Priya, Sushma, morals

There is ample evidence by now that Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi means business. And that he considers his business is to guard 8220;public morality8221; and protect 8220;good taste8221; by showing no tolerance at all for the 8220;indecent8221; and the 8220;obscene8221;. In January this year, this meant decapitating AXN for showing 8216;The World8217;s Sexiest Advertisements8217;. The channel was allowed to come back on air, but only after the minister had satisfied himself with a grovelling apology. Now, it means axing Fashion TV for telecasting programmes such as 8216;Midnight Hot8217;, in which 8220;skimpily dressed and semi-naked models8230; denigrate women and were likely to adversely affect public morality8221;. FTV, of course, has been here before. In 2002, it was up against Sushma Swaraj8217;s prudishness. Now it must contend with Dasmunshi8217;s notion of morality.

So is that how it is going to be in the world8217;s largest democracy, one that prides itself on a mature and lively public debate? Is the individual I038;B minister8217;s whim the sole and final determiner of what can and cannot be seen by its adult population in the privacy of their living rooms? Are we going to let Swaraj then and Dasmunshi now decide what is fit to watch? Someone could argue that it is not quite so arbitrary. After all, there is the 1995 Cable Television Networks Regulation Act 1995. But that would be missing the point entirely. For one, the Act is outdated. The media scene has undergone a dramatic transformation since 1995. Then, it doesn8217;t define obscenity. There is no transparency about the mechanism that is used to reach the decision to restrict and to ban. Who is the complainant, and who decides are questions that are left swathed in vagueness.

What India desperately needs is an independent and transparent complaint and redressal mechanism. We need a rating system and a system of watershed timing. We need to combine an independent regulatory authority with self-regulation. What we do not need is a system of censorship presided over by narrow-minded ministers. Perhaps this is a good moment to ask: what is happening on the promised and long-overdue Broadcast Bill anyway?