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Abstract
The liberalization of the television industry in Pakistan in 2003 resulted in an explosion of new cable channels and the proliferation of news, talk and commentary programmes. Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali (Aaj TV, 2005–2007), hosted by a man in drag, was one of the shows that tested the limits of this new medisphere by openly discussing topics such as homosexuality and by criticizing military rule. I argue that the significance of this programme and other like it lay in how they made social and political conversations that used to take place in the private space of the living rooms of the elite visible to a broader public thus potentially enabling participation and critique. The limits of this participation can be seen in Late Night Show's cancellation that was a strategic concession by Aaj TV in a much larger struggle between television news channels and the government over the media's role in covering political protests and violence. I conclude by showing how the norms of television talk in Pakistan are still very much in formation and are shaped by media owners' economic and political interests, audience desires, journalists search for a professional identity and government regulation.
Notes
1. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 48.
2. ‘Begum’ can be translated both as a title equivalent to ‘Lady’ and as a signifier of upper-class status.
3. Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali returned to the air briefly in 2008 and then began a new run in 2009, but this article focuses on its initial incarnation.
4. Hussain, ‘Ali Saleem’.
5. The News, 26 March 1998. Cited in Barraclough, ‘Television Invasion’, 227.
6. Kumar et al., Representing the Unrepresented, 85.
7. Barraclough. ‘Television Invasion’, 227. Barraclough's essay remains the only in-depth scholarly analysis of Pakistani television. There are several articles on issues such as gender, development and education that touch on the role of electronic media in Pakistani society and politics but none of these examine the place of television as an institution, practice and industry in its own right.
8. Ali, ‘Pakistan Television’. Cited in Kumar et al., Representing the Unrepresented, 12.
9. Kumar et al., Representing the Unrepresented, 13.
10. Ibid., 15.
11. Barraclough. ‘Television Invasion’, 228.
12. Ali, ‘Transition in Midst of Dramatic Change’.
13. Barraclough, ‘Television Invasion’, 232.
14. Kumar et al., Representing the Unrepresented, 81.
15. She, July 1998, cited in Barraclough, ‘Television Invasion’, 234.
16. Wahab, ‘Social Consequences’, 124.
17. Nadvi and Robinson, Pakistan Drivers of Change, 20.
18. Fatah, ‘FM Mullahs’.
19. Saeed et al., ‘ICTs, an Alternative Sphere for Social Movements in Pakistan’.
20. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 48.
21. Ibid., 49.
22. Bilquees, ‘Performance of Regulatory Bodies’, 144.
23. Wahab, ‘Social Consequences’, 125.
24. Ahmad, ‘Cable Television Network’, 146–7.
25. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 49.
26. Nasrullah, ‘Aaj TV Turns 3’.
27. Javed, ‘Regulation, Competition, and Information’.
28. See Siddiqa, Miliary Inc.; Cohen, Idea of Pakistan; Halliday and Alavi, State and Ideology; Khan, Islam, Politics and the State; and Weiss and Gilani, Power and Civil Society in Pakistan. Siddiqa analyses the significance of the imbrication of civil and economic society with the military. Alavi, Cohen, Khan and Weiss provide in-depth analyses of Pakistani politics and society with an emphasis on the role of the feudal elite and of religious and ethnic differences.
29. See Habermas, Structural Transformations; Fraser, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere’; Garnham, ‘The Media and the Public Sphere’; McGuigan, Culture and Public Sphere; Livingstone and Lunt, Talk on Television; and Shattuc, Talking Cure.
30. Ovais, ‘Representation of Pakistan Women in the Media’, 146.
31. Kraidy and Khalil, ‘Arab Television Industries, esp. 123–4.
32. See Jahangir and Jilani, Hudood Ordinances. The Zina Hudood Ordinance of 1979 and the Law of Evidence of 1984 were part of General Zia's attempts to set up a parallel system of Islamic law in Pakistan. The Hudood Ordinance criminalized zina or extramarital sex and did not distinguish between rape and consensual sex. The Law of evidence further stacked the deck against women by declaring that a woman's testimony counted for only half that of a man's. Thus, a woman who had been raped would not only find her testimony outweighed by her assailant, but could be prosecuted for zina if she was able to establish that sexual intercourse had taken place.
