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Journalism of Courage
These columns were compelled,shortly after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year,to call out the electronic media in particular and people of influence in general who were helping to create a near-hysterical sense of crisis through repeated,fact-free,speculation about Pakistan or of Indias changed attitude to that country. Now,after an attack similar in conception if not in horror,there are very real concerns that such irresponsibility will once again take root,hobbling the Indian governmental response to the attack on Sri Lankas cricketers in Lahore,creating a climate of fear and testosterone a climate that government will have to take crucial,unaffordable time and resources away from the real reaction to calm.
Given that many in government would be very happy to avoid having to do that,it wouldnt be surprising if the groans were loud and sustained when they heard Congress spokesman Manish Tewari relieve himself of his measured opinion on the subject of Pakistan. Tewari,not hitherto known for his magisterial grasp of foreign affairs,informed a startled public that Pakistan,a nuclear-armed state,was not only a failed state but fast becoming the Somalia of South Asia. Somalia,as the current issue of Foreign Policy points out,is a warlord-riven,pirate-ridden husk of a state where the sole functioning international airport has a runway truncated by the wreck of a shot-down commercial airliner,and where new arrivals are greeted with a small immigration form that asks for name,address and calibre of weapon.
