Komal Qureshi Sindhi Media Resistance, Challenges and Options 2

Translation Komal Qureshi

2K18/MC/74  BS-lll

سندھی میڈیا مزاحمت، چلینجز اور آپشنز۔۔۔۔

Sindhi Media Resistance, Challenges and Options…

According to The All Pakistan Newspapers Society, 23 Sindhi newspapers are being published in the present. As stated by Pakistan Peace Studies, there are a total number of 142 official newspapers in Pakistan. This means 16 percent of total newspapers belong to Sindhi newspaper, also by including the rural and urban population of Sindh it’s almost about 24 percent of the population of Pakistan.

However in Sindh, Urdu, Sindhi, and English are major languages in which newspapers are being published. Urdu media is conservative, it is centralized, tales and stories, conservative and it spread sensational news, whereas, English elite class media is imagined, which is more liberal and professional.

Distortion                                                                                                                                                         Sindh’s political consciousness was already expressed at One Unit, but journalism didn’t occur to be the phenomenon of it. At the time of One Unit’s stay, Sindhi newspaper wrote protest organizations but due to strict restrictions of Martial Law it didn’t put any effective action on it. Its place was taken by literature and its writers. The protest was continued through literature magazines and secret pamphlets.

At the end of the 50th decade, the leader of The Muslim League, Qazi Muhammad Akbar bought Daily Ibrat Newspaper from well-known writer Muhammad UsmanDiplai, for political means but in his leadership, Ibrat was that first Sindhi newspaper that was stable on a commercial basis.               

At the end of the 60th decade, after the stop-over of Pakistan Peoples Party, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto bought The Daily Hilal-e-Pakistan newspaper and widespread it as party organ. After getting successful results, the newspaper was shifted from Hyderabad to Karachi and with its technological innovations, magnificent Sindhi scholar,Siraj-ul-HaqMemon was employed as an editor.

Religious radical expression was made through few newspapers of Jamaat-e-Islami in the 60-70th decade. Jamaat-e-Islami kept publishing their monthly magazines but there was no capacity for this newspaper in Sindh. However, The Mehran Newspaper which was been published under the supervision of PirPagara, after the death of its editor, Sardar Ali Shah, this newspaper also became somewhat liberal.

Ibrat, Aftab, Hilal-e-Pakistan continued to walk on the nation with progressive thinking. Instead of being a supporter of Government according to the policies and ideas, Hilal-e-Pakistan was a supporter of progressive thinking. The color later faded.

In the 80th decade, Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) brought mobility to every street and village of Sindh. Jails were full of political activists but the coverage mainstream media of this movement was limited till Karachi, Sindhi newspapers of that time, failed to complete the activity and thoughts that arose in Sindh.

Sindhi media took a final turn when political activist joined journalism, these people belonged to leftist movements, and their conceptual and political tendency and struggle was against the establishment or the upper classes. This is how a new Sindhi Journalism was born. Therefore, the developing activists of Sindh launched a public voice.

This is a matter of pride for me to be the founder of resistance journalism. While Faqeer Muhammad LashariMarhoom, AnwerPirzado, BadarAbro, AbdulRehmanNaqash also played their role in resistance journalism. That’s another thing that some government institutes and their margin are not ready to accept that resistance journalism and characters of journalists.

Afterward on the footsteps of resistance journalism Jago (Editor Faqeer Mohammad Lashari), Pukaar (Editor BadarAbro), Kawish (Editor Ali Qazi), Barsaat (Editor Sheikh Ayaz and YousufShaheen) were released too. The management of public voice expressed exploitation and financial greediness for which they lost their position. While Kawish polished it and did some finishing to that idea so it became the biggest newspaper of Sindhi.

National financial award and distribution of water and Kala Bagh Dam construction, were national issues for mainstream media while Sindhi media separated themselves by drawing a line, from 90th decade to 2000 these issues got so mature that people of Sindh were ready to kill and die, this awareness and political consciousness were given to them by Sindhi media.

In the 90th decade to spread the thought of establishment among Sindhi society Al-Waheed Newspaper was taken out. For which in Sindh, it was famous that it’s the newspaper of agencies, despite having access to all financial and informative resources this newspaper couldn’t run too. Similarly, some Sindhi institutes did experience of launching Sindhi newspaper, from which almost everyone faced financial loss and the reason for this was a big difference in the mood and thinking of the owner and the reader.

To clear the way for Kala Bagh Dam, a huge media group of Punjab launched a newspaper in Sindhi, but it did not get that acceptance, and when General Musharraf started running an advertising campaign for the construction of Kala Bagh Dam, the youth of Sindhi newspaper resigned.

