After four years of watching television programs test the boundaries of decorum and build devoted audiences in the process, conservatives are striking back.In the latest battle of the long-simmering war between cultural conservatives and liberals, the Minister for Information and Culture ordered television networks to stop broadcasting five soap operas on Tuesday, saying they were not in keeping with “Afghan religion and culture.” The minister, Abdul Karim Khurram, said last week that he had made the decision in consultation with the Council of Clerics, made up of the country’s most influential religious leaders. The private television companies initially refused to obey the order and said they would plead their case to Afghanistan’s president. The television shows, all soap operas produced in India, continued to be broadcast every evening and have much of the urban population hooked. As the deadline approached, however, one network, Ariana TV, buckled and pulled one of the soaps, Kumkum, on Sunday. The network was immediately deluged with calls from viewers, said Abdul Qadir Mirzai, Ariana’s chief news editor. Control of television and its content has been a hotly debated issue here for decades. The strictly conservative Taliban government banned it outright, and the government before that, run by mujahedeen leaders, banned female singers and presenters. But under President Hamid Karzai, who is backed by the West, television has flourished, with 17 private television companies starting in the past six years, 11 of them based in Kabul, the capital. Numerous cable television companies also provide a wide selection of foreign films and television shows.Many viewers in this struggling country are so absorbed by the soap operas that they rush home in the evening to find out what happens next. Will Prerna on Kasauti Zindagi Ki convince her husband that she is not having an affair with a tycoon, Mr Bajaj? Can Tulsi, the heroine of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, ward off the schemes of her husband’s former mistress? Both shows are among the five banned by Khurram, the Culture Minister. The television companies have also made themselves felt on the political front, not only by broadcasting probing news reports but also by taking sides in ethnic and language debates, which reflect political divisions in Afghanistan.
