THE lone Pakistani journalist based in India is Dost Muhammad Yousufi, who is the Special Correspondent of the Associated Press of Pakistan. He was invited to write, but preferred to be interviewed. The interview was conducted on behalf of www.thehoot.com by Mannika Chopra.

Q: How long have you been posted in Delhi? Are you the only Pakistani journalist here?

A: I have been in Delhi since January, 1999. It’s normally a three-year posting. I probably have another three to four months to go. At the moment, I am the only Pakistani journalist based in India, although there should be two here since there are two Indian reporters, from The Hindu and the Press Trust of India, based in Islamabad.

There’s a reciprocal arrangement between India and Pakistan that came into existence in 1979-80 that stipulates that each country will have an equal number of reporters. Till a few years ago, there used to be about five correspondents in each country from the neighbouring country, but there was a problem and the visas of three correspondents were not renewed. Now that number of reporters is limited to two.

Since The Hindu has a reporter based in Islamabad along with the PTI, there should be another Pakistani journalist based here. A correspondent from a Pakistani group of newspapers was here about six months ago, but he didn’t stay on. I think he will be back. As for the other papers, they tend to use Indian stringers. Similarly, other Indian publications use Pakistani stringers.
 

Q: How long have you been in the profession? And what is the procedure in your organization to get a foreign posting?

A: I have been with APP since 1975. APP has about seven to eight foreign bureaus. To get appointed as a foreign correspondent, a five-member panel to ascertain your competence interviews you. The panel has representatives from the Ministry of Information, members of the Senate and Legislative Assembly equivalent to your Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, both from the opposition and the ruling party, and the director-general of the APP. Now the latest requirement is a written test, which is supposed to judge one’s competence for such a posting. This was introduced by Mushahid Hussain, who was the information minister under former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

In Pakistani journalistic circles, an India posting is considered to be an important and challenging one. So only experienced correspondents are sent here.
 

Q: given the current tensions between the two countries how hard is for a Pakistani reporter to function from here?

A: As a journalist reporting from an ‘enemy’ country, I have to say that there has been no real problem in covering India. I was here six months after Kargil, and even then it was not a problem. Being from a wire service I routinely file about four to five stories a day which I would do anywhere. If there is anything different it’s the fact that I think one has to change one’s persona a bit. You have to be half-a-journalist and half-a-diplomat. Perhaps you can’t be as aggressive as you would normally be in any other circumstance. You have to be careful so as not to offend anyone.
 

Q: Do sources from the Indian government meet you willingly?

A: Meeting officials is normally not a problem. I attend the daily Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) briefings. There is no tension when I meet people. I frequently go to Press Information Bureau and the various PROs give me the information I need. Initially I was not getting regular information from the EXP division, but ever since their email has started I get their press releases daily.

I get a lot of help from the Foreign Correspondent’s Club. Its president Venkat Narayanan sends about four to five emails a day about various professional activities which is really useful. For instance, I got to know of a recent off-the-record meeting given by Union Minister for External Affairs Jaswant Singh to beat correspondents recently from the FCC. The EXP didn’t inform me. So I went along, but I could tell the MEA officials were uncomfortable.

Sometimes people have the wrong impression that my main source of information is the Pakistan embassy. But, you know, I haven’t even interviewed the Pakistani High Commissioner. When I tried to fix up an interview I was told that giving an interview to APP is not why the High Commissioner was here. Embassy officials told me that he didn’t want to communicate to the Pakistani people; his job was to communicate to India and the Indians.
 

Q: Have you have met Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee?

A: Yes, I am the only Pakistani reporter in the past four to five years to have interviewed the Indian prime minister. Ever since I came, I was requesting the PMO for an interview, but I wasn’t getting one. Then before the Agra summit, I was asked by the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Nirupama Rao, to hand in a list of questions, which I did. I had a half-an-hour meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee, but at the end of that conversation I was told it was off the record and written answers to the questions I had sent were handed over to me. But I did work in the prime minister’s conversation into my copy as background material. I felt cheated because I thought the written answers seemed like just another press statement and were not a genuine interview.
 

Q: What about travelling?

A: The real obstacle for me as a journalist is the limitations on travel. Under the visa conditions, a Pakistani reporter has permission to travel only to three cities — Delhi, Mumbai and Agra. When I saw Agra on my list I asked the Home Ministry to change it to Calcutta because I thought then my visa would cover the three major cities of the country. After all, Indian correspondents based in Pakistan can travel to Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi which are the three major cities of Pakistan. But it wasn’t changed. Under the rules, you or your family can’t move out of the municipal limits of these cities. Luckily, I had Agra on my list otherwise I couldn’t have covered the summit!
 

Q: How do you send your stories?

A: I normally file by email. Calling up Pakistan is quite hard, especially since optic fibres in telecommunications have been a late entry into India. It’s not easy to get through. You have to keep on trying. So email is the quickest way.
 

Q: What is your impression of the Indian media?

A: In my three-year experience here, I have to say that there is no true press freedom especially in wire services like PTI. The government has a strong influence over it and whatever the government wants printed or stopped, will happen. This has to be so because the PTI is running on government subsidies. This is true of Pakistan, too. That’s why I really dislike it when the PTI reporter in Islamabad labels the APP as, ‘Pakistan government’s official news agency.’ If APP is the official news agency of Pakistan, then I believe that PTI, too, is the official news agency of the Indian government.
 

Q: Is getting an Indian visa hard?

A: Yes, there is a slight problem, which can affect efficient functioning. When you first come here you are given an entry permit for 90 days, which is then converted to a one-year visa. That visa has to be renewed by the Home Ministry every year. It doesn’t happen automatically. It can take up to 2-3 months. Sometimes you are staying in the country without a valid document which creates some uncertainty. The Ministry of External Affairs tries to help, but basically it is the Home Ministry that handles this area.

Also entry and exit visas are given only from one point and that can’t be changed. So if I enter the country through Delhi I have to leave from Delhi. And I have to use this all the time I travel in and out of the country. Recently, I went to Pakistan and I had to get special permission to leave from Amritsar via the Wagah border. It is so much easier (and cheaper) for me to use that route to enter Lahore, but it is a complicated process to get permission.
 

Q: Have you ever been intimidated because you are a Pakistani, or followed?

A: There hasn’t been any major incident. Once while I was staying in Greater Kailash, the tyres of my car were deflated so I filed an FIR.

Then there was a recent incident sometime in last August concerning my son, but it was not anything to do with his being a Pakistani. He was returning home after buying some books on computers in Nai Sarak and when he was taking an auto-rickshaw back home, he was hit on the head by a crow bar by the driver and his companion. My son’s money was stolen. Later, some passers-by saw him injured and called us. I did send a small news story to APP, but it wasn’t used.

As for officials following me. There is no obvious high surveillance, but initially when I came I had somebody on a motorcycle parked close to my house, but that stopped after a month or two.
 

Q: Apart from spot reports, do you write features?

A: I do some features apart from reporting, usually from a different perspective. For instance, I have written on the Red Fort and how badly it has been maintained; how its engravings have been whitewashed and why the Indian Army barracks continue to be there. Or how the industrial pollution is spoiling the Taj Mahal.

I also have written stories on the medical point of view. I read a new item that over 50 per cent of the Indian population was suffering from TB, so I wrote something on that. I have also written on the unhygienic conditions in Old Delhi.
 

Q: Have you written any positive stories on India? Would your agency accept those kinds of reports?

A: Why not? When I first came here it took some time getting my car and I travelled a lot on buses. I noted then how disciplined the crowds were while getting on to buses. There was no pushing and fighting, and I wrote about that.