Recently, a well-known TV anchor called me for a primetime discussion on terrorism after 7 I asked who the others on the panel were. Prof Zoya Hasan and M.J. Akbar, he said. I pointed out that an all-Muslim panel will give the wrong signal. The idea was straightforward: three Muslims in the firing line, cowering/defensive or shrill It would place the anchor several notches above the frothing trio and make for an exciting 30 minutes. Don’t get me wrong. The anchor is not a communalist. It is the imperative of ratings which dictates callous programming. In a free-for-all market scenario, a reflective programme on a serious issue is fraught with risks not worth taking. A quality programme with serious content may cause advertisers to defect. This is the fear that makes cowards of programmers.Another star anchor invited Shahabuddin and me for a discussion on Bihar politics. He produced a report of some antiquity but projected it as something he had pulled out hot from the press. The report was on alleged Muslim disenchantment with Laloo Prasad Yadav. We, the trapped panelists, had two options: either to go for Laloo’s jugular (as Muslims) or to sing his praises. In doing either, we would have legitimised the report whose origins, in hindsight are, by universal consent, spurious.Decades old audiotapes of an unidentifiable drunk are played out over five days. The tapes are supposed to be actor Salman Khan threatening Aishwarya Rai for not appearing in a show organised by Abu Salem. Salman also brags about his involvement in the ’92 Bombay riots. Salman, killer of black bucks, friend of the Bombay underworld, is all over our screens even as the police run around in circles. Some firebrand Hindutva types are already brandishing their trishuls. Then suddenly the story disappears without a trace.In Charthwal village in Muzaffarnagar district, Ali Mohammad rapes Imrana, his daughter-in-law, and a helpful fatwa from Deoband enables him to keep her as his wife. For weeks the story dominates the channels and front pages. It is now confirmed that neither was there a rape nor a fatwa. No corrections are issued. Meanwhile, newsdesks have been alerted to the idea that stories of fatwas embarrassing to the Muslims has a growing audience.But nothing boosts ratings better than the location of hard-core terrorists in Muslim enclaves. An opportunity offers itself. A film roll is discovered showing Kashmir-related terrorists in training apparently in cahoots with Deoband. It takes days before the story is found to be bogus. This does not deter fatwas and terrorists making regular appearances in usual news slots. It must be tough on Deoband to cope with this escalating media assault.Some of it is a function of ignorance. Not many in the media know about, say, Maulana Hasrat Mohani. He was a leading member of the Jamiat-ul-Ulemai Hind. As member of the Constituent Assembly, he refused to occupy official accommodation. He slept on a mattress at Masjid Abdul Nabi on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The Maulana never missed the annual Haj but considered his Haj incomplete until he had visited Barsana for a darshan of Radha. As a romantic poet he ranks among the best, but he is with Nazir Akbarabadi and Seemab Akbarakabadi in his colourful depiction of Lord Krishna’s childhood. He refused to sign the Constitution because it was not radical enough to “address the needs of India’s poor”. Here is a character Deoband can possibly project provided, of course, it accepts the Maulana the way he was.Quite independent of the Indian media’s uninformed and unsympathetic approach to the subject, issues of jihad and terrorism have been further complicated by the so-called “global war on terror” giving impetus to the already existing negative impulses within the country. India cannot distance itself from the global war for crucial strategic reasons. Such a disengagement would release pressure on Islamabad. The important formulation on crossborder terrorism, which forms the crux of the January 6, 2004 Islamabad declaration, would then lose its purpose. Participation in this war on terror gives legitimacy to the media’s relentless quest for jihadis within, which, with careless editing and lazy programming, begins to touch limits where Muslims find themselves demonised.The mushrooming of news channels will, in the long run, curb tendentious TV because people will get bored with unidimensional coverage. On this subject, there is a lesson to be learnt from the western media. The biggest reversal that the western liberal establishment has suffered was during the operations on Afghanistan and Iraq. It led to a near total collapse of the electronic media’s credibility. The print media has, by and large, seen the writing on the wall and regained balance. This will, gradually, have its impact on the electronic media as well. A phenomenon like Cindy Sheehan, mother of the US soldier killed in Iraq, now camping outside the Bush ranch at Crawford is a consequence of two factors: declining credibility of the media which is part of the war effort, and a rapid rate of conversion in the media against what is increasingly seen as the Cheney-Rumsfeld war.The collapsing consensus on Iraq is sought to be replaced by introducing more glue into the apparatus being erected for the war against terror. This will work as long as terrorists, jihadis, intelligence operatives continue to oblige with 9/11s and 7 But scepticism, without which good journalism is not possible, will soon set in. Who knows, a reformed BBC, eager to rediscover its once peerless credibility, may sponsor a series of well researched, balanced documentaries on “jihad”. The authors may even stumble upon John Buchan’s wartime thriller (1914), Greenmantle: “It looks as if Islam had a bigger hand in the thing than we thought” I said. “You are right — there is a Jehad preparing.” “Supposing they had got some tremendous sacred sanction — some holy thing.which will madden the remotest Moslem peasant with dreams of Paradise?” “Then there will be hell let loose”.This “jehad” was brewing in European minds before the First World War. As A.F.S. Talyarkhan used to ask: “Do you get me, Steve?”
