Column Writers and Lottas
by Dr Rana Jawad Asghar
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In the last ten years of disastrous period
of musical chairs by corrupt
politicians, term ?lotta? was used quite
often. Politicians before the last term
of Nawaz Sharif made it very profitable
to switch sides to who ever could pay
them more. Term Lotta became synonymous
with those politicians. Lotta, which is
Urdu word for utensil used for ablation
when pronounced with a little different
accent, also means theft and plunder.
Which I think was also the very true
meaning for these politicians. Having
said that, I don?t think that politicians
are the only one who were lottas only,
we have representation from all sections
of society.
Today lets talk about journalists. One
does not need to have a very good memory
to recall how quickly our so-called torchbearers
of truth change their positions
with every whim of new wind. They change
their position daily shamelessly
without acknowledging that they were wrong
just yesterday. I think it is great
that if someone changes his or her position
when new information comes than
stubbornly sticking to your position.
I have changed my opinion many times, but
this does not coincide with change of
governments in Pakistan. I accept that I
may be at fault previously or I am better
informed now.
When India exploded an Atomic bomb, and
their was intense pressure from Public
to explode our own devices, one big Urdu
newspaper was leading this movement and
was urging the government to go ahead
with it and should not think about
consequences. ?Pakistanis can live with
hunger, disease and poverty but we need
a bomb right now?. There were some who
wanted to use this opportunity to isolate
India and get maximum economic benefits
and still keeping our options open. But
they all were labeled as CIA or RAW agents
or Chamchas of Western Powers. This
newspaper wanted atomic explosion so early
that it was against the diplomatic
missions consulting foreign governments
to judge the consequences. But just a
few days after the Pakistani explosion
and controversial decision of freezing
the foreign currency account the very
same newspaper in its editorial was angry
that we should have done first our homework.
There were many famous column writers
who also did the same as this newspaper.
They said that Pakistanis can eat grass
but will not bow to Indian hegemony. But
by just freezing the foreign currency
accounts they started crying aloud. I am
not saying that freezing Foreign Currency
account was a good decision. I totally
agree that first the rulers should act
by themselves on what they preach, and
first show an example of simple and honest
life before asking Public to give
sacrifices, but changing your opinion
so quickly, is it a right journalism?
Another column writer of a famous Urdu
newspaper, who also owns a pretty popular
Pakistani news site on the Internet, has
changed his writing so quickly (in just
one day) that it is really shameful. As
soon after the coup, his column on the
site declared with quite flame language
that the reason, Nawaz Sharif Govt. fell
because it betrayed Kargil issue. But
if you go to one of his column written
just a few months ago and still saved
on his own website, he is openly defending
Nawaz Sharif withdrawal from Kargil Heights.
How could you do that? I don?t
remember even a single article from this
famous writer, writing in this very
popular newspaper, which had ?openly?
criticized previous government. We may
argue, that it was not safe for people
to write against Nawaz Sharif. But if we
are so afraid then we should do something
else than writing. Many good writers
kept writing in the same time period in
spite of difficult circumstances.
With just a pen and paper, you could write
anything, but if you consider
yourself a journalist, it brings a lot
more responsibility. Free and independent
press is considered an important pillar
of democracy. Nowhere in the world,
Press got its independence easily, it
had to fight everywhere. If our last
democratic process was a failure, it?s
some what responsibility also lays on our
lotta journalists along side corrupt politicians.