JYOTI MALHOTRA
New Delhi, April 11, 2007 : Since the press and television publicity given to the anti-Musharraf agitation over the recent sacking of the former Pakistan chief justice refused to die out, the Pakistani government, about two weeks ago, did the next best thing : It quietly gave Pakistani cable operators the permission to broadcast eight Indian entertainment TV channels.
And that’s how and why the ``saas-bahu’’ serials and the new `Kaun Banega Crorepati,’ courtesy Shahrukh Khan, will soon find themselves back in Pakistani drawing rooms, 15 months after they were thrown out on charges of cultural invasion.
Talat Hussain, Director (News) in the `Aaj’ television network, a private channel, was openly critical about his government’s move to relax the ban on Indian entertainment channels like Star Plus, Sahara, Sony, etc.
In a live comment on air about a couple of weeks ago, Hussain pointed out that what the Pakistani government was doing was cutting its nose to spite its face. That it’s decision to allow Indian entertainment networks to broadcast in Pakistan was in ``direct response’’ to the decision by private Pakistani TV channels to ``stay with the news’’ on the aftermath of the sacking of Justice Iftekhar Chaudhury.
When lawyers in Pakistan’s Punjab came out on the streets to protest the government’s action, and police in Islamabad walked into the privately-run Geo TV offices (Musharraf has since apologized for the incident and some low-level policemen have been arrested), Pakistan’s largely free press was hugely critical of the government.
Images of lawyers protesting and marching in the streets of Lahore, broadcast through the day, again and again, as is the wont of ``breaking news,’’ mesmerised the country because everyone knew what they were witnessing was no ordinary thing.
Musharraf’s authority was being openly challenged like never before, but the government was not going to give in. So it set about knocking the bottom out of the media hype over the agitation.
Information Secretary Anwar Mehmood, said to be an ace administrator who ran the Information ministry for five years before he was moved to the Health ministry and is now back, is said to be the architect of the new `glasnost.’
Mehmood is believed to have suggested that if the private Pakistani TV channels did not move away from the anti-Musharraf news, the next best thing would be to distract attention. And the only way that could happen was to allow Indian entertainment channels to be shown again.
While Indian news & current affairs channels are banned in Pakistan, entertainment networks were a huge draw until December 2005, when the Pakistani Cricket Board complained to the national regulator, Pemra, that local Pakistani channels were picking up feeds from other channels instead of from Ten Sports, which had an exclusive arrangement to broadcast in Pakistan.
A number of ``foreign’’ channels were banned at the time, including all Indian entertainment networks. But the real reason, according to some commentators, was the official Pakistani fear of being ``swamped by Indian culture.’’
Quite clearly, that is not such a threat anymore.
ENDS
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