To be a journalist

It now seems ages ago when, as a starry-eyed young man, I decided to become a journalist. It was an exciting time to be young, with the youth revolt beginning to spread in Western societies in the mid-1960s. But a military dictator was at the helm in Pakistan.

I remember an older friend arguing that journalism wouldn’t be so meaningful in the absence of press freedom. It would be restrictive and intimidating. “Why don’t you do your graduation and appear in the competitive examination,” I was advised. That was what any ambitious young man would want to do.

But I was in a hurry – and didn’t want to join the enemy. Besides, I had what I thought was a persuasive argument: that dictatorship wouldn’t be in power forever. In a few years, things were bound to change. We would move forward on a democratic path. There would be freedom and social advancement. It would be fun to be part of that movement. So, looking forward to a brave new world, I joined a leading English newspaper in Karachi as a reporter.

My intention here is not to be entirely autobiographical. Yes, I was lucky and journalism was not without its rewards. Yet, the freedom I had envisioned was never within my grasp and the expectation that I could be a participant/observer of a progressive social change was not realised. While we did struggle for what we believed in, the situation in the context of human rights and fundamental democratic freedoms has continued to worsen.

That is how we have arrived at where we are now. That the situation is so radically different from what it was around 50 years ago is beside the point. In fact, a hundred flowers should bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend in a digital world. But the media in Pakistan feels more restricted today than it did during that long night of Ziaul Haq’s martial law.

A reference to that time will be instructive. There was censorship for a time, with a spell of pre-publication censorship. Many stories of that time are recorded in Zamir Niazi’s ‘Web of Censorship’ – a book that I had persuaded him to write after his exhaustive chronicle of restrictions on press freedom, titled The Press in Chains’, was published while Zia was still at the helm.

But we were aware of the rules of the game. There was a movement for press freedom in which scores of journalists, including prominent ones, as well as press workers, courted arrest. One was not afraid to go to jail. It could even be a badge of honour, becoming a political prisoner.

The game now has no prescribed rules. What matters is that there is a sense of fear and insecurity. Travelling hopefully hasn’t allowed me to arrive at a happy place. The thought that a lifetime’s journey may have left me in the wilderness is forbidding.

One question that arises in this context is this: what are the uses of press freedom that we feel so aggrieved by its curtailment and absence? In a nutshell, we have that saying: ‘the press and the nation rise and fall together’. The freedom of the press is essentially an affirmation of freedom of thought and expression. It is rooted in the practice of democracy.

In any case, it is the responsibility of the journalist to tell truth to power. Since this is becoming more and more hazardous, many distortions have crept into this profession.

Since I have broached the issue in a somewhat subjective manner, I need to share the emotional pain that I suffer when I try to understand the overall drift of Pakistani society. Fifty years ago, I sensed that the movement was in the direction of a more enlightened, open and inclusive society. Jinnah, as a person, portrayed modernity. The wife of the first prime minister of this country, 70 years ago, was an inspiration for women. But as Faiz wondered: “Where did the breeze part company and where did the morning vanish?

We may quarrel about how Islamic Pakistan was meant to be in light of how Jinnah had defined its identity and purpose. But he had, for sure, rejected a theocratic dispensation and abhorred bigotry and extremism. And that is where we have almost arrived, if you bear in mind the embarrassing fiasco the ‘Naya Pakistan’ gladly subjected itself to over the economic advisory committee.

There are so many other, much more tragic, instances of how religious extremists have prevailed. What is incredible is that this triumph of violent extremism and intolerance is a reflection of what may be described as the ruling ideas. Unbelievably, any form of dissent and intellectual defiance against the powers that be is confused with disloyalty, even treason.

I have never felt as despondent and defeated as I do now, in the twilight moments of my long career as a journalist. Take this as a measure of what we have made of Pakistan that I am making this statement not in the time of a martial law or a military ruler. This is supposed to be a democratic government and we have just had a national election.

It was the same, for example, when Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his own guard who now lies buried in a veritable shrine. It was the same, also, when Mashal Khan was lynched on the campus of a university by fellow students – a vile deed that the author of a Greek tragedy would hardly be able to imagine. In that sense, we are really a spectacle for the world to behold.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com