- Fascist tendencies were visible even before coming to power
The writing is now officially on the wall; Tabdeeli Sarkar is coming for the media. The signs were always there. Since before the PTI came into power, every now and then Imran Khan would show glimpses of his fascist tendencies by naming and shaming media houses that refused to peddle his line or chose to exercise their independence when it came to editorial decisions. He then started targeting individuals within the media, naming and shaming them for imagined slights. Who cared if anything could be proven or if by going after respected experienced journalists, he was making their lives hellish both in the real world and on social media? All that mattered to him was that by accusing all those who refused to bow to him, he was reinforcing in his followers a siege mentality, a sense of it’s us against the world.
The government’s plans to clamp down on any opposing point of view was made all the more obvious when our selected prime minister held an impromptu talk at a US think tank during his tour of Washington. Instead of representing a nation that now more than ever needs to effectively present its case to the world at large, the Prime Minister instead focused on airing his personal grievances to those in attendance. While whining about his own clashes with the media, he let slip his ideals on clamping down on the media in the guise of “empowering a media watchdog”. Those who heard the alarm bells ring when the Prime Minister said this, did so for a reason. As soon as this government had come into power, it immediately stopped giving advertisements to the media, even going as far as not paying newspapers and electronic media outlets for advertisements already published. The aim was simple, to cripple media houses financially and then start giving them just enough to keep them subservient to the government’s will. Those who dared to call the government out on its thuggish policies were completely boycotted in terms of government advertisements, a very important source of revenue for all media outlets, and some of them were even taken off the air in most parts of the country, without any due process or any notice. We saw how media houses were forced to lay off a significant part of their workforce– people who have spent their lives serving the country’s journalism industry and who have now been left with nothing to show for it and nowhere to go. This clampdown on the media also led to widespread pay cuts across the industry at a time when inflation is already hitting new heights largely in part because of this government’s incompetent and clueless approach to economics.
If we the people and especially those in the media do not come together and act, I fear the repercussions of what the government has planned will cost us all very dearly in the years ahead
And now the government has finally stopped pretending. Last week the advisor to the prime minister on information, during a press talk, unveiled the government’s latest scheme to clamp down on dissenting voices in the media. Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan put forth the idea of establishing media courts, claiming that these courts would help the government ensure that media workers get their due rights within their organisations. The truth of the matter is that the government wants to use the courts to harass and intimidate those few dwindling sections of the media that refuse to bend to the PTI’s will and continue to call the government out on both its excesses and its hypocrisies. No one should be any under illusion that the government was just suggesting this idea and that too for honourable reasons. The reasons why the government wants this are anything but honourable, and this is not just an idea, it’s a full-fledged plan that the government wants to put in place as soon as possible. If the government had actually been serious about strengthening the media and bringing an element of accountability to the industry, it only needs strengthen and improve libel laws in the country. But that would mean that Imran Khan would probably lose a hundred cases a day in libel courts, because he has made an art form out of spewing hateful falsehoods against all those who he dislikes.
For all the talk of strengthening the so called media watchdog, the fact is that the cat is now out of the bag, and if we the people and especially those in the media do not come together and act, I fear the repercussions of what the government has planned will cost us all very dearly in the years ahead.
The writer is a Member of the National Assembly belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz