Need for Issue Based TV Programming in Pakistan

In Pak­istan, issue based TV pro­gram­ming ought to be used for pro­mot­ing peace, advo­cat­ing tol­er­ance, resolv­ing con­flicts and encour­ag­ing gen­der and sex­u­al diver­si­ty.

Through­out his­to­ry the­ater and arts have played an impor­tant role in chang­ing peo­ple’s lives. First, by help­ing them see their lives and prob­lems clear­ly, then by serv­ing as a tool for under­stand­ing the dilem­mas of soci­ety they live in and last­ly by help­ing them iden­ti­fy effec­tive solu­tions for these prob­lems. Recent­ly, a doc­u­men­tary the­ater play Teesri Dhun on the strug­gles of Khawa­ja Sira com­mu­ni­ty was per­formed at Al Ham­ra in Lahore. Pre­sent­ed by Olo­mopo­lo Media in part­ner­ship with Naz Pak­istan, the play was aimed at enabling the mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ty group to exam­ine their issues col­lec­tive­ly, ana­lyze the caus­es behind these issues, explore avenues of poten­tial action, and cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for such actions. The­ater, film and TV can help mak­ing con­cepts coher­ent and real for peo­ple. These medi­ums engage their audi­ences both intel­lec­tu­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, lead­ing to sen­si­ti­za­tion towards issues, ideas and peo­ple por­trayed and engen­der a per­son­al con­nec­tion with events and char­ac­ters unfold­ing in front of them. If the impact and suc­cess of Teesri Dhun is any indi­ca­tion, the­ater, film and TV in Pak­istan have tremen­dous scope in cre­at­ing accep­tance for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty and sen­si­tiz­ing gen­er­al pub­lic on these issues. The cur­rent trend on TV is to por­tray the sex­u­al minor­i­ty groups in neg­a­tive light or to employ such char­ac­ters for com­ic relief in dif­fer­ent shows.

How does the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of these mar­gin­al­ized groups on TV affect soci­ety’s atti­tude toward them in real life? Renowned psy­chol­o­gist Maq­bool Babri believes that soci­ety today is lit­er­al­ly shaped by the media. “There is ample research to prove that films, TV Pro­grams and news Bul­letins leave a cer­tain impact on the mind and per­son­al­i­ty of their audi­ences”, said Mr.Babri. “In Pak­istan, most peo­ple are now wary of each oth­er and their view of the soci­ety they live in is very neg­a­tive. There is a gen­er­al feel­ing of dis­trust fuelled by sen­sa­tion­al news bul­letins and most peo­ple now think that every­one around them is extreme­ly self­ish”, he added.

Although media in Pak­istan is dom­i­nat­ed by the pri­vate sec­tor at the moment, that was not the case when PTV was launched in 1962. Con­trolled by the state, PTV was the only TV sta­tion then. How­ev­er, despite being a pub­lic sec­tor enti­ty, sel­dom did PTV pro­grams pro­voke hatred or hurt sen­ti­ments of the minori­ties be it reli­gious or sex­u­al. “In our train­ing at PTV, we were specif­i­cal­ly told nev­er to show dis­re­spect towards trans­gen­der peo­ple and effem­i­nate boys and present their image in a neg­a­tive man­ner. That is evi­dent from my dra­mas as well as all of oth­er dra­mas of PTV”, said Asghar Nadeem Syed, a promi­nent TV writer. Such were the high stan­dards of the train­ings pro­vid­ed. Things have changed a lot now. Pak­istan is a dif­fer­ent coun­try. Last year, a renowned TV celebri­ty and self pro­claimed Islam­ic schol­ar Amir Liaqat fueled the fire against reli­gious minori­ties by pro­mot­ing hatred against them. His­tor­i­cal­ly, var­i­ous polit­i­cal regimes in the past have been using the pow­er of state run media to attain polit­i­cal mileage. How­ev­er, one thing com­mon under all regimes has been adher­ence to non-vio­lence and respect for the rights of minor­i­ty groups. Much has been undone by the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of media and hijack­ing of the agen­das by the entre­pre­neur­ial inter­ests of pri­vate media elite. “We are free to write what­ev­er we want, as long as the con­tent we cre­ate is attuned to the inter­ests of the chan­nel own­ers”, said Samee who is the lead writer for a pop­u­lar com­e­dy sketch show on a pri­vate chan­nel. “When it comes to media ethics, val­ues and respon­si­ble jour­nal­ism, the pro­grams of TV chan­nels owned by jour­nal­ists are more mature and slight­ly bet­ter than the shows on chan­nels owned by politi­cians, bureau­crats and busi­ness­men”, he fur­ther added.

