Editorial
Clear mandate for secular, egalitarian
values, democratic governance
While the results are yet to be officially declared at the time this editorial goes to print, the trends clearly indicate a massive landslide victory for the Awami League-led alliance in the elections to the ninth Jatiya Sangsad. Despite allegations by the BNP of irregularities in some constituencies — which should be investigated by the Election Commission — Monday’s voting appears to have been largely peaceful and generally free.
The huge voter turnout in these elections has been a manifestation of the people’s rejection of authoritarian rule and aspiration for rule of law, in the first place. The manner in which people came out in droves on Monday, rejoicing in their constitutional right to elect their own representatives is also indicative of a resounding verdict in favour of democratic governance.
Through this landslide verdict in favour of the Awami League and its allies, the people have delivered a clear mandate not only for the Awami League-led alliance, but more specifically for the slogans that Awami League has chanted for years. Thus, a majority of the voters have resoundingly spoken in favour of the spirit of the war of national independence: the quest for an egalitarian society built on the principles of secular democracy.
In the specific context of the Awami League’s election promises, the people have sought respite from the high prices of essentials, have placed their faith in the party’s promise to expand agricultural subsidies and support, ensure equitable economic growth, and realise their much vaunted demand for the trial of war criminals of 1971.
After 1973, this is the first time that the Awami League is set to come to power with a two-thirds majority, bestowing on them the mandate and the legal means of constitutionalising the politics they have professed to espouse in the intervening period.
However, the biggest challenge that Awami League has been exposed to is properly handling the huge parliamentary strength, particularly given the fact that two-thirds majorities in Bangladesh, and other South Asian states, have often failed to behave democratically, particularly in terms of accommodating dissenting views of the opposition parties on the one hand and the critical media on the other. We only hope that the Awami League will take lessons from history and contribute to the institulisation of a sound parliamentary system of governance in the country.
Not a judicious step
THE council of advisers to the military-controlled interim government on Sunday approved the draft of an ordinance on the management of non-government educational institutions. As reported by the United News of Bangladesh, the draft proposes that the deputy commissioner or a class 1 official nominated by him or her shall be the president of the management committees of the non-government educational institutions in a clear breakaway from the previous practice of electing the committee members. The provision is regressive, to say the least, as it attempts to concentrate power into the hands of one individual with regard to selecting the committee members. Even though representatives of teachers, guardians and others like founder of the institution or donors will be accommodated in the committee, the sole authority will still be with these government officials, instead of elected individuals. Such a concentration of power only leads to arbitrary actions, anomaly and malpractice, if previous experiences are anything to go by.
From an earlier report, it is learnt that guardians of those students who became first in the final exams will be nominated representatives of the guardians to these committees of the respective institutions and senior teachers by turns will be nominated as teachers’ representative. The justification that the authorities have offered for a new ordinance is reportedly the ‘existing chaos and clash of interest’ in selecting the committee members. The education sector is already bedevilled with corruption and irregularities and the government as well as the education authorities have thus far failed to improve the situation. On the contrary, there have been allegations that the officials employed to sort out and streamline the sector are the most corrupt. In such circumstances, the planned ordinance could only make matters worse.
Therefore, the interim administration should immediately shelve its plan and maintain a status quo until an elected government takes over, which, we believe, will be very soon. As we see it, there is no alternative to elected representatives on the management committee of the non-government educational institutions. Election not only facilitates passage to committee membership to those people who are generally aware of, and sensitive to, the ground realities and the aspirations of the stakeholders of an educational institution – students, teachers, guardians, etc – but also institutes an in-built checks and balance mechanism. An elected representative is after all answerable to the electors; an appointed administrator is not.
Media crisis in South Asia
by Afsan Chowdhury
GLOBAL economic crisis has coincided with media crisis, especially in South Asia. The west is suffering not just from a financial disaster but almost all its institutions are at bay. In the west, people no longer trust journalists as media is more about squeezing out as much sensationalism as possible in the hope of ratings and survival. South Asia is also in a mess though less so but has to deal with extra demons. On top of market pressures, public expectation and demand, it has to deal with the hard hand of state censorship.
