Banning the dead |
FOR once, the headlines about us are not about instability, extremism or economic collapse. They are about a country that opened its doors to two adversaries and said: talk here, we will make it work. Pakistan, for a brief and genuinely remarkable moment, looked like a grown-up. And then Pemra, the electronic media regulator, issued a show-cause notice to Geo for airing content related to Asha Bhosle. Let that sit for a moment.
Asha Bhosle passed away last Sunday. When Geo reported her death and aired her songs, it was honouring her. It was giving audiences context, memory and meaning. It was journalism. Pemra looked at that and decided it was a regulatory violation worth pursuing.
This is not regulation. It is cultural vandalism.
Vandalism is not always loud. It does not always arrive with hammers and broken glass. Sometimes it arrives with paperwork. With a show-cause notice. With the quiet, bureaucratic erasure of something that connected people across lines that institutions have spent generations deepening. Art is often the last bridge left standing when everything else has collapsed. Pemra has chosen to burn it and call the act responsible governance. It is hiding behind the India content ban.........