A house wife, Saee­da, when ascer­tained on the issue replied with utter dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the qual­i­ty of TV pro­grams. “Nowa­days, there is a broad spec­trum of TV dra­mas that I can watch on my cable TV. How­ev­er, the qual­i­ty of the dra­mas has immense­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed com­pared to the good old days of PTV. The stan­dards have fall­en dras­ti­cal­ly from the time when Ruhi Bano, Uzma Gillani and Khail­da Riasat were on my screen. The dilem­ma is that I do not have an option. I can either watch what­ev­er is on offer or don’t watch TV. In order to pass my time, I choose to watch this junk.” A stu­dent of Phi­los­o­phy at Pun­jab Uni­ver­si­ty, Has­s­san Arshad, com­ment­ed that “I don’t even watch Pak­istani dra­mas. When­ev­er I switch on TV, I find some woman cry­ing, which I can­not relate to. So, I down­load Amer­i­can TV shows and watch them.” The young­sters are com­plete­ly obliv­i­ous to the hap­pen­ings on TV in Pak­istan.

The need of the hour is to tilt the bal­ance of Pak­istani dra­mas in favor of issue based TV pro­gram­ming. In the past, sev­er­al Pak­istani dra­mas have bro­ken away with the set tra­di­tions of the soci­ety and pre­sent­ed non-con­form­ing ideas for the change of atti­tude toward a cer­tain issue. For instance, in Shah­zori (60’s), a woman would go out of home and work and her hus­band who was rather effem­i­nate will stay home and cook. In effect, it epit­o­mizes the role rever­sal which were path break­ing for that era. Like­wise, Jan­jalpu­ra and Aan­gan Ter­ha had rep­re­sent­ed trans­gen­der peo­ple in a con­struc­tive man­ner with­out triv­i­al­iz­ing their prob­lems. Lat­er on, with the advent of Cable TV, Moorat and Qadoosi Sahab ki Bewa have fol­lowed suit. Issue based TV plays like Mar­vi based on aban­don­ing long estab­lished con­ser­v­a­tive tra­di­tions, Nijaat which was based on fam­i­ly plan­ning, Zaib-un-Nisa on dis­cour­ag­ing domes­tic vio­lence, Ankahi, Tan­hayan and Sha­zori on gen­der empow­er­ment had a strong impact on our soci­ety. These TV plays were per­fect vehi­cles to high­light impor­tant issues, raise aware­ness and put the soci­ety on the right path.

In short, there is a strong evi­dence for the pro­duc­tive role which media can play in shap­ing the atti­tude of the view­ers. How­ev­er, the deci­sion mak­ers and the reg­u­la­tors as well as the dra­ma indus­try at large need to real­ize the respon­si­bil­i­ty which is entrust­ed on them to lead the soci­ety in a pos­i­tive tra­jec­to­ry. Most of the prob­lems our soci­ety is fac­ing today arise from intol­er­ance, vio­lence and lack of accept­abil­i­ty. The recog­ni­tion of the poten­tial of issue based pro­gram­ming in Pak­istan to pro­mote tol­er­ance, respect and safe­ty of mar­gin­al­ized groups in soci­ety is a dire need. The pro­duc­ers, direc­tors, writ­ers, actors, as well as the view­ers them­selves should assume the respon­si­bil­i­ty for a soci­ety free of dis­crim­i­na­tion, hatred and vio­lence.