'Homeland' is giving India free propaganda at Pakistan's expense: Here's how

What is a public relations bug bear to Pakistan should be useful propaganda for India - that should be the summary of the just concluded fourth season of American TV series, Homeland_._ Pakistan is terribly peeved by Homeland because it depicts the country as a “shit-hole” run by an untrustworthy and double-dealing regime overrun by Islamic terrorists. That this message is repeatedly played out in pretty much all the 12 episodes of the series makes the fourth season of Homeland perhaps one of the worst and inadvertent public relations disasters for the country. India, or its Pakistan-wary analysts, should be delighted that the series endorses its long-held view that Pakistan is a pseudo democracy where the real power is with the ISI, which is highly untrustworthy. And that the message has come from Americans, who have been partners with the country for decades, should prod them into a righteous smile. The fourth season is about CIA officer Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, chasing down Taliban terrorists, especially their leader Haissam Haqqani and his dreadful network. The Pakistan army and the ISI are America’s putative allies in the effort, but they are forever playing double games and are even hand in glove with the Haqqani network. [caption id=“attachment_2023013” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Claire Danes in a promotional still for the film. Image courtesy: Facebook[/caption] Drawing details from real-life incidents, the series portrays the helplessness of the mighty Americans against Pakistan’s state-sponsored terror even as they pour billions of dollars in development and military assistance. In the end, Haqqani and his men overrun the American embassy in Islamabad capturing vital intelligence information and killing several of its staff, following which America suspends its diplomatic relations. This is heady stuff indeed. That too told with a certain audacity. The worst reference to Pakistan, and a harbinger of things in store, comes in the second episode itself, in which the CIA director Andrew Lockhart asks the main protagonist Carrie Mathison, who lobbies for the station chief’s post of the agency in Islamabad: “Pakistan? Why do you even want to go back to that shit-hole?” “It’s not even a real country, it’s a fu***** acronym” is his parting shot in the scene. Every episode of the series features Pakistan’s alleged duplicity in vivid details with well-etched characters and incidents. The seemingly ruthless Pakistani intelligence official Tasneem, who spearheads the deceitful offensive, is presented as an epitome of diabolique. In the extensive scenes of negotiations between the Americans and the Pakistanis for the release of a former CIA director from the custody of Haqqani, the latter are in cahoots with the terrorists. At one stage, Lockhart says to his colleagues: “let me go and look at the fu***** in their faces,” while referring to the ISI officials. Millions of people have watched the series across the world. And naturally, Pakistan is upset. “Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US…. is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US. but also to the people of the US,” Pakistan Embassy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana has reportedly said on Saturday. “Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd, but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism.” he further said. There are also voices of protest from resident and non-resident Pakistanis about the portrayal of their country in the series. Writing in the New York Times Bina Shah said: “I realize afterward that I’ve been creating a test, for the creators of “Homeland” and all who would sell an imagined image of Pakistan: If this isn’t really Pakistan, and these aren’t really Pakistanis, then how they see us isn’t really true.” This was in October, after the first episode, in which a drone attack on Haqqani kills the participants of a wedding party. What was in store in the subsequent episodes was worse. For many Indians, there is something more to cheer about. The evil Pakistani intelligence officials featured in the film are played by Indian actors - Nimrat Kaur (of Lunchbox fame) and Raza Jaffrey. The likeable nephew of Haqqani, who gets shot in cold blood by his uncle, is also played by an Indian - Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi). What’s more, the Islamabad shown in the series was shot in Cape Town with the local Indian Muslims standing in for Pakistanis.