The Hindu Business Line : Guidelines for the media

These days everyone in the Capital is talking about the proxy war between the Congress party and the BJP, the two outfits focusing, respectively, on the December 1999 Kandahar episode — where terrorists were bartered for hijacked passengers of an Indian (Airlines) aircraft — and the compulsory singing of Vande Mataram, which will have its centenary observed early next month.

When seen in this perspective, any and everything that crops up these days with regard to these two events will have to be seen through the prism of this inter-party rivalry, which at once robs all discussion of any intrinsic value from a longer term and/or national point of view.

The issue

It is against this background that the Foreign Secretary, Mr Shyam Saran's recent statement on the Kandahar issue should be seen, where the point was made that the then BJP government headed by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee messed up its act by declining to take action based on "sober analysis" of the fast-developing situation on the ground.

The partisan veneer of the Foreign Secretary's point of view can easily be comprehended if the diatribe made by the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mr Farooq Abdullah, in Parliament a couple of days earlier is taken into account, where the point was made that it was an unwilling Abdullah who had been forced to release the terrorist Masood Azhar (by Mr Vajpayee and his Home Minister, Mr L. K. Advani) to secure the release of the hostages.

This part of Mr Saran's interjection as far as the Kandahar episode is concerned can be easily construed as being part of the larger inter-party face-off, and can therefore be dismissed as a passing footnote.

But he said something else in course of his intervention which cannot be glossed over with equal felicity since it involves the functioning of the media which, in a full-fledged democracy, constitutes the eyes and ears of the people.

Media pressure

Among other things, Mr Saran is reported to have said that the BJP Government of the day was forced to adopt the course of action it finally did "under media pressure". Elaborating, he added (as reported) that media coverage of the event "complicated the decision-making and gave a burst of oxygen to the hijackers".

The Government found itself "in a bind as the media had blown the incident beyond proportion," the plight of the passengers and their relatives as reported "not (leaving) much option for the NDA government".

The important aspect of this reference to the media is Mr Saran's reported advice that the media should not play up terrorist activities because by doing so "we play into their hands," and this is precisely the "hype they are looking for."

Mr Saran may well be right in divining the intentions of the terrorists for, after all, they always aim at making the maximum impact on the people through their acts. But is it the duty of media to keep the truth away from the people when national security issues are not at stake? Is it not the duty of a strong and purposeful government to take the action it feels should be taken in the national interest, even if it knows that such action may detract from its `popularity'?

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

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