(UTV | COLOMBO) – When media is called the fourth pillar of the state, it means that like other three pillars, it is supposed to play its check-and-balance role which obviously demands that media should never be in league with those at the helm of affairs.
It is this check of media on the government and other powerful players that makes the media look like a hostile entity especially towards the ruling lot.
There is nothing wrong as far as this ‘hostile’ characteristic of media tends to maintain socio-political balance besides attempting to identify the weaknesses and leakages in the ongoing systems for their improvement and capacity-building.
Isn’t it strange that a large part of Indian media is acting, for years and years together, like an ‘Atoot Ung ‘ (integral part) of the state organs even in matters that are supposed to be exposed by the media?
Take, for instance, different Delhi governments’ brutal and inhuman policies about Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) which is perhaps the only (or one among very few) example of forced military occupation, suppression and oppression in the comparatively more civilized world of today ( meaning thereby in a world that ababdoned such ruthless practices much earlier, at least on the face of it).
Highest degree and frequency of bestialities have been unleashed on innocent, hapless Kashmiris especially those demanding their due right of self-determination: gang-rapes, mass graves, black laws like PSA and AFSPA conferring detention powers of magistrates on soldiers, curfews, siege and what not.
These brutalities have continued for decades but India media, on the whole, failed to expose these cruelties.
And now, to add insult to injury, some segments of Indian media have openly accepted the role of Indian government’s and Indian establishment’s stooge by starting a regular weather program on Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), Muzaffarabad and Mirpur.
The intent is clear as declared on the Indian screen. Words like POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) and “India’s GB” have been used which is a clear harbinger of India’s jingoistic leadership’s designs as well as of its establishment.
These proxy wars through media are an unwelcome sign for the region which is yearning for peace for quite some time.
It certainly takes us to the conclusion that Indian media, as a whole (barring a few sane elements) has remained hand in glove with the destroyers of peace.
By – Mian Saifur Rehman
