Book review: Our bomb, their bomb by J Sri Raman
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Reporting Nuclear Pakistan: Security Perceptions and the Indian Press
By Teresa Joseph Reference Press, New Delhi; Pp391
It was less than two months after the nuclear tests that shook Pokharan, a desert site in Rajasthan. In July 1998, a group of journalists met in a now defunct drive-in restaurant in Chennai, the South Indian metropolis. Rounds of coffee and discussion, and we resolved to found a forum called Journalists Against Nuclear Weapons (JANW).
One of the first tasks we took up was a review of Indian media responses to Pokharan II as we christened the tests (Pokharan I being the so-titled peaceful nuclear explosion or PNE of 1974). We aimed to kill two birds with one stone: we wanted to show how the media, even of the elite variety, placed itself at the service of nuclear nationalism and militarism. JANWs review was also intended to demonstrate the fact that the state-manipulated, management-dictated coverage of the event did not represent a media consensus, as it excluded the views of dissenters within the media.
We were inspired in this by a communication we received from an Islamabad-based, Pakistani freelance journalist. He sent us a copy of a review he had done of the Pakistani medias responses to the Chaghai tests. We went ahead and brought out a slender publication titled The Media Bomb. (Available at
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The publication contained, besides the Pakistani colleagues article (reproduced as an appendix), two reviews of national newspapers, two of Tamil newspapers and periodicals, and one of Malayalam newspapers in this respect. We talked of the Indian medias attempt to sell the bomb as a ticket to superpower status and to downplay the internally divisive and economic aspects of the extravagant exercise of the religious-communal Right that had managed to capture power at last. Our friend focussed on the Pakistani medias encouragement of a similar folly of the establishment.
A notable omission even a conspicuous one, when you come to think of it was a review of the Indian medias responses to Chaghai, to Pakistans nuclear-weapon programme. This, it is clear in retrospect, should have been an essential, integral part of our evaluation. The blasts across the border played an important role in the rationalisation of the Indian bomb, even if the Pokharan explosions preceded them.
Teresa Joseph fills in this obvious gap. Avoiding the polemics that this reviewers profession is prone to, the Bangalore-based scholar brings out through meticulous research some major features of Pakistans strategic nuclear project as it figured in the Indian media, and a couple of revealing facts as well.
The author starts with a look at the significantly different security discourses in South Asia and the Indian press. In Pakistan, the regimes search for legitimacy has been reflected in the militarisation of politics with its continuous emphasis on threats...from external sources. The security imperative has been raised to the status of an ideology fundamental to the survival of the state.
In Indias case, however, the dominant security discourse envisages the idea of regional dominance, consistent with Indias self-perceived image as both the legitimate successor to the British Raj and the civilising power in the subcontinent.
Joseph adds: Indian civil society generally supports the idea of equating security with domination.
The Indian press, too, inherited the idea as a legacy of colonialism and the anti-colonial struggle. Independence brought a turning point in the history of the Indian press, bringing to an end the era of journalism as a mission. The media was left free to become an industry. However...the nationalist press assumed a largely supportive attitude towards the state in independent India...the press found it...inappropriate and unfair to be very critical of the new, fledgling state...given the strong tide of nationalism and anti-colonialism. The way to a pro-establishment press, especially in relation to foreign policy matters, was paved with such good intentions.
This line of evolution led inevitably to adoption by the media of a state-centric, state-dictated security paradigm. As the author sums up clinically: The major source of threats to the country has been projected as that arising from outside its borders. These threats often call for military responses, by way of enhanced capabilities. In the process, given the historical circumstances of the region, Pakistan has been projected as the major source of threats to the country in terms of external aggression as well as inciting trouble within.
A couple of points may be added to complete the picture. Over the past decade-plus, the enhanced military capabilities, sold by the state and the media as necessary to meet security threats, have come to include the nuclear. Over the past 46 years, China has also earned a place in the state-media showcase of security threats, with increased prominence as a result of the striving for a US-India strategic partnership in the recent period.
The section of the book dealing with the security paradigm in the Indian media cites several instances, ranging from the pompous to the puerile. Many of these provide delightful or disgusting examples (depending on how seriously you take them) of a multi-faceted campaign to demonise Pakistan. Elite, English-language newspapers supply the specimens, despite the myth that the Indian-language media alone is capable of such prejudiced and indecent propaganda.
My own favourite among these illustrations carries the prejudice and politics of Pakistan-bashing to the play field. This is a report from a respected national (or New Delhi-based) daily, which combines sports with security and compounds foul-play allegations with foreign policy apprehensions. The curtain-raiser on an India-Pakistan cricket series carries the headline: Can Saurav [Ganguly] and his men fulfil every Indians ultimate dream?
The story then opens with an even bigger bang: When Ian Botham stated that Pakistan is the place to send your mother-in-law for an all-expenses-paid holiday, he was not kidding. It is that sort of place...Ball-tampering, reverse swing, match-fixing, territorial strikes, bomb blasts, boycotts, threats, anything goes in Pakistan.
Similar projection of Pakistan has been done in a more sophisticated manner as well, especially in the contributions of the ever-growing community of security experts. The media has also had a corner for counter-narratives, as the author calls them. None of this, however, ever made any real departure from the dominant security discourse in the media, shown here as setting the stage down the decades for the decisive break in May 1998 with Indias past of nuclear ambiguity.
The Pokharan nuclear-weapon tests elicited paeans from the media that saw them as its own triumph as well. The end of Indias days as a leader of nations demanding global nuclear disarmament was greeted with cries of elation. A leading newspaper lauded the country for leaving the delightful club of the destitute and nearly entering the exclusive nuclear club. Pakistan, however, was not forgotten, and it continued to figure in the coverage of the event as well as comments upon it.
The study brings out the tactical flexibility of the media in its treatment of this aspect of the subject. Initially, the attempt was to downplay Pakistans capacity to answer the Pokharan detonations. While the tests unleashed a torrent of articles on the triumphant achievements of Indias scientific community, Pakistans nuclear capabilities were reported to present a marked contrast.
A major daily did not stop with front-paging then Home Minister Lal Krishna Advanis speculation that, unable to match Indian skills in science, Pakistan could extend terrorist activities in Kashmir and elsewhere. The paper also carried an article, which said: (Pakistan) has long been touted as being on par with India in the development of missile and bomb technology. How these analysts believe that a country incapable of producing a lathe can manufacture strategic equipment is unclear.
Then came the Chaghai tests. The same media set to work, along with the state, arguing that Pakistans nuclear capability had indeed compelled India to carry out the Pokharan tests. The External Affairs Ministry pointed to Pakistans tests as a confirmation of its possession of nuclear weapons and a vindication of Indias assessment ad policy. Quick to take the cue, the same daily quoted as scoffing at the neighbours skills reported that Pokharan II was triggered off by Pakistans announcement in April 1998 of readiness to test at short notice.
The irony of the I-told-you-so tone was lost upon the media, which had told its audience precisely the opposite barely a fortnight before. And, to this date, it has not told the people of what the reckless, post-1998 arms race between the nuclear-armed neighbours can spell for the region.
In one of her conclusions, the author recommends to the mass media of the region a delinking of news frame from its preoccupation with the dominant, traditional state security perspective. The mainstream Indian media may not be in a hurry to heed the counsel, judging by its response to the other delinking of the terrorism issue and the composite dialogue that a joint statement by the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan has called for.