Advanced Television

Pakistan Army wants TV channel?

December 17, 2013

By Chris Forrester

BBC Monitoring is reporting that Pakistan’s military is recommending that its army “must acquire a TV channel for dissemination of propaganda to counter the growing penetration of Indian television channels into Pakistani society”.

The source of the report is said to come from Pakistan’s military ‘Green Book’, an internal – and normally secret document – which sets out the military’s strategy in a series of Chapters written by Pakistan’s military high flyers.

One contributor quoted is Major General Muhammad Azam Asif, who commands an infantry division of the army, and who has recommended that the Pakistan Army must acquire a television channel as well as a radio station to counter what he described as Indian propaganda. General Azam Asif is reportedly claiming that the Pakistani media lacks credibility among the masses due to which the general public is compelled to tune in to All India Radio, the BBC and Indian satellite channels during a period of crisis or whenever an important event takes place.

Another ‘Green Book’ contributor, Brigadier Umar Farooq Durrani is reportedly alleging that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) funds many Indian newspapers and even television channels, such as Zee Television, which is considered to be its media headquarters to wage psychological war. The creation of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) a few years ago [in Pakistan],” Brigadier Durrani is alleging, was a step in the same direction. “The most subtle form of this psychological war is found in the Indian movies where Muslim and Hindu friendship is screened against the backdrop of melodrama.”

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