VIEW: The case against ‘the people’! —Hassan Iftikhar

While media outlets remain corporate entities, profiting and expanding all the while, the situation demands a villain to crusade against. And since politicians are few and the population many, any self-serving marketing guru would point to where the profits really are

On behalf of ‘the people’, newspapers and news channels, columnists and anchors are furious at the government. Every day thousands of words are written and spoken, highlighting and analysing the failure of the government to govern properly. We are told stories of deceit, treachery and corruption, of how the current government has lost its bearings, of how ‘the people’ in the streets have been alienated.

The mention of these oft-cited words has become so necessary in our lives that we have convinced ourselves of the narrative that ‘the people’ are indeed the aggrieved ones. This narrative flouted incessantly by media barons and their employees has hence become a cliché. Everyone from the simpletons in the roadside teashops to the ‘enlightened moderate’ crowd of the coffee shops in the cosmopolitans seem to be of the view that the current government is the root of all evils in Pakistan. Any other narrative is simply unacceptable to society trying so hard to look for a scapegoat.

The popular consensus amongst people, we are told, is that the current government is corrupt and nihilist. The poor and the downtrodden are being trampled upon, while government officials lavish in fine foreign postcodes we are told. The banishing of these senseless, remorseless and opportunistic people will herald a new era for the ‘the people’, we are assured. And people cheer and jeer these sermons, delivered from studios based in foreign lands. It would almost seem as if the media has found the pulse of the people.

But there is a fundamental issue with the narrative of the government having failed ‘the people’. There is no such thing or species as ‘the people’ in Pakistan. It is just a figment of their imagination, for Pakistan has no such thing as a ‘people’. It has a population, an always expanding herd of individuals brought together merely by fate and common interests.

That the myth of ‘the people’ still exists in the time and day of such media revolt is a sign that plurality in media does not guarantee a safeguard against ‘churnalism’. So, while media outlets remain corporate entities, profiting and expanding all the while, the situation demands a villain to crusade against. And since politicians are few and the population many, any self-serving marketing guru would point to where the profits really are. When the media organisations refer to trials and tribulations of ‘the people’ or ‘the masses’ or the rather statically inaccurate ‘180 million people’, they are merely playing to the galleries.

The media accuses politicians of the same crimes, deceit, treachery and corruption that are common, acceptable practices in every nook and corner of the country. The times of breaking the law being a privilege of the few are now gone. Today, the only moral authority that the masses have over the few, is the scale, not the absence of crime and corruption. And this is what initiates the ‘aggrieved’ narrative. But you would not find this in editorials, or in news items. We do not read news stories about juveniles riding bikes or driving cars on our roads, unless they are the offspring of someone influential.

There are no news stories or special investigations into how encroachment on both state and private property has become a national trait. How traffic signals have lost their meaning. How we excel at electricity theft. How our houses are built without prior approval, or any planning permission. How we take the liberty to erect commercial structures on residential property and refuse to pay any commercial tax on them. How we refuse to pay any taxes at all. Or how the masses or the people have constantly left their political leaders to hang out and dry.

Why are the military dictatorships of Ziaul Haq and Musharraf vilified while ‘the people’ who chose to be silent spectators are glorified? Why are there not any investigative journalists with decades of experience trying to unearth the mystery of how the people could let Mr Bhutto be hanged? Do the people still not claim that Mr Bhutto was a competent leader?

Or maybe, the case of Mr Sharif would be of interest to them. Elected in 1997 with a two-thirds majority in parliament never seen before in the history of the country, two years later, Mr Sharif was to be removed unceremoniously. One should wonder where the magical ‘masses’ were in 1999. Mr Sharif, I am sure, would have asked himself that question many times during his days in Attock prison, and asked many of his friends later in exile.

One does not have to wonder too much though, because television footage and eye witness accounts of those who have any soul left would tell you that they were out on the streets, dancing and celebrating. The slogans of the masses remained just chants. And while their celebrated leaders were whisked away, the masses distributed sweets.

But both Mr Bhutto and Mr Sharif cannot ask the ‘masses’ where they were. One is epitomised in history as a martyr, the other still has political aspirations for the highest office.

Hassan Iftikhar is a broadcast journalist, currently specialising in investigative journalism. He can be reached at hassaniftikhar@hotmail.com