Sindhi journalism highlighted many aspects of society, after the 1990’s decade many cases were reported regarding honor killing, forced labor, the decision in jirgas, and love marriages, this is how violations of human rights began to make a start, shaking the traditional chieftain and feudal system and the price of resistance was paid with blood, which attracted the state in this way. From KandhKot till Mirpurkhas more than eight journalists sacrificed their lives.

According to conditions and environment, the character of Sindhi journalism became contrary too along with informative, in this way it took the role of political parties on it, which was disliked by some parties, later, some political parties tried to enroll their workers into the newspaper, but they did not get any success in it. Some nationalist parties also adopted the path of violence and thus the act of burning the newspaper bundles started.                  

The relationship between Pakistan Peoples Party is sour and sweet and sometimes becomes bitter, Peoples Party considers Sindhi journalism as its loved press in opposition, while in power they consider it as a villain. In present days it has been realized that The Information Minister of Sindh has never appeared on a Sindhi channel.

Not every Federal Government’s behavior is the same with Sindhi media and mainstream media. Either it is Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto or YousifRazaGillani or Mian Nawaz Shareef or in the Presidency, General Musharaf, Asif Ali Zardari, or MamnoonHussain they meets Sindhi press in person but are denials of their practical importance.

Challenges

After the era of 2000, youth joining Sindhi journalism are lacking political knowledge and literary background, that Sindhi journalism which challenged Statsco two decades ago, which made a new identity is in decline now. The journalist who challenged local chief, lords, politicians, and nexus of bureaucracy, now it seems to be marginalized.

Even the people who are joining from the formal education of journalism institutes, for them too journalism is the world of glamour, in which instead of a political or social changes they think of self-expression and selfishness.

Complaints from media are justified that the youth that study journalism at educational institutes are of no use to them. It is also a subtle tyranny that most editors of Sindhi newspapers are not working journalists.

Those thinking and thoughts, that were influenced or associated with leftist that is now due to pressure, fear, greediness, or lack of progressive thinking youth on the ground, are moving towards central right. Examples of which are, burning of Dharamshala in Larkana in recent days, three youngsters arrested in New Dambulla, and the incidents of KaaliMandir in Hyderabad, whose coverage was unclear and distorted. Sindhi press has never this attitude before. In these conditions, instead of taking the process of Sindhi media a step ahead, it is been interpreted two steps backward. 

Urdu medium media gives the impression that reporting Sindh issues are of no interest to them. This is the reason that only a few Sindhi people are been included in this media that is equivalent to counting on fingers, so is the number of Sindhi columnists. This is also surprising and unfortunate that there is no Sindhi host of any talk show on news channels.

In this condition instead of exchanging their thinking and thoughts, mainstream media is watching people with the narrow-mindedness of being centralized, which is said to be National interest but the truth is its opposite. In this way, mainstream media is moving people away from each other instead of connecting them.

Information Gap

In Pakistan overall media don’t have access to information as a whole, and in case if any information is gathered it’s either one-sided or manipulated. In this time there is another tragedy with Sindhi media too, that is information and their sources and access to institutions. Sindh is often absent from the power, so is the condition of different institutes. Therefore, access to these institutes is quite difficult for Sindhi media. This is from the nineties that, Sindhi newspapers built their bureau offices in Islamabad. RoznamaKawish is the only newspaper whose representatives are in the other three capitals too.  

Financial condition

Sindhi newspaper dependence is moreover on government advertising, which is well known by the government, that’s why from the issuance of advertisement to the payment, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly it continues to get publicity. This also has happened many times that to teach newspapers a lesson their advertisement has been banned too.

There are many industries and factories present in Karachi, Nooriabad, Hyderabad, and Kotri but Sindhi media receives very few ads from them, this is the reason that even a few newspapers rise a question that: don’t Sindhi children eat chocolates, toffees or ice-cream? Don’t Sindhi people use soaps, shampoo, or cigarettes? Etc etc. They argue that when there is a buyer then why this medium gets this advertisement which they do not even read or watch.

Journalists and Media Workers

In Sindh print media, implementation of press rules is slow especially concerning, workers employment, working modes, compensation etc. As compared to Karachi, their voice is not so effective, Islamabad and Karachi’s journalist organization don’t even agree with the journalists of Hyderabad, Sukkur and other cities, and there is no representation of it in their professional journalism organizations.

All other three provinces have journalism organizations provincial bodies but Sindh is the only province where there is Karachi Union of Journalists. The limit is that, those friends who claim to be progressive are also included in this crime equally.

 Practical work carried under supervision of Sir Sohail Sangi 

Department of Media &Communication Studies, University of Sindh