On the media’s curious near blackout of the storm that is brewing in the Punjab police
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and small minds discuss people. I had used this quote of Eleanor Roosevelt in an earlier column to take a shot at columnist and talk show regular Haroon-ur-Rasheed. I shouldn’t have. Not because the fellow doesn’t deserve it (his brand of “analysis” deserves far worse) but because singling him out is odd. The entire media is devoid of a discussion on ideas. Whether this is because there would be little viewership for it or because the anchors and pundits are ill-prepared bares little relevance to the sad reality that the highlights of our talk shows are screaming matches.
Consider the ongoing behind-the-scenes developments in the Punjab police. Barring some, including Capital TV’s Ejaz Haider, there have been few to have taken a deep look at the development. The Punjab CM’s penchant for new and shiny things has gotten him thinking that a new force is needed to fight terrorism. Why not the existing police force, ask policemen, serving and retiring. The police station, after all, is your basic, most effective unit of collecting intel and is both the first interceptor and first responder in terror activities. They’re clearly not doing a good job, comes the terse reply. Well, that’s merely an argument for police reform, not a separation. In a lot of cases, it is simply an argument for more resources.
But the idea has caught the CM’s fancy. This has resulted in what would appear to be a full-blown mutiny by those officers of the Police Service of Pakistan that are serving in the Punjab. Even if they do decide to resign en masse, there is the chance that the CM is quite ok with this and simply replaces them.
Ask anyone, any relevant academic, chances are that he or she is going to agree with the PSP officers. Separating the police from counter-terror operations is a rather silly idea. But even if a channel weren’t of the same persuasion, surely the collusion of such a larger number of officers at Lahore’s CPO would have made news by way of the “average minds” register. It was an event unlike any other in recent past.
Perhaps the media wants to tackle terrorism the way a moribund government would. Much huffing and puffing after events take place, not before them. And then forget about them till the next untoward incident takes place.
How to handle terror. And what liberties, if any, we are to lose in this war is the question that has plagued the Americans and the British alike. As it has democracies the world over. For this, there needs to be measured and nuanced debate and no single side should be allowed to hold sway. Those arguing for a stern SOP should be kept at bay by those concerned about our civil liberties. But nuts from the latter persuasion should be brought back to the realities of our times as well. All this requires debate and discussion on ideas, which our TV channels should facilitate. But it will take the political parties’ cooperation as well. They should also put their best foot forward on such matters. The PTI should not send, for instance, a perpetually screaming Naz Baloch to such shows, nor should the League send the likes of Abid Sher Ali.
Also how about we, as viewers, start eating our vegetables and start improving our intellectual diet?
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No Aam Party
Ever since the state elections in Delhi, India, the PTI’s talking heads have taken to comparing themselves with the Aam Aadmi Party, which not only came a surprisingly close second in the polls but also went on to form the government with former rival Congress’ “not unconditional” support.
Now the analogy may or may not be true. And even if it is, even the best of analogies break down somewhere, so all that the PTI’s talking heads would want to draw the parallel with is the whole new-party-which-shook-the-older-ones bit.
Now the problem here is that the AAP, like the PTI, is devoid, really, of ideology. One can surmise from implied positions that the former veers towards the left and the latter, we knew from much earlier, is resolutely towards the right. Other than that, they are we-will-make-the-trains-run-on-time parties.
The AAP has suddenly announced that they will slash the power tariffs for certain usage slabs in the state by half. One is not privy, really, to the economics of generation and transmission in the state so any comment would be ungrounded. One wouldn’t know whether this is cheap populism that is irresponsible public finance or a well-thought out relief effort where the math adds up.
All those comparisons will soon be coming to bite the KP government. Matters are compounded by how the federal power ministry – in response to what appeared to be a rhetorical demand by speakers in the PTI’s anti-inflation rally to hand over PESCO to the provincial government – promptly announced that it would, indeed, hand over the DisCo to the provincial government by early January.
Is this going to be enough rope to hang themselves with?
At any rate, expect spirited (and ill-informed) debates on the power sector in the talk shows to come.
