Pathetic Express

I don't watch Kamran Shahid's show. I really don't. That's why I had to be told by another Pyala that I should probably see what happened on his show on Express TV yesterday. Having now seen the show in its entirety, I can safely say that my initial position was well-founded.

Here was a show on Balochistan, whose dire situation is, thankfully, finally receiving some space in the media that has long shut its eyes hoping uncomfortable truths would all just go away. Recently there have been a few eloquent and blood-curdling pieces in the print media as well as no-nonsense coverage on some television channels. Some of the best coverage in the mainstream print media has been in Dawn: Here is veteran journalist I. A. Rehman today on "Balochistan's Agony", here is writer Mohammed Hanif's heart-rending front-page piece on February 11 on "The Baloch Who Is Not Missing", and here is Dawn's strong editorial on the same subject a day after. Some of the best programmes on Balochistan have been on the channel everyone loves to hate, Geo. Geo's Lekin, hosted by Sana Bucha, has raised difficult questions about Balochistan a number of times and a recent edition of Aapas Ki Baat provided a very balanced primer on the issues via the programme's in-house analyst Najam Sethi. Even Hamid Mir on Capital Talk has done a series of hard-hitting and much needed programmes on the subject.

Let's just say Kamran Shahid's Frontline will never make that list of thought-provoking programmes.

I watched the first half of the show uncomfortably, not because of the issues that were being discussed, but because of the host's obvious duggapan - I'm sorry but there is no other word that comes to mind for him. He has a knack of making even valid questions seem like cluelessly crude rhetoric. But while discussing a situation as much of a political tinderbox as Balochistan has become, possibly the last thing an anchor sitting in the Punjab should be doing is making incendiary statements with little sense of how they could and would be perceived. In any case, while it was a tense viewing experience things did not completely deteriorate, thanks mainly to the patience of both former Chief Minister Akhtar Mengal and the PPP's Lashkari Raisani, who answered fairly provocative questions without erupting.

And then all hell broke loose. Kamran Shahid took Jamhoori Watan Party head and son of slain Baloch leader Akbar Bugti, Talal Bugti, on line and this is what followed with All Pakistan Muslim League representative Barrister Saif:




Now, there are times when really one is at a complete loss for words. What can I really say here that is not totally, utterly and absolutely self-evident?

Yes, Talal Bugti's regurgitation of his old rhetoric calling for the vigilante killing of General Musharraf (which we have criticised before here) was uncalled for, but Barrister Saif's violent and blatantly vulgar response was in this case even more reprehensible and condemnable. If there is a bigger villain, however, it is Kamran Shahid, the producers of his crappy show and the management of Express TV who allowed this exchange to go on air. Note how all of them were content to let this utter hogwash continue for a full two and a half minutes after it became clear that things were getting out of hand. Why? Simply because it is now considered a good ratings booster to have such conflagarations on television. And if people cross the line, all the better. In fact, Express has had a similar experience before with Talal Bugti which is obviously why they decided to pit him once again against a Musharraf supporter.

It's about time that PEMRA woke up and put an end to this sorry trend that almost makes you yearn for the sobriety of the old Pakistan Television. Pathetic. An uttterly pathetic excuse for a 'talk show'. And even more pathetic that such ratings chicanery should be played out on a topic as important as Balochistan.

Line of the Day

From an oped about the treatment meted out to Veena Malik on Kamran Shahid's tabloidy Front Line programme on Express, titled "Our Obsession With the Inane" by Kamila Hyat in The News today:

"Of course a Pakistani man cavorting with a Hindu man would not have raised so much as an eyebrow."

If for some reason, you wonder what we're getting at, read the line again. For all we know, this may not be a typo and she may have a point...

Have been meaning to do a post on this whole issue but have been truly busy and fear it may already be too late. Meanwhile, DJ Shahrukh has come up with probably the best summarization of the saga and definitely the funniest:

Heavy Music

Oof! You think pop musicians are a 'community', 'one big happy family'? Well, you might want to watch this edition of Front Line with Kamran Shahid, which featured a no-holds barred, slash and burn squabble between some of pop music's leading lights. The programme was broadcast on Express TV on June 6.

Apparently this was Part 2 of a programme dealing ostensibly with corruption within non-governmental organizations (NGOs). On the panel were three pop stars - Abrarul Haq, Shehzad Roy and Jawwad Ahmed -  each of whom have set up their own NGOs to 'give back to the people of Pakistan' in the health and education sectors (why musicians were singled out for this programme, I do not know).

In any case, what started off as a rather interesting discussion about the efficacy of NGOs in the face of overwhelming social problems - Jawwad Ahmed's point that NGOs are no solution to structural problems that require overturning basic social relationships being a valid one - soon deteriorated when Abrar took Jawwad's general point as some sort of personal attack on his NGO's work. In fact, Abrar's umbrage at Jawwad's criticism of NGOs being held out as some substitute to state responsibility, quickly degenerated into invoking religion and patriotism. To be fair to him, his upset was perhaps also motivated by an irritation at Jawwad's sometimes self-righteous tone and his desire to leave aside rhetoric and do something practical. However, his refusal to even consider Jawwad's view as having any merit made him come across as petulant that his attempt to sell NGO jargon ("the four I's") was being sidetracked.

The tensions over philosophical points of view boiled over by the end of the programme into an ugly and very personal slanging match between the two, wherein both accused each other of corruption and embezzlement. If anyone came across well, it has to be said it was the youngest of the three panelists, Shehzad Roy, who displayed a remarkable maturity in keeping himself above the fray. In addition, he seemed to clearly understand both points of view and what the issue being debated was. Which is more than one can say for the host, Kamran Shahid - incidentally, the son of film actor Shahid, in case you did not know - whose bumbling interventions consisted entirely of trying to drag the discussion to the level of soundbites about corruption.

Here's the programme. The real ugly fireworks begin in the last part but if you have the time and interest in the philosophical issue, recommend watching the whole thing.


Part 1:






Part 2:





Part 3:





Part 4:






On the one hand, I am sort of happy to see that (at least some of) Pakistan's pop musicians can actually think of things beyond multinational sponsorships and weirdo conspiracy theories and talk about real issues with some intelligence. On the other, I doubt I could watch their music videos any more without thinking of this exchange.