Two incidents in recent weeks have brought focus on South Asian media. One is about the role of broadcast media in particular in heightening Indo-Pak tension centring around the Mumbai events. The other is the attack on the Himal media office and staff in Nepal by elements supporting the party in power.
The Mumbai attacks brought global attention to India and Indian media responded accordingly feeding the world with vivid images of gore and fire. The biggest player in this transaction was of course television and its minute by minute relay of the several day long Mumbai siege was picked up by many stations all over the world. That was a great success in terms of coverage and viewership but an unease is setting in that media’s role may have contributed to the heightened intensity of hostility between India and Pakistan.
It has now resulted in a call for restraint from leading South Asian journalists and editors:
As journalists from South Asia, we have been deeply saddened by the horrific killings in Mumbai and are also deeply concerned about the fallout of rising India-Pakistan tensions on the entire region.
We call upon all media professionals, especially in the television networks, to observe restraint in reportage and interpretation, and to be careful to avoid imbalance.
Media can exacerbate or ameliorate a situation: we are keenly aware of this, as journalists based in the various parts of South Asia who continue to seek a common future in peace.
Media must observe restraint: South Asian Editors. December 24, 2008
This call is a very notable effort but the call comes from those who have always been the voices of restraint and few of them belong to the all-critical television sector. The days of newspapers as the prime influencer of opinion is almost over and in these moments of instant replay and logic, it is the television with its absolute control of visual images that decides. They are not signatories as yet and till they do so, we shouldn’t be too hopeful. And even if they do, one needs to ponder if media workers are outside the framework of contemporary broadcasting systems responding more and more as the demands of a public wanting their needs for extreme images to be filled is increasingly insisting.
Restraint eats into profit
and patriotism
PART of the Mumbai media crisis of course is in the overwhelming nature of the hostile relationship between India and Pakistan. Although a few individuals in both countries are committed to peace and media sobriety, most aren’t and they would love to have a go at each other, good or bad TV. These two countries are two of the most jingoists of all countries and for them an endless supply of bitter bile is a basic staple for drawing attention. People love hating the other country in South Asia and when people translate into audience, it would be a very foolish broadcaster who would give up the audience that is the most lucrative section of them all.
Media in both countries are mostly profit-making projects and in India in particular they are about international tie-ins too, real big business. The US, for example, is interested in India and its affairs because it is the US’s closest ally in South Asia and also a counter to Pakistan, principal supplier of anti-US militants and also its vanguard state in its fight against the jihadists. The ambiguous relationship between the US and Pakistan is interesting because the US needs Pak assistance to fight Taliban and al-Qaeda but also hates it for all the bombers and planners it keeps sending and sheltering. In that contradictory relationship, India supplies a part of the answer to the discomforting puzzle. India allows demonisation of Pakistan without direct US intervention. Not that Pakistan is any less guilty of its using jihadists, militants, terrorists, etc in its fight with India and has done so for long destabilising Afghanistan in the process. As long as the US supported destabilisation in that country, even the ISI was an US ally but once power relationships shifted the enemy has become shadowy as well. So hatred in South Asia has global connections too.
The latest incident – the Mumbai massacre – was a telling example of how the US sees the Indian situation as an extension of its own ‘war on terror’. While the hotels were still in the hands of the landed terrorists, a leading US media outlet asked its Indian correspondent, ‘Now George Bush is going to address the media. What do the Indian people expect George Bush to tell them?’ The Indian correspondent of course said ‘not much because they have no idea of Bush is about to do’ but it was an attack seen as a smaller version of 9/11, an attack against the US.
As India emerges as the US’s proxy voice in the region, the problems are likely to heighten. And as Pakistan continues to be one of the most irresponsible states in the world, allowing its military to decide the trade routes of peace in the region, India and Indian media will respond in the same manner that causes concern and some cases fear.
