NEW DELHI: A unique, private media initiative involving joint television programmes may do what political leaders in South Asia have failed to do so far — bring together the people of this fractious region.

The initiative is being driven by a clutch of seven privately-owned television channels from five countries that will take advantage of pledges made at a summit of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in early April.

Of the seven television channels, three are based in India while one each is from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

In addition to these five countries, SAARC includes Bhutan, the Maldives and new entrant Afghanistan, providing a potential viewership of 1.5 billion people.

While in a few of these eight countries, the media is relatively underdeveloped and controlled by those in positions of power and authority, in most SAARC nations, the media is vibrant, fiercely independent and free of government influence.

The latter group of countries would include those that have come together to launch the ‘Southasian’ television initiative.

Kanak Mani Dixit, senior journalist based in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and editor of ‘Himal’, an English language monthly magazine, says he was the first to use ‘Southasian’ as a single word and insists that this manner of designating one of the most populous parts of the world goes beyond mere symbolism.

“What was attempted not very successfully by the print medium in these countries will now hopefully be a success as far as television is concerned,” he said.

The partners of the new broadcasting initiative are Channel I based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Image TV from Nepal, Aaj/Geo TV from Pakistan, Maharaja TV from Sri Lanka and three broadcasters from India: New Delhi Television (NDTV), India TV and Tara Newz based in Kolkata.

Rathikant Basu, Chairman, Broadcast Worldwide, that owns the Tara group of channels, who started this initiative with a meeting in December 2006, says the new programme would aim at “rediscovering and reinforcing a South Asian identity based on shared history, civilisation and culture, to work towards a common future”.

More than two decades ago, after a SAARC summit meeting, the governments of seven countries (excluding Afghanistan that was not a member) had started a scheme that was called ‘SAVE’ or the SAARC Audio Visual Exchange involving state-owned television and radio broadcasters.

The scheme failed to take off. Basu, who was then associated with India’s public broadcaster, Doordarshan, recalls that programmes under SAVE were irregular, erratic and failed to make much of an impression on viewers.

The new initiative involving private broadcasters would be very different, he believes. A half-hour programme is already on air and is being simultaneously broadcast every Sunday evening by all the partner channels.

The duration of the programme, anchored by a woman from Bangladesh, Rubana, would be increased and Basu said he hoped broadcasters from other countries would participate in the initiative.

While the new TV programme would promote liberalism, a scientific temperament, education, sports, health, heritage and cultural diversity, it would oppose divisive forces, superstition, fundamentalism, discrimination and violence especially against women and children, environmental pollution, cruelty to animal, cultural hegemony and communalism.

‘Southasian’ TV programmes would “take special care whenever dealing with matters of controversy to assure that a plurality of viewpoints are acknowledged and are fairly and adequately represented.”

In addition, there would be “full disclosure of the interests of all stakeholders”, a media release by the group of television channels stated.

Basu said there would be no copyright on the programme and other channels would be free to show it.

“If South Asian integration is to be meaningful and if the much talked-about ‘trust deficit’ reduced, there should be a considerable amount of self-criticism among the stakeholders,” says Jawed Naqvi, a New Delhi based journalist.

He told in an interview that there were forms of ‘embedded journalism’ in India and Pakistan when it came to reporting on foreign policy.

Naqvi said what Indian journalists described as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was called ‘Azad’ (or ‘independent’) Kashmir by the media in Pakistan.

Similarly, Jammu & Kashmir was invariably described as India-occupied Kashmir by Pakistani journalists.

“It is time we used less combative phrases like India-administered Kashmir or Pakistan-administered Kashmir, terms used by the United Nations,” he adds.

Despite such stereotyping, Naqvi acknowledges the independence of sections of the media in both countries.

The long-standing dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the two largest countries of SAARC, is often cited as the reason for the many failures of the grouping.

For instance, while the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) came into effect in 2006, differences between India and Pakistan have hindered the actual implementation of a regional free-trade system.

While SAARC countries are now committed to lower their tariffs to below five per cent by 2015, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said enhanced trade relations between the two countries would depend on a resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

At the launch of the ‘Southasian’ TV programme, dancer and social activist from Bangladesh, Lubna Mariam, recalled her personal experiences travelling around the subcontinent and her realisation that the peoples of the region were not merely culturally close but also that they share the same kinds of problems.

Shaheed Nadeem of Aaj TV said electronic media had a tremendous impact on viewers in the region and television broadcasters should “use this power to unite people and not divide them”.

Despite the slow progress of SAARC, which was founded in 1985, the growing importance of the region was underlined by the fact that the April summit was attended for the first time by Japan, China, South Korea, the United States and the European Union as observers with Iran eager to follow suit. —Dawn/The IPS News Service