Big India's Small Heart

[in response to a respectable Indian journalist in a private mailing list]

Dear Mr. Bharati,


The fact remains that Pakistan and the Pakistani government are more magnanimous in allowing Indian channels and content here than the Indian government and Indian channels are in reciprocating.

More Indian channels are shown in Pakistan. Very little of Pakistani channels is allowed in India, and this is a matter of policy that the Indian government imposes. At least we in Pakistan permit non-political Indian content. In India your government considers anything Pakistani as suspicious.

Mainstream Indian news organizations that have websites routinely block Pakistanis who register to post comments, including the majority that posts polite and academic comments. The issue is that your media outlets won’t allow Pakistanis to say anything on bilateral relations that is different from the official Indian position. The other opinion is not allowed. Compare this to Pakistan where Indian writers get away with much more on the pages of Pakistani newspapers [unfortunately, an Indian writer was allowed recently to call Quaid-e-Azam a ‘separatist’, with everything that the word implies, on the pages of a national Pakistani daily]. I dare any ‘liberal’ Indian newspaper to publish an article by a Pakistani offering an opinion that goes against the official Indian policy.

Javeria Jalal wasn’t interested in the legal aspect of the story. She wanted to highlight how small-hearted and insecure Big India is. And her point stands. You are free to spin and defend Indian image but facts speak for themselves.