Violent reactions

Tuesday night was the night. It was the night for the superhero to zoom into our lives and rescue us from the tedium of soaps. It promised ...

Tuesday night was the night. It was the night for the superhero to zoom into our lives and rescue us from the tedium of soaps. It promised to be terribly thrilling – especially if you’ve been priveliged enough to see the promos in which there are these unidentified flying objects floating in mid-air like dead bodies bobbing on water and skyscrapers so tall and fantastic, you think they’ve been imported straight from the discarded sets of sci-fi film (whereas they’ve been created on a computer, right?). One UFO in particular, catches the eye: it looks suspiciously like a bat but is probably the man we’re waiting to see: Shaktimaan (DD1).

Alas and alack, as actor/producer Mukesh Khanna discovered, there’s no shakti at all, just a woman with a weak chin announcing that Shaktimaan will not be telecast and we’ll just have to make do with whatever it is that Doordarshan can lay it hands on. No explanations, no nothing. That’s Doordarshan for you: earlier, it used to have this apology for an apology which would appear on the screen expressing khed for the rukavat; now we don’t even merit that. The screen simply goes blank when something goes wrong and then it turns different shades of colour: on this occasion it was a sort of green and purple. How can DD do the sort of thing which would not be tolerated on or by any private channel? Quite easily. You see, it doesn’t really care. About you or any other viewer. And why should it? As a gentleman from the BBC remarked, the real story of Indian television is about how DD is still holding sway. It’s not about Mr R. Basu’s taste in personnel, nor Zee’s taste in programmes or Sony’s taste of success; its about DD holding onto the lion’s share of the TV audience and the advertising. Being a national, terrestrial channel, available throughout the country, keeps DD so far ahead of the pack that it can do just about anything, show just about anything-without so much as a by your leave.

Still, it’s better than watching STAR Movies or the local cable operators’ channels which run films even adults shouldn’t watch. In August, this newspaper carried a story on how STAR Movies was soft peddling soft porn at night and then recycling the films in the daytime (when children are the most likely audience) with a few cosmetic cuts to keep the moral brigade at an arm’s length. Now Delhi’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mr Prem Kumar, has summoned the STAR management to answer for "slow sweet poisoning our young children…” Kumar is worried that these movies tell young girls that "love can be thrilling and even pleasingly dangerous…” This, in his opinion, is the cultural invasion at its worst. Well, it hasn’t quite come to that but that’s besides the point.

The point is that no civil society should be exposed to such sex and violence (and the violence is as important as the sex), especially on television channels which are impossible to monitor or regulate. Complaints about vulgarity, violence and sexual perversity on TV (in films or serials), have rained down like a monsoon shower, but our governments wear an impermeable raincoat and don’t feel a thing. It is left to the judiciary (once again) to intervene. It’s been said before but obviously bears repeating again and again until someone in the I&B Ministry listens – we don’t need a Broadcast Bill to protect us from such films. If DTH can be banned with a notification, surely cheap, B-grade sex and sado-masochistic films/ shows (Indian and foreign) can be ruled off the air? Granted this is difficult with cable operators but a beginning can be made with the main channels. If the CBFC is overworked, there are any number of film review guides with the necessary information on viewing age and the quantum of sex and violence in each film. Just use them.

As for local cable operators, by telecasting such films, they’re providing the government with its strongest reason for allowing only select, big time players to run the cable networks. Because it’s possible to control a few, impossible to police 60,000-70,000.

Children are being exposed to unbelievably perverted human acts on TV. Many perpetrated on women. What impact will this have on children? Do we really want to find out? or do we want to do everything we can to prevent it?