February 10, 2005

His chiselled mode of questioning is unsparing of those who have faltered in the performance of their public duties. From a poor, hand-to-mouth journalist to a well-heeled current affairs TV anchor has been a long and difficult journey that has put Barelvi’s journalistic integrity under tremendous pressure, and yet he has managed to emerge unscathed and untainted, writes Adil Ahmed

He’s been there and done that, and is now reaping his just rewards for a life lived with conviction. Mujahid Barelvi is a watchdog of public interest in the Doberman sense of the word, going for the jugular each time and drawing blood.

His chiselled mode of questioning is unsparing of those who have faltered at the altar of sacrifice in the performance of their public duties. From a poor, hand-to-mouth journalist to a well-heeled current affairs anchor on Indus Television has been a long and difficult journey that has put Barelvi’s journalistic integrity under tremendous pressure, and yet he has managed to emerge unscathed and untainted.

Born in Aligarh, Barelvi’s father was involved with the All India Education Conference, and organized the All Pakistan Education Conference upon Partition. This established an early association with books and the celebration of knowledge. Barelvi got his early education in Karachi at a government school. Never a top performer academically, he nevertheless went the distance, doing his Bachelor’s in physics and Master’s in economics from the Karachi University.

The 1970’s decade was a period vibrant with politics. “When one gets so deeply involved in politics during student days, then academic excellence gets sacrificed along the way,” he says, alluding to his poor performance in the classroom, something he appears acutely conscious of even today.

Zia-ul-Haq’s period saw the enforcement of a strict censorship regime, and the weekly Mayaar was shut down and Barelvi was sent to jail, sentenced by a military court to six months of rigorous imprisonment. “Naturally this was my first such experience, and I am convinced that the two places that can convey to man the extent of his helplessness are a hospital and a jail.”

“Coming from a lower middle class background, honest, sincere and committed journalists in Urdu cannot make an adequate living. Money came into Urdu journalism in the 1980s with a rise in lifafa and yellow journalism,” he says.

The political activism of the 1970s and 1980s brought little or no financial comfort, and the 1990s saw Barelvi not exactly well off and quite disillusioned. “The hypocrisy generated during Zia’s years continued to dominate the 1990s, and the genuine and committed movements began to fade. Even the political parties resorted to the same tactics with banks providing political loans that were never meant to be returned. It was a very difficult time with monthly pay cheques as little as 500 rupees writing freelance and working for radio.” Looking back, he says, he can’t understand how he made ends meet.

Barelvi's big break came from the electronic channel. “It appeared that I was finally getting recompensed for the 20 years of working for almost free. But the knowledge and exposure that I gathered during that period set me up as a serious contender for television.”

Barelvi recorded a programme on Afghanistan that never got aired but caught the attention of Ghazanfar Ali. “He asked me to do a one-on-one talk show like Tim Sebastian’s Hard Talk. On 24th October 2001, I recorded my first interview with ANP’s Asfandyar Wali. Dou Tok was born.”

Interviews with Mumtaz Bhutto, Mairaj Muhammed Khan, Professor Ghafoor, Sajjad Ali Shah, and these were new to the public and well-liked. The 25th interview was with Ghinwa Bhutto, and it generated a comment in Dawn that compared Barelvi with Tim Sebastian.

“Ghinwa’s was one of my best interviews. Her Urdu is not so good, and I conducted the entire interview in Urdu. Even she says its one of her best interviews.” Dou Tok was a trendsetter in Pakistani journalism. It broke the stereotypical PTV style and gained popularity, with Barelvi making the ascent to showbiz celebrity and fame. Barelvi’s brutally frank style of questioning the keepers of the public trust was new and delighted the Pakistani public. It took Barelvi over a year to emerge from the perception of his left leaning biases and establish himself as an impartial anchor. Dou Tok completed 150 episodes.

To include the viewing public in the discussions Mujahid Online was invented, and in the first episode featuring Ghinwa Bhutto and Imran Khan the switchboard was jammed with incoming calls.

It was a first for Pakistani television to have a live programme on politics with live calls being taken, leaving no room for censorship. “The most aggressive interviews that I have done have provided me with the best programmes and the most enduring friendships.”

Then came Musharraf’s graduate elections, and Barelvi was on hand with Election Train, a four days blitz of 38 towns inquiring directly from the public the benefits to them of the past elections. It was a novel way of covering the elections that gained for him and his channel much appreciation.

To establish the penetration at the grassroots of the devolution process the programme Shehar shehar, Gaon gaon came into being that took the camera to district level, completing 35 episodes. Association with television has literally opened up the world for Barelvi, and while formerly he could not afford even a trip to Sukkur, he has now travelled the globe visiting over 20 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia.

“Today the electronic media is a forum for unprecedented free discussion, and the credit for this must go to the Pervez Musharraf regime,” says Barelvi. “During Nawaz Sharif’s tenure we could never have questioned Mian Sharif’s influence on the government sitting in Raiwind. Nor could we have discussed the shenanigans of Asif Zardari’s friends during Benazir Bhutto’s time in power. Musharraf may be a military dictator, but there is open discussion on the validity of his uniform. There are no advisory phone calls or threats from the government. This is a new era of freedom that we are experiencing. More than channels people are switching on to individual programmes. There is no favourite channel anymore, only favourite programmes.

Approaching 50 years of age, having written 400 articles including 50 columns in Akhbar-e-Jahan on the economy, authoring six books on Afghanistan and Balochistan, and spending three decades in journalism, Barelvi’s great lament is that he could not secure a Rs10,000 employment as an Urdu journalist. “That’s how bad things were. Now when people ask how much I earn, I tell them it’s an amount that I could only have dreamt of. When I got my first cheque from Indus I showed it to my friends with great pride.”

It’s been three and a half years with the channel, and Ghazanfar has put to great use Barelvi’s experience and knowledge base developed in the past 30 years. “People are seldom heard to use the word satisfaction in relation with their personal and professional lives. But I feel great satisfaction in my life right now.” With two school and college going daughters the financial pressures will continue to pose for him a challenge.

Barelvi laments the brutalizing of the middle and lower middle class in society over the last three decades, and the demise of government schools as a viable platform for producing leadership tiers. “The vacuum was taken up through a proliferation of expensive private schools, or religious madaris, putting the middle class intelligentsia between a rock and a hard place, and denying it growth.”

Barelvi played a lot of good cricket in school, opening the innings. He watches a lot of subcontinental classic movies, and counts Cleopatra and Doctor Zhivago amongst his favourites. He admits being influenced by classic Soviet films as well, and as a student activist enjoyed eating anda in the dhabba, and nihari and payas, finding them to be very filling and very affordable at Rs15. He enjoys getting together with friends in the evening, but the profession commands his first loyalty followed by the family.

It is generally contended that the media in Pakistan cannot effect change because nobody listens. But this is not true, says Barelvi, and the electronic media specially has succeeded in increasing the levels of awareness within the nation at all levels, and this he feels is a major contributor to his job satisfaction, along with the meaningful pay cheque. “We are not a political party, nor a movement, just a forum for discussion that people listen to and appreciate.”

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)