33. Barraclough, ‘Television Invasion’.
34. Ibid.
35. Nadvi and Robinson, Pakistan Drivers of Change, 20.
36. Naseem, ‘Political Economy of Structural Reforms’.
37. Nadadur, ‘Self-Censorship’, 52.
38. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 49.
39. Ali, ‘Transition in Midst of Dramatic Change’.
40. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 51.
41. Ibid., 47.
42. Ahmad, ‘Leftovers of the Left’.
43. The title literally translates as ‘We are all hopeful’, but is more often used to say that one is pregnant – ‘we are expecting’.
44. Fatah, ‘Pakistan's Late-Night TV Queen’.
45. Barker, ‘Pakistan Drag Diva’.
46. Masood, ‘When She Speaks’.
47. Wallace, ‘Sassy Voice and Face of Pakistan’.
48. ‘Banned Begum Nawazish Show Back on Air’, The Press Trust of India.
49. Wallace, ‘Sassy Voice and Face of Pakistan’.
50. Fatah, ‘Pakistan's Late-Night TV Queen’.
51. Late Show with Begum Nawazish Ali. April 2006. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUa7JVazj4w. Accessed 19 March 2010.
52. In Urdu: ‘Aakhir duniya mein kitney hee sheher hain jahan par 9 saw foot lumba tower khara hay?’
53. The Begum and Ahsan get into a discussion of who will remove the uniform from the government. She asks him to relax, playfully chides him for being ‘stiff and formal’ and reminds him that he's not on Hamid Mir's political talk programme but on her show. She goes on to ask him directly who of the military, bureaucracy and politicians are the most corrupt.
54. Kothari, ‘From Genre to Zanaana’, 294–5.
55. Ibid., 295. Kothari's analysis touches on connections between public and private space, melodrama and the articulation of national subjects that are much more fully developed in Lila Abu-Lughod's Dramas of Nationhood.
56. Kothari, ‘From Genre to Zanaana’, 301.
57. Barker, ‘Pakistan Drag Diva’.
58. ‘Drag Queen and Rally Driving Brother’, Agence France Presse, 12 May 2006.
59. Wilkinson, ‘How Pakistan's ‘“Dame Edna” Has Upset Musharraf’.
60. Masood, ‘When She Speaks’.
61. Fatah, ‘Pakistan's Late-Night TV Queen’.
62. Wallace, ‘Sassy Voice and Face of Pakistan’.
63. Hussain, ‘Ali Saleem’.
64. ‘Banned Begum Nawazish Show Back on Air’, The Press Trust of India.
65. Drag as a performance of gender is, as Judith Butler says in Gender Trouble, a performance that draws attention to and disturbs cultural norms by reproducing them with a difference, by exaggerating them and thus highlighting the extent to which they are a construct and not natural. In the case of the Begum and Ali Saleem, both gender and class norms are denaturalized. However, Saleem's performance also owes much to the tradition of satire and the finely tuned ear for double entendres and hidden references that audiences develop for in censored environments.
66. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 48.
67. ‘Pak's Most Popular Chat Show’, The Press Trust of India.
68. Shaikh, ‘Politics in Pakistan’, 12.
69. Ghias, ‘Miscarriage of Chief Justice’, 991–2.
70. Nasr, Forces of Fortune, 226.
71. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 48. Chaudhry was again removed from office when General Musharraf declared a state of emergency on 3 November 2007 and was reinstated in March 2009.
72. Ibid., 46.
73. Ibid., 47.
74. Ibid.
75. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority. ‘PEMRA (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2007’.
76. Mufti, ‘Musharraf's Monster’, 50.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., 49.
79. Ibid., 50.
80. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority. ‘Code of Conduct for Media Broadcasters/Cable TV Operators’. For example, article (e) of the Code prohibits content that ‘is likely to encourage and incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national or anti-state attitudes’.
81. A number of blooper clips floating around on YouTube showing moments of failure by journalists and talk show hosts provide glimpses of the disciplining of bodies and behaviours. One particularly telling clip showcases the halting and unsuccessful attempts of a popular and successful Pakistani actress to conduct an interview in English. We are encouraged to laugh at her and to read her failure to master English as a failure of her skills at being a television host. See ‘Meera English at Its Best’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdNej6h6bSY.
82. ‘Big Boss 4 Evicted Begum Wants to Have Tea with Bal Thackeray’. The India Daily.
83. Asian Human Rights Commission. ‘Pakistan: Show Cause Notices against Four Television Channels Must be Withdrawn’.