Pak media goes gaga over l’affaire Aamir

As Muneeb Farooq says “the true face of India is now showing”, the smile on his face betrays the vicarious joy he derives while presenting the ‘Aamir Khan’ episode to his viewers.

His channel, Geo News, is one of the more moderate and balanced of Pakistani television, but even the Aapas Ki Baat programme that Farooq presents cannot avoid mocking at India.

The Pakistani media had already gone delirious with joy reporting ‘growing intolerance in India’. The ‘Dadri lynching’ has been frequently figuring in various programmes, Sudheendra Kulkarni’s black-painted face is on TV practically every day. References to India’s intolerance is embellished with rich visuals of Shiv Sena mobbing BCCI office during Pakistan Cricket Board chief, Shahryar Khan’s visit to Mumbai in October and of Shah Rukh Khan and Shabana Azmi lamenting that they cannot buy a flat in Mumbai because they are muslims.

And now, the Aamir Khan episode seems to have put Pakistani media on steroids. That “somebody like Aamir Khan should contemplate leaving India” has provided ample grist to its mills.

In the talk show, Aapas Ki Baat, Najam Sethi, a senior Pakistani journalist, a former interim Chief Minister of (Pakistani) Punjab and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Pakistan Cricket Board, tells his host Muneeb Farooq that “a good, interesting development” is happening in India. “What used to be said of us (non-secular), is being said of India” and “West’s romance with India is ending.”

According to Sethi’s analysis, Prime Minister Modi, unable to deliver on his promise of economic development, tried to divert peoples’ attention away by attacking muslims, but the tactic failed when people spoke up against intolerance. “The seeds of hatred that Modi sowed are now bearing fruit,” he said, amid visuals showing burning of Aamir Khan’s posters. The programme also shows clips of A R Rahman calling for non violence, but makes no mention of Raza Academy’s fatwa on him.

Surprisingly, Najam Sethi, who knows India well, also says that there is no television programme in India where things can be spoken openly “like we do here”. In India, there is “not so much freedom”, he observes, because the Indian media is in the grip of corporate India, which is a supporter of “Hindu India”.

In Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada kay saath, the news presenter shows clips of Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Nasiruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi and speaks of growing radicalisation of India and how “India is getting exposed”.

Awami TV said that “radicalisation has won” in India and that which is now out “in front of everybody’s eyes” and Aamir Khan was being “punished for speaking the truth”.

Grudging admiration too

However, there seems to be also a grudging admiration for the scope for dissent in India. Many TV channels and newspapers, while referring to ‘award wapsi’ and other voices against intolerance, also rue that such open dissent cannot happen in Pakistan.

A few weeks back, writing in Friday Times about the ‘Sudheendra Kulkarni black paint’ incident, journalist Syed Amir noted, “Pakistan, unfortunately, cannot speak from a higher moral ground.” Pointing to the “culture of militancy and religious intolerance” in Pakistan, Amir says, “significantly, unlike India, few voices have been raised in Pakistan against such atrocities for fear of reprisals by militants.”

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