Every person who has an audience and is listened to, makes an impact on the society. The nature and the degree of this impact are proportionate to the magnitude and the range of the audience he or she has.
Roughly I have three categories of such persons in my mind.
1) Morality preachers (with roots in religion like Maulana Maudoodi, Maulana Fazl ur Rahman, Dr Israr Ahmad, Janab Javed Ghamdi and Dr Zakir Naik etc) 2) Political leaders (with roots in power-game like ZAB, Daultana, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, Asfand Yar Wali Khan, Asif Ali Zardari and Imran Khan etc) and 3) Media persons (with roots in self-expression like Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Ayaz Amir, Dr Shahid Masood, Talat Hussain, Hamid Mir, Rauf Klasra, Aamir Mateen, Kashif Abbasi, Kamran Khan, Javed Chaudhry, Kamran Shahid, Haroon Rasheed, Sana Bucha, Majib ur Rahman Shami, Ahmad Qureshi, Sami Ibrahim, Saadia Afzal, Aasma Shirazi and Mubbashar Lucman etc.
I have not mentioned here the names of the epoch-makers or game-changers like the Great Qauid and Allama Iqbal. Nor have I taken into account the difference in class, height and weight in the persons mentioned in the same category. For example ZAB and MNS fall in the same category but are as class apart as a crow and an eagle. Or Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Javed Chaudhry despite being in the same category are creatures of two different moral and intellectual dimensions. The same can be said about Maulana Maudoodi and Maulana Fazlur Rahman. The only thing common in them is the category and the word Maulana.
The purpose of this analysis is to emphasise upon the importance of the role the media plays in shaping the mindsets of the people— and thus also the events and the history.
We don’t’ have a towering figure in the category of Preaching. Most persons in this category are minions and have shifted to the political arena for reasons that vary from person to person.
As for the political category, there are three key figures flanked by a few lesser ones and a number of petty yes-men.
My subject here is the vast world of the media. There are about a dozen mentionable newspapers and the same number of the TV channels. The lesser names run into hundreds, but the contemporary names I have mentioned above belong to the mentionable tools of communication, and these are around twenty or so.
The impact of each one of them is proportionate less to their class and more to the magnitude of the range of their TV channels or newspapers.
To make my point, I will give an easily intelligible example. Had Hitler been born in Latvia or Congo he would have been a non-entity despite being Hitler. Kamran Khan talking to Geo audience or Dunya audience is a different proposition than Kamran Khan talking to the audience of Royal or Kohnoor. Similarly Dr. Shahid Masood was a different proposition when he virtually monopolized control on public opinion in the years before he ditched his audience for Managing Directorship of the PTV. Dr. Shahid’s recent popularity is rooted in his willingness to champion boldly, aggressively and inspiringly all the patriotic causes.
In my list of favourites he stands out toweringly—followed by Rauf Klasra who is much more down-to-earth, much less emotionally charged but thoroughly honest. Kashif Abbasi also falls in the same category followed by Sami Ibrahim and Ahmad Qureshi. For me patriotism is the name of the game.
People look upto these persons with the same kind of expectations as they look upto their chosen political leaders.
This piece has been necessitated by the sudden disappearance of Dr. Shahid Masood from Bol. He owes an explanation to his admirers. Particularly because of the fact that in his last programme he talked of a decision that might have been reached in the core Sharif family that MNS would quit honourably. Dr. Sahib infact made a firm announcement and prediction to that fact.
What happened thereafter? Who ditched whom? And why?
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