NEW DELHI, JULY 10: Just when everything seems to go swimmingly for India in the information war, the Government has to do something silly. Like blocking access to the supposedly pro-Pakistan Government newspaper The Dawn and inviting criticism from the Western media, as well as the Pakistan press.While the highly-regarded online American magazine, Salon, has panned the ``giant nation's online censorship of a Pakistani newspaper'' which ``highlights its disturbing hold on the Internet'', the editors of the two affected Pakistani newspapers, The Nation and The Dawn, have sought help from fellow journalists in India.Information and Broadcasting ministry sources insist that though the decision was taken by the Communications Ministry, they stand by it. ``These are psychologically charged times and we cannot afford to have any trouble. That's the reason we banned Pakistan TV.''But the Editor of The Nation, Arif Nizami, who is also president of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, has already written to Ajit Bhattacharjea, President of the Editors' Guild of India, calling the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited's action ``hard to understand'' and ``even harder to justify''. Bhattacharjea, who received an earlier letter from Nizami on the banning of Pakistan TV, believes there is little point in sending this note to the Government for any action ``given the stance taken by the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pramod Mahajan''.And even as the VSNL server for the dawn.com site continues to be shut down, the Chief Executive of the Dawn group of newspapers, Hameed Haroon, has appealed to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, saying the action ``does great discredit to India's democratic credentials''. As Haroon points out: ``Dawn has an influential, albeit small readership in India consisting of policy-makers, think tanks, diplomats, journalists and academics, all of whom read it to gain an insight into the perceptions of the more moderate and influential elements of Pakistani public opinion. Failure to understand these perceptions can only lead to further misunderstanding between both nations.'' He adds that website remains blocked, ``Despite the two letters I have written to the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad''.He couldn't be more right. Even now if you access jang.com.pk, you will find in it opinion that may well have been written by the sternest Indian critics of the Pakistan Government. For instance, Senate member, Shafqat Mahmood, writes on the blackout of Sharif's return to Pak from Washington: ``They want to hide their faces because they themselves, not just their detractors, see the Washington trip as deeply embarrassing. They recognise the political cost of what is widely being seen as a sellout.'' Another opinion piece by Imtiaz Gul talks of how the Indians are having the last laugh in the Kargil crisis.Yet thanks to the short-sightedness of the Government, India is now being berated in Salon for its ``frighteningly restricted'' connectivity with the rest of the world. It adds, more cuttingly: ``India looks stupid for trying to stop Indians from reading Pakistan's Dawn. But it's even more absurd, in this day and age, to believe that the Internet could do anything to resolve such a conflict.'' Top
