Notwithstanding a difference of opinion on the exact size and direction of Pakistan Television’s (PTV’s) contribution to literature and culture, it will be impossible to deny that this contribution has been significant.

The credits earned by PTV, however, present an extraordinary case of the un-intended benefits of an enterprise overshadowing the intended outcome.

Television came to Pakistan as part of the Ayub regime’s grand design to control public opinion and the Pakistani people’s thought processes. The earlier steps included the malicious seizure of the Progressive Papers Ltd (1959), the takeover of the Associated Press of Pakistan (1961), the promulgation of Press & Publication Ordinance (1963), the new film censorship policy (1963), the move to control literature and writers through the Writers’ Guild, and the establishment of the National Press Trust (1964).

The regime’s propaganda team wanted to commission the audio-visual medium to help Ayub Khan win the presidential election that was due to be held in January 1965.

Their first target was cinema. While the East Bengal film-makers saw opportunities of exploiting the official interest in helping them to their own good and succeeded in establishing the Film Development Corporation in Dhaka, the West Pakistan film-makers annoyed Islamabad with their tough conditionalties. An exasperated information czar decided to opt for television as a more effective way to build support for Ayub Khan and, at the same time, punish the film-makers for their impudence.

The tv project was accordingly pursued with unusual vigour. An agreement for Japanese assistance was followed by a commercial deal for the manufacture of tv sets and, on November 23, 1964, the Lahore tv station started functioning.

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A brief and desultory discussion did take place on the objectives of the PTV but no more. Since it was necessary to keep the regime’s political objective secret, some casual reference was made to the need to inform, educate, and entertain the masses. But from the very first day, the tv’s assignment as a news management agency became obvious.

Excessive use of PTV, along with Radio Pakistan and APP, as the regime’s propaganda tools, however, boomeranged and eventually it was listed as one of the factors contributing to Ayub Khan’s unpopularity during 1968-69.

That PTV managed to win public respect despite being an unpopular authority’s mouthpiece was due largely to the broadmindedness of the leading lights of the Lahore pilot project -- Aslam Azhar foremost among them. He had colleagues of outstanding calibre, such as Agha Nasir, Kamal Ahmad, Nisar Husain, Mohammad Nisar Husain, and the information duo of Zafar Samdani and Moslehuddin.

Just as the Indian cinema of 1920s and 1930s, especially its Kolkata branch, and the All-India Radio of 1940s had benefited from the services of the country’s talented writers, artists, and music-makers, PTV attracted woman and men of enormous talent because, even in its pilot stage, it had to fill the time between news and government publicity programmes. And the programme managers used their autonomy imaginatively to good effect.

They reduced the damage caused by holding the government brief by making the talk shows lively and inviting independent-minded experts to discuss affairs of the day. The news department earned considerable goodwill by organising interviews with political leaders on the eve of the 1970 election. In fact, the series was too good to be tolerated by the Yahya regime. The round-the-clock coverage of the 1970 election, for which PTV succeeded in engaging eminent analysts, set the pattern of election coverage that has not been bettered to this day. And then there was Laeeq Ahmad who laid the foundations of smart running commentaries.

PTV took over from the radio the important mission of preserving music. It enabled a long list of artists: from Roshan Ara Begum and Noor Jahan to Mehnaz, Tasawwar Khanum and Bilquees and Amanat Ali Khan and Pathaney Khan to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to survive not only on audio tapes but also in visual strips.

The organisation can also claim credit for increasing public interest in sports by enabling it to witness both domestic and foreign events alive. This was not without a price as the live coverage of sports reduced the viewers’ reliance on commentators and the art that stars like Omar Kureishi and Jamshed Marker as commentators on cricket matches, and Farooq Mazhar in case of hockey matches, had developed could not be sustained.

But drama was the field in which PTV won laurels for many years. A series of outstanding productions: Khuda Ki Basti, Parchhainian, Jhok Sial, Dhoop Kinaray, Unkahi, Uncle Urfi, Waris, Alif Noon, Sona Chandi, Ragon main Andhera, Andhera Ujala, Aik Mohabbat sau Afsaney and many others that I cannot, at the moment, recall, made these plays a popular form of entertainment. They also developed a large clientele abroad.

These plays offered unprecedented opportunities to a large group of writers: Shaukat Siddiqui, Fatima Suraiya Bajia, Haseena Moin, Munnoo Bhai, Amjad Islam Amjad, Kamal Ahmad Rizvi, Nurul Huda Shah, Anwar Maqsood, Ashfaq Ahmad, Yunus Javed, and Asghar Nadeem Syed, et al.

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Some of them tried to reduce the gap between fiction and reality by exposing the oppression of landlords, the violence against women, and the inefficiency in services (especially the police) to a greater extent than had been done in the national cinema. Not all of them were as keen on experimenting with form and content as Munnoo Bhai, Sarmad Sehbai, and Enver Sajjad but PTV fiction was able to hold its own against the works of fiction available in print.

The work of these writers is a significant contribution to Pakistan’s literature.

All this would have been impossible without PTV’s success in finding extremely talented producers: Aslam Azhar, Agha Nasir, Ayub Khawar, Yawar Hayat, Mohammad Nisar Husain, Rahat Kazmi, Sahira Kazmi, Iqbal Ansari, and their younger colleagues. And they were helped by a long line of artists: Roohi Bano, Qavi, Uzma Gilani, Nayar Kamal, Zaheen Tahira, Talat Husain, Rahat Kazmi, Abid Ali, Shakeel, Khalida Riasat, Salima Hashmi, Shoaib Hashmi, Bushra Ansari, Salman Shahid, Naveed Shehzad, Qazi Wajid, Moin Akhtar, Irfan Khoosat, Samina Ahmad, Saba Hameed and many others.

With its plays, PTV enriched the rather slim tradition of drama in Pakistan.

Like radio before it, PTV helped the rise of music and drama in under-privileged federating units -- Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa -- by creating opportunities for playwrights, producers, and artists in those areas that might not have come their way for many more years.

An important contribution of PTV to Pakistan’s culture has been to increase public interest in books and knowledge gathering. The programme Kasauti, made popular by such store-houses of knowledge as Iftikhar Arif and Obaidullah Baig and later on Ghazi Salahuddin, was a boon to the youth that had long been denied opportunities of developing and testing their brain-power.

Even more significant has been PTV’s role in keeping the art of the documentary alive. The documentaries made by Kanwar Aftab Ahmad, Obaidullah Baig, and Shireen Pasha (mentioned in alphabetical order) not only helped the citizens in knowing their land and its people better but also earned credit for exploring the possibilities of visual arts.

Unfortunately, PTV has not been able to realise its potential for no fault of its own. From the dark period of Ziaul Haq onwards, the independent professional has been suffering a decline and the higher grounds have been captured either by business-minded custodians (who sold prime time to all kinds of operators) or government favourites of doubtful professional merit and questionable integrity.

The failure to rid PTV of bureaucratic control and let it be managed by independent professionals has arrested the organisation’s growth along the course its founding fathers had charted. It is not good that PTV’s contribution to literature and culture should be part of history and not a feature of contemporary experience.

Perhaps the fact that the capture of the PTV should become the signal and symbol of regime change has been its undoing. Such use of PTV must come to an end.