1st Panos-Himal Roundtable

A session in the hills
The India–Pakistan media retreat
May 2002

Introduction

Himal and Panos South Asia organised an India-Pakistan Media Retreat at Nagarkot, Nepal, on 11-12 May 2002, bringing together editors, reporters, columnists and politicians from the two countries to discuss the pitfalls and opportunities before media in their coverage of bilateral issues. These are people at the frontline of news production and opinion-formation, individuals who through their proximity to news events have a heightened understanding of the geopolitical dangers that stare South Asia in the face today.

At the retreat, participants undertook to discuss a variety of issues that determine the way India and Pakistan figure in each other's media. Also under discussion was the role that the media plays or can play in either reducing or inflaming the conflict that has dominated South Asia for sometime, and dominates world news today. Through these and various other exploratory discussions, a perhaps unprecedented exercise was carried out: here is Indian and Pakistani media on Indian and Pakistani media.The result is an illustration of the processes of journalism and a revelation of the tensions that inform and emerge from the practise of this difficult trade in this difficult region. We reproduce an edited transcript of the discussion held in the belief that it will be of interest to a large section of our readers. We hope that this exercise will provide new ideas that will eventually contribute to improving the role of media in a perennially conflict-ridden, nuclearised Subcontinent.