(Text of editorial Appearing in the “Economic and Political Weekly)

The past week and more has witnessed a rising chorus of increasingly strident and, at the same time, confused demands on the Government of India to take strong measures against Pakistan for its act of killing and mutilating two soldiers at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu. The act itself was gruesome and a deliberate escalation by the Pakistan army of the low level war of attrition which has never entirely ceased on the LoC despite the ceasefire. Reports in newspapers have shown that even though the ceasefire agreement has led to a big reduction in hostilities on the LoC and allowed civilians much greater space to live and work, both the Indian and Pakistani armies have been guilty of various breaches to this agreement.

Despite its many cases of omission and commission in the manner of dealing with Pakistan, the Government of India has taken some steps over the past two years which are positive and have helped normalise relations. Much more could have been done and still needs to be done; however, the direction of relations between these two countries has been encouraging even if the pace has not been so. The recent decision to host the Pakistan cricket team in India, the decision to ease visa restrictions on the elderly and expanding trade have all been important measures that will help normalise relations, reduce the militarisation of the border, and foster democratic and progressive forces in both countries. It is important to remember that India-Pakistan relations are not merely those between two sovereign states, they are swayed by tortured histories of communalism, partition, sense-of-betrayal and jealousy. They are not just foreign relations but have an impact on domestic politics as well in ways which are unique, and often dangerous.

A reference to Pakistan in India’s public sphere is never only about an external country but also comes with – often direct, sometimes unsaid but always present – reference to the communal question within India. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its larger Sangh parivar regularly use Pakistan as a reference to India’s Muslims and it is a usage which goes well beyond. Recently there was news that electricity bills for a residential area in Mumbai had “Chota Pakistan” written in their address!

It is in this context that television news channels have picked up the news of the killing of Indian soldiers and the decapitation of one of them, allegedly by soldiers of the Pakistan army. It has not just been the reporting of news but rather the sustained and well-planned build-up of a mass hysteria over the issue. It is not just one, or a few, channels which are guilty of this. With a few, and notable exceptions, television news channels and anchors have competed with each other to get people angry and hysterical. Stilted news, half-truths, outright falsehoods, a careful selection of “opinion makers” and “experts” who push hawkish positions and a shrill intemperate language have all been deployed each evening in a calculated move to ratchet up anger in the drawing rooms (and by extension, the “street”) and thus enhance viewership. In this particular context, the television channels have single-handedly built up a serious, yet minor, issue into a national hysteria. The parties and politicians of the right – from the Shiv Sena who collected a bunch of stragglers to attack Pakistani hockey players to leader of the opposition, Sushma Swaraj who demanded 10 Pakistani heads for the one soldier who was beheaded – merely took up the issue which was built up from scratch by these television channels.

There are various reasons given for this behaviour of television news channels. These include the overcrowding of the television news space with more channels than are sustainable with the concomitant pressure on finances requiring increased advertisement revenues through higher viewership, which lead to the need to constantly create sensational news to lock in viewers. Television news channels are not only competing with each other for viewers but with general entertainment channels, sports channels and even non-television events as they try to get more eyeballs. Many of these pressures on television news are not unique to India and different media cultures have found solutions to this in ways that address their specific contexts. However, the Indian television media seems to have decided to use shrill chauvinism as a way out of this. The Kargil war of 1999 first illustrated the potential for such a business strategy but it was the terrorist attack on Mumbai in 2008 that finally seems to have convinced India’s television journalists of the profitability of rabid demagoguery. There is nothing inevitable about this business strategy and those who have initiated it and been its willing purveyors have to assume responsibility.

As various people have already noted, by getting coerced by television news’ manufactured hysteria and sending back the Pakistani hockey players and postponing the agreement on visa-on-arrival for the elderly, the Government of India has allowed its foreign policy to be held hostage by Indian television media’s dangerous chauvinism. There is no easy way out of this dead end that we appear to have reached. Government regulation of media is dangerous and unacceptable, but equally so is a media that often outdoes India’s virulent right-wing in stoking xenophobia. Can we think of creative methods of oversight on the media which do not involve government or corporate influence? Or perhaps, should we reclassify television news channels as general entertainment (of the “Big Boss” reality television variety) and deal with it accordingly?