Asia Times: Tensions blur both Indian and Pakistani TV screens


	January 18, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Tensions blur both Indian and Pakistani TV screens
By Nadeem Iqbal

ISLAMABAD - Naubahar Asim, a Pakistani housewife, has again started watching Indian films on a videocassette recorder - the only means of entertainment available to her after the government recently banned Indian-satellite channels amid the war rhetoric between the rival nations.

Naubahar's home is one among thousands that receive about a dozen Indian television channels from cable television operators, proof that local residents' interest in India's cinema and entertainment world thrives despite the political gulf between New Delhi and Islamabad. But after the ban on Indian channels, imposed on December 29, viewers are left with only some government-controlled local and western English sports, news, and film channels. Few get excited about this, since a majority of viewers do not understand English. The language of the Indian channels is Hindi, which is similar to Pakistan's national Urdu language. Thus, for many, watching television has become boring since the ban.

"My nights are getting dull now, so I spend more time surfing the Internet," rues Suleman Siddqqi, an 18-year-old Afghan refugee who has lived in Islamabad since 1988. His favorite film heroines include India's Sushmita Sen - and now, he says, he can no longer watch her.

Fehmida Majeed, in her 50s, says that as India's and Pakistan's leaders continue their conflict, she will miss the Indian hit dramas, Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki (The Story of Every Household) and Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thee (Once the Mother-in-law Was a Daughter-in-law), which used to be telecast from Monday to Thursday nights.

In its ban order, the government asked the cable television operators to immediately stop relaying Indian television channels because "Indian TV channels beamed through satellite in Pakistan, as well as beamed by Star satellite channels, are propagating injurious material against the security of the country". The chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, responsible for regulating the cable television business, Major-General Shahzada Alam Malik, said that the decision had been taken in protest against the Indian decision to block Pakistan television programs.

Indeed, New Delhi has severed many "people-to-people" contacts in the weeks after the December 13 terrorist attack on its parliament. India blames the attacks on Pakistan-linked militants, a charge that has sent already tense ties to a new low. The Indian government severed bus, rail and air links and barred the use of its airspace by Pakistani airliners, apart from reducing the high commission staff in Islamabad to half. Pakistan has responded by restricting its airspace for Indian airliners, reducing its staff to half and banning Indian channels in the country.

The banning of Indian channels was the first-ever decision of the sort taken by the Pakistan government, which did not retaliate to earlier Indian government decisions blocking the transmission of Pakistan Television (PTV). Islamabad also did not respond to what critics say was the hacking of the English-language daily Dawn website during the 10-week bloody military standoff in the Kargil area in early 1999, or when an Indian airliner was hijacked in Kathmandu and all the Indian channels were reporting Indian government allegations involving Pakistan.

At the time, the Pakistani government did not bar Indian channels because it did not have the capacity to do so. Many Pakistanis were watching Indian channels through cheap dish antennas installed on their rooftops, so it was impossible for the government to remove all of them. But after many of these channels went digital and could only be seen through expensive decoders, authorized cable operators entered the market and with their own small television networks started providing around two dozen channels to mainly urban consumers.

In addition, every cable operator has its own channel showing popular Indian movies. The government started issuing licenses to these cable television operators in June 2000 under the condition that that they would "respect national sovereignty and integrity and promote religious, social, cultural and political values of the people of Pakistan". To many cable industry officials, this was a vague condition that became clearer when the Pakistani government imposed the recent ban using this clause.

According to official estimates, there are 826 registered cable operators in the country with 2 million subscribers. But the figure could be much higher as many cable television operators are still operating beyond government control. As the political tit-for-tat between India and Pakistan spills into the fields of media, both the Indian and Pakistani governments have imposed blockades on each other's channels after dubbing their programs "propaganda-intensive".

This despite the fact that on many occasions in the past, both countries had agreed, as in June 1997, that they would take all possible steps to prevent hostile propaganda and provocative actions against each other. Similarly, in July 1989 both sides agreed to exchange radio and television programs, and vowed to facilitate exchange of newspapers and allow participation in film festivals. But to date, the agreements wait to be implemented and the lucrative trade is in the hands of the smugglers. An Indian news magazine that sells for 10 rupees (around 20 US cents) in New Delhi costs $4 in Islamabad.

Salman Hummayun, director of the non-government Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan, says it is unfortunate that both governments are resorting to extreme measures without defining what propaganda is and if it has increased during explosive situations like the present one. He said that the situation on information exchange cannot be improved unless both countries employ modern propaganda analysis techniques like system message analyses and content analyses. Under these, he says, propaganda can be quantified and the public informed of the results.

Zafarullah Khan, a media researcher, says that in every ban the people suffer as both states enact "elite-specific" agendas in their media policies. "Are elites affected by the recent ban? They are watching all the channels by virtue of decoders, which they are increasingly buying."

(Inter Press Service)