The I&B (Information and Broadcasting) ministry in the Government of India is bent upon playing spoilsport in the past decade. In the past if one I&B Minister thought FTV should be banned, the current minister has taken it a step further and banned AXN from Indian airwaves for a period of two months. This sort of arbitrary action has been a signature recently for example consider the furore over 'The DaVinci Code'. I for one could not watch this movie when it released because of the ban in Tamilnadu. But the fact that I own it (legally) on DVD is another matter now.
Yesterday's ban on AXN was immature if not unwarranted. The statement released by the I&B ministry reads as follows.
“It had come to the notice of the Central Government that some cable operators in the country through their Cable Television Networks are transmitting /re-transmitting a satellite channel namely “AXN” which is reportedly telecasting programmes such as ‘World’s Sexiest Advertisements’ that are against good taste or decency and are likely to adversely affect public morality,”
Now what constitutes 'good taste' or 'decency' is open to interpretation. I am sure all the umpteen mega serials are 'decent' as are all the proceedings shown in state assemblies and parliament. Let's take a look at the provisions in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 that could have been invoked to effect this ban. Chapter 5 section 20 of this act reads as follows.
(3) Where the Central Government considers that any programme of any channel is not in conformity with the prescribed programme code referred to in section 5 or the prescribed advertisement code referred to in section 6, it may by order, regulate or prohibit the transmission or re-transmission of such programme”.
Obviously this section can be invoked at any programme and an arbitrary ban can be effected because there is no established procedure to haul up the broadcaster and solicit an explanation (which I don't think is fair at all in the first place). The program code referred to in section 5 is show below. See for yourself how varied it's provisions are.
Programme Code - No programme should be carried in the cable service which:-
(a) Offends against good taste or decency:
(b) Contains criticism of friendly countries;
(c) Contains attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religious groups or which promote communal attitudes;
(d) Contains anything obscene, defamatory, deliberate, false and suggestive innuendos and half truths;
(e) Is likely to encourage or incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promote-anti-national attitudes;
(f) Contains anything amounting to contempt of court;
(g) Contains aspersions against the integrity of the President and Judiciary;
(h) Contains anything affecting the integrity of the Nation;
(i) Criticises, maligns or slanders any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country ;
(j) Encourages superstition or blind belief;
(k) Denigrates women through the depiction in any manner of the figure of a women, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to women, or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals;
(l) Denigrates children;
(m) Contains visuals or words which reflect a slandering, ironical and snobbish attitude in the portrayal of certain ethnic, linguistic and regional groups
(n) Contravenes the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
(o) is not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition.
Explanation – For the purpose of this clause, the expression “unrestricted public exhibition” shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (37 of 1952);
Given this matter, another one came up yesterday which kind of sends one logic in a tailspin. Pray what's in public interest about Shilpa Shetty taking part in 'Big Brother' for a sum of 3 crores for 25 days? Why is the government worried about what is happening in the show? If Bollywood is worried it certainly has a right to and if fans are worries their worry is not misplaced. But the Government certainly has other pressing matters to talk about and work on. The I&B minister calling a meeting of secretaries in New Delhi to tackle the matter of alleged racism in a TV show is surely in India's interest!
At the end of the day, it looks like everyone wants to be featured in the next days' newspaper and all news bulletins. The I&B ministry needs a liberal minded minister who'd be able to open up airwaves like Dr.Manmohan Singh did to the Economy in the 90's. They also need someone like Mr.P.Chidambaram to continue the reforms otherwise the successor will end up undoing all changes effected by the predecessor.
