But they caught hold of Zafar: “Zafar saheb, you, you are doing this even though you are a Mohajir (a migrant Muslim from India).” Zafar, landed on his feet quite literally, asked them if he could be so dishonourable as not to help a fellow Indian reporter. The crowd nodded and let us both go. Any Indian journalists who travelled to Pakistan picked our counterparts’ brains for ideas, stories and, most of all, access. In nearly two dozen tours of duty, I do not remember anybody hesitating. Then, with the story in the bag, we also stormed their offices to sit and write, and even transmit our stories. To be fair, much of the same happened when Pakistani journalists came visiting India. My only regret was that somehow we were never able to spoil them as much as we were when we went there. I have, therefore, always joked with friends made in the Pakistani media in my reporting years that this, their warmth, hospitality and generosity, is probably the reason why so many of them have meanwhile become vazir, safeer or mushir (minister, ambassador or adviser) while I have remained a sahafi (journalist). Some of the most notable examples here are Mushahid Husain, who became a minister and now contested as the PML(Q) candidate for president of Pakistan, and Maleeha Lodhi, who served as her country’s envoy to London and Washington. I met them both for the first time in the newsroom of The Muslim, from where I filed many stories. And now the one and only Husain Haqqani, career journalist and later exile who now represents Pakistan in Washington. But howsoever high their office, they wore it lightly when an Indian journalist called.That is why I have been so surprised and then disappointed lately with the tone I have heard from so many of the Pakistani news channels that call, either for a live discussion, or a “beeper” which is the Pakistani media’s name for sound-bite. More often than not, the questioning is rude, accusatory, and on the lines of, so what do you have to say about this? Or, why does India keep saying this or that? That’s the kind of tone journalists reserve for politicians, or other such pet objects of hate.In all fairness, also listen to the questioning on some of the Indian channels. You find the same accusation and lack of civility. I was shocked, for example, to see how Mushahid Hussain, on a brief visit to India, was pounced upon and nearly pilloried on many talk shows not by guests, but by anchors. Frankly, even where he was treated well by the anchor (as on NDTV’s ‘We the People’), the audience targeted him as the lone Pakistani, forgetting that he belongs to a party that stands in opposition to both the ruling coalition and the main opposition. Of course Mushahid speaks for Pakistan and we can, and mostly will, differ with him. But can we show disagreement with some decency? Over the past fortnight you have seen some of the most sensible, modern and moderate Pakistani media people being pushed around so brutally by utterly warlike Indian anchors that they even stop accepting the role of non-state terrorists in 26/11 though their own papers and channels may have done a brilliant job of exposing them. It is not the first time India and Pakistan have been in a war-like situation. Since Brasstacks in 1987, we have come close to war at least six times and on five occasions (unlike now) tension was much greater with the two armies mobilising. But never was there any hint of hostility between the two press corps. What has changed now is that it looks like, even if the armies decide to stay put in the barracks, the media on both sides is going to war anyway. And there is greater bitterness and hostility when journalists from the two sides talk to each other, than when diplomats or politicians do.Probably this has come about because, unlike the past crises, this one is unfolding in an environment where both countries have several competing 24-hour channels. In today’s polarised mood, audiences want to see and hear action in the studio if not on the real battle-front. Mushahid and I were on a half-hour live discussion on a Pakistani channel last week, and while we disagreed entirely on most issues — except one, that Zardari had to be seriously naïve to believe that Pranab Mukherjee called him at night to threaten war — we surprised everybody by not fighting or calling each other names. This hostility must end and senior media people on both sides, particularly editors, need to intervene before this great professional bond starts to fray. Journalists are of course loyal to their countries, but are never to be held accountable for their governments’ policies. They can neither be framing state policies, nor be their spokesmen, and certainly not be waging wars, and thank God for all that. It is time media institutions and senior editors from both sides intervened and ensured it does not get out of control. sg@expressindia.com