Big money needs big blood on big screen TV
The other factor is in recouping investment in media by investors. War, hate, violence and blood along with sex make good television. A running camera doesn’t need an editor and the gory images are the best reports of them all to tell the truth and increase blood pressure. Indian television acted as a propaganda machine with a profit motive, doing the job for the jingoists and the merchants simultaneously. Its reporting not only heightened angry levels of blood but also drew in viewers and consequently ratings. All the TV channels were at war with each other with as much venom as they were with the terrorists and Pakistan because survival depended on it. So in the end we saw an escalation of tension, viewership and pressure on the government to act and do something. Profit always comes in such cases though with a price.
In case of Pakistan media, the case is much less complicated because those reporting fairly are bound to suffer greatly there. It is a country where laws of economics and democracy don’t operate freely and journalists are more in a state of conflict with its own state as much as it is with India. So even if they have a story that contradicts the official Pakistani line saying that the terrorists were linked to Pakistan intelligence, the chances of seeing that story in Pakistani media is nil.
That doesn’t stop Pak media from warmongering without official prompting just as in India. Mutual hate is not only profitable but also the test of patriotism in both countries.
The problem lies in both politics and economics. Both countries are using hate towards each other for other political objective and the ruling class does not have the imagination to find a fresh way out of the traditional ‘hate each other’ mantra that has sustained them in power for so long. The core symbol of this strategy is of course Kashmir and like the Cold War, one gains rather than loses from fanning antagonism. Just as the west had to look to ‘terrorism’ as a new glue of nation building after the fall of the Soviet Union, one also wonders which may/will be the new Kashmir once ‘Kashmir’ is laid to rest if ever.
The last two decades have also seen the rise of market journalism which has for a long while been considered the only way and beyond question. As long as people bought it, advertised and profits were raked in, it was considered good journalism everywhere but especially in the west. With the decline of the bloated market, media in the west too is in decline. Not only is the western newspaper writing its own obituary, but western TV has become largely a feeble entertainment provider rather than content provider reflecting the fragile intellectual structures of the west, desperately competing with each other. Market has forced out commonsense broadcasting and it’s not the place for balanced news and views but a not very smart space to find endorsement for whatever views one may hold. Compared to western media, Indian media and even Pak media is far more relevant and mature.
Himal attacked by govt supporters
Meanwhile in Nepal, Himal Media office and its journalists were attacked by people identified as supporters of the ruling Maoists. Himal media which publishes, Himal South Asian, Himal Khabar Patrika, Wave and Nepali Times is a leading news magazine agency of Nepal. The Himal group that had been critical of various actions including the arm twisting trade unionism tactics of the Maoist Party in recent months had already faced several attacks and threats. The recent attackers apparently demanded reinstatement of sacked staff and then attacked the office and the working journalists there, injuring them and damaging office equipments.
Nepal media in general has reacted by protesting in unison and editorial spaces were left blank in most publications the next day apart from journalists taking to the streets in demanding that elusive freedom for media. Nepalese prime minister Pushpa Kumar Dayal Prachanda has said Maoists were not responsible for the attack but some bad elements who have entered the party to cause trouble may have been. One can see it is a signal to Nepal media that free press and the version of socialism that the Maoists in Nepal wish to practice doesn’t include free press. Maoist media has now said the attack was organised by Himal media management. Not very imaginative but a standard method which we have seen before in Bangladesh too.
The conflict in Nepal is of a far more traditional type, the internal crisis of a non-functional democracy, the kind of problem we are familiar with. It is less complex than the Indo-Pak media conflict variety but no less violent and destructive. It shows how political parties in the name of the people they claim to serve refuse to allow criticism because critique is understood as a challenge to power and that is never tolerated.
The kind of no-holds barred reporting on Indian TV and the no-holds barred tactics of the Maoists are both part of a brotherhood of poor democratic structures, ancient systems of foreign policy making, traditional manipulation of public opinion for power, absolute notions of entitlement to benefits and power, etc that have grown over the years in South Asia. The free market Indian model and the strong arm censorship model shown in Nepal are both deadly. Whether we shall grow out of it is another issue.
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