WHEN Polonius commended the virtues of brevity as being the soul of wit he could scarcely have had a Pakistani audience in mind. Telling Pakistanis to be brief is as good as telling them not to breathe.
We are a prolix people with a talent, nay a positive genius, for being long-winded. Anything that can be said in ten different ways will never be said in one. What's the point of stating a proposition if it cannot be repeated? Or, better still, worked to death.
The disease at its most virulent is to be found in the political class. It will take the nation's politicos another generation to get used to television because even on TV they conduct themselves as platform orators, taking their time to warm up to their theme and then in slow, measured cadences letting fall their pearls of wisdom.
The live TV show, Dialogue, I have been anchoring for the past seven weeks, and which now mercifully is drawing to a close, was meant to last an hour, twice or thrice going beyond this limit. Yet it was much too short for the guests who came on it. An hour of live television is an eternity. Anything beyond that should qualify as a criminal offence. But then television calls for the short, crisp statement, something yet to be discovered in the Pakistani repertoire.
In any event, the word Dialogue is a complete misnomer. The ability to conduct a dialogue springs from the art of conversation, an art form wholly lost to the subcontinent. Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, it makes no difference. We declaim, hector, preach; we do not converse. It lies not in our temperament. Whoever invented the loudspeaker would have had second thoughts about its effect upon the human race if he had an insight into the uses to which it would be put in the teeming lands of South Asia.
One reason why opera will never take off in the sub-continent is because our normal mode of discourse is operatic. Motor rickshaws, pressure horns and platform oratory can leave little space for Mozart or Puccini. Or even Wagner. Former Baron of Punjab Manzoor Wattoo deserves to have all his sins washed away for the one service he did the province by restricting loudspeaker use in mosques to the azaan and the Friday khutba. Although the order he passed--and, what's more, enforced has been subverted in various ways, it remains in force. But I tread on sensitive ground and return to my theme.
When words fail, as they will do when no premium is put on their worth, recourse will be had to the stick and the firearm. Why do parliamentarians in all our three countries take to fisticuffs at the slightest provocation? Not because great principles of policy are involved but simply because their high-wired temperaments get the better of their discretion. A scene from the National Assembly here and the Lok Sabha in India is about the same: noise, clamour and little genuine debate. And for variety, fisticuffs.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-i-Islami as a guest on the Dialogue programme seemed a bit ruffled because he was not being allowed to hold forth. I had a lurking suspicion of what he would have preferred: the studio surrounded by activists of the Islami Jamiat-i-Tulaba so that Qazi Sahib could speak as much as he wanted. There has always been a menace about the Jamaat. It was the first party to inject violence into politics and education in Pakistan. To sit with the Jamaat chief for even five minutes is to realize that his party has not outgrown this tradition. It is the Jamaat's bad luck the military government is keeping it at arm's length. General Musharraf has even called Qazi Hussain Ahmed an "unbalanced man". Harsh words but uncomfortably close to the truth.
In the seven programmes I anchored were there no deviations from the norm? Begum Nasim Wali Khan was impressive. She is relaxed on TV and speaks with great precision. Abida Hussain good as always. Meraj Khalid meaty but a trifle long-winded. Mumtaz Bhutto taking a controversial line but being brief and lucid. Imran Khan surprisingly good: clear and forceful. Air Marshal Asghar Khan brief and speaking with a sense of authority. Beyond this little circle of relevance a sea of smoke and verbosity. I forget. Senator Khudai Noor of Nawab Bugti's Jamhoori Watan Party came across well. The rest of the Baloch, including Akhtar Mengal and Mahmood Achakzai, need lessons in TV speak.
A word about the various audiences. The gift of verbosity being a national trait, it was scarcely surprising if most people, although by no means all, were more interested in making speeches than asking questions. If any invidious distinctions are to be drawn I would say the audience at Peshawer was the best in terms of behaviour. Which comes perhaps from the Pakhtoon sense of respect for time and place. At Lahore with press heavyweights like Mr Irshad Haqqani, Abdul Qadir Hasan, Arif Nizami and the maverick Nazir Naji attending, the questions and observations were of a high order although, to prove that we were in Pakistan, the evening was not without its share of silly interventions. The audiences at Islamabad and Karachi came the closest to the sub-continental norm of aimless shouting and impatient arm-raising.
As for myself, here is some Chinese-style self-criticism. If there is a purgatory or re-education centre for those ill at ease before the cameras I deserve a stint in it. At 51 I am still nervous on TV, the sweat on my brows showing easily and proclaiming my lack of poise and confidence. What is more, discomfort on TV makes on occasion for a forced manner, the worst of faults on this medium. At times I think I spoke too much, at times that I did not intervene enough to check the flow of rant from some of the guests. All in all, an uneven performance.
But the exercise and the pain were worth it. Every government has felt mortally afraid of opening up television as if to do so would invite the furies and imperil its existence. The first time ever a live political discussion took place on PTV was when Mr Irshad Haqqani was information minister in Malik Meraj Khalid's interim government. When I suggested to him that he should look into the possibility within 24 hours he had come back to me and said "yes". (Who says journalists are not quick decision-makers?) That's when we had the famous face-off between Gen Naseerullah Babar and a couple of MQM die-hards. Whatever good came of that performance it was great TV and a lot of fun.
For the second time in PTV history a government has allowed a live political programme, the credit for this going squarely to General Musharraf (and Gen Naqvi). I know that in cabinet there was serious opposition to the idea but it was overruled by the CE himself. So it is that for the first time in Pakistan live TV has carried criticism of martial law and even the army. Mumtaz Bhutto argued in favour of a confederation. Mengal called for a fresh constituent assembly, all before a national audience. Has Pakistan broken up into pieces as a consequence? Have the heavens fallen? Have Pakistan's ramparts crumbled? Has Musharraf ceased to be Chief Executive?
If anything, this openness has come as a breath of fresh air. That a military government is behind this glasnost is an irony which should not be lost on the political parties.
Whatever the glitches (and there were many) in this initiative it needs to be taken forward not rolled back. These programmes were on a single subject, provincial autonomy, which I personally thought a waste of time because Pakistan's problem is not provincial autonomy but the quest for stability. The open discussion of everyday issues that's what we need so that the many cobwebs hanging in the national corridors, the many shibboleths which fill the air, can be swept away by a cleansing broom.