Off the air

DID I say issues of media regulation could not be discussed in a way that would entertain? I was wrong. Sushma Swaraj came last week to lend her ministerial presence to a discussion on media regulation, and ended up giving all present more than their money's worth. After sitting poker-faced through the speeches which preceded hers, she became startlingly combustible when her turn came.

"There is no place in the world where there is absolutely no regulation," she said. "Where everything is permitted. Even in places where there is 99 per cent freedom, there is that one per cent of restraint." The honourable minister gave the colourful example of the Rio Carnival at Brazil where absolutely nude women with just panties on, were part of the parade. "Wahan bhi ek degree hai. (Even there there is one degree of regulation.") "They had to keep their panties on. One woman who shed her panty was arrested," Ms Swaraj added.

She went on to mention how she had discovered during her recent visit to Cannes that the French too had regulation on how much non-French cinema and television was allowed in France.

And then she got to the point she wanted to get to, on why she had pulled that odious "Close Up" advertisement off the air. "Women should not just be creatures of commerce, meant to sell soap and tyres. I have been criticised for taking off that 'Close Up' ad. A condemned prisoner's last wish is to kiss his female jailer. Sawal is mein kissing ka nahi, vardi ka hai. (The issue here is not the kiss, it is the uniform.")

"Hindustan me auraton ko vardi pehenne me sadiyon lage hai. Aur ek kaudi ka toothpaste bechne ke liye ke liye is vardi ko. (In India it has taken women centuries to come to the stage when they are donning the uniform. And to sell a cheap little toothpaste, this uniform is being trivialised.")

By now the good lady had really worked herself up. The way the woman jailer was depicted, she said, you did not see her uniform, you only saw the hunger for a kiss on her lips. Or, in shudh Hindi, "Uske honton mein chumb lene ki pyaas." Basically it is a gender issue, she thundered, "basically a question of the dignity of the uniform." It had nothing to do, she added hotly, with whether or not she was a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician.

The media was always distorting the reasons for decisions taken, she said. It was making her out to be excessively conservative and a prude. "This is injustice done to me. They reported that I wanted newsreaders to wear full-sleeve blouses. I do not wear full-sleeve blouses myself. Why would I want newsreaders to do so? Where are the circulars which ordered them to do these things?"

She then waxed eloquent on what her ideal was: the woman who climbed the Everest, the woman who went on the Antarctica expedition. "I dream of the day when a woman will become the army chief," she said. She was not a conservative, or a prude, as the media depicted her, she just hated trivialisation of women. She added, "Has the ad world lost all its creativity? Is it so completely bankrupt for ideas that all it can think of is a woman wanting to kiss a condemned prisoner?"

Earlier she told her audience that she did not know about the serial "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" till she heard her maids Lakshmi and Sheela discussing it. And when she asked her daughter Gudiya what they were talking about, the latter was amazed at her mother's ignorance. "You are the Minister for Information and Broadcasting and you do not know about this serial?"

But then may be that is not such a bad thing. Mamma Swaraj could end up objecting to its brainless story line and say "Off the air!", to the chagrin of millions of women who adore every moment of this cloying saga.

Regulatory options: The Government is clear that the media regulator to be put in place should be independent of Government, but what sort of body should it be? The options, Ms Swaraj said, are still wide open. It could be part of the Convergence Commission, it could be a media council, it could be a broadcasting council, a body that the Prasar Bharati Act had originally provided for, or it could be none of the above. The Government, she said, was open to suggestions.

Living with AIDS: Cipla's new public service advertisements "Living With HIV/AIDS" are striking, and possibly inspiring for people with AIDS, but are models being used? And if they are, does the ad not mislead? This is after all, a very different issue from modelling for brands of soaps and shampoos. The Advertising Standards Council of India, a self-regulating body of the advertising industry which takes complaints about advertisements on air, says it does not get enough complaints. Barely 200 a year. You can contact them at asci@bom5.vsnl.net.in

Vir Sanghvi: discovers Cho Ramaswamy tonight on "Star Talk". Since the latter holds forth on "South File" on DD News every week there isn't anything new in the political views he airs here, but Sanghvi does get around to asking him why he paints his eyebrows.

Mahesh Bhatt: has a new avatar. He will host a human rights show called "Haqueeqat" on Sahara TV starting Tuesday at 8.30 p.m. the coming week.

Omar Abdullah: Could do with a wee bit of coaching on TV appearances. On "The Big Question", on DD 1 on Tuesday nights (which is a poor man's version of "Question Time India" on BBC) he looked down and sideways while answering questions but not up at the camera or at the anchor. Look the audience in the eye, Mr. Abdullah. It is more effective.

On DD 1 this morning: "Meri Kahaani" based on Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography features the episode in which his father, Karam Chand Gandhi dies, and Mohan Das misses being at his bedside.

Just begun: On Saturdays at 9.30 p.m., on DD 1, "Kranti 1857", a new historical.

DD's Priorities: Once upon a time our national broadcaster used to show a regional feature film on Sunday afternoons. It was greatly looked forward to by Indians without access to regional cable channels, living outside their home states, with no access to programming or films in their own language. Then DD scrapped it. It took a long time to revive it, and now it comes on at 11.30 p.m. on Sundays. Last Sunday the Telugu film "Yuvatharam Kadilindi", though badly made, depicted the overthrow of an exploitative rural landlord. It ended at 1.40 a.m. or thereabouts. So now Indians in non-cabled households who want to watch films in their own language, have to stay up till the wee hours of morning to do so, with the next day being a working day. Obviously with so many regional channels on cable, this is no longer enough of an advertising draw for Doordarshan to consider giving it a more mainstream slot. And advertising revenue is usually the criteria these days for scheduling, even under Ms Swaraj's righteous stewardship.

More apologies: In attempting corrections last week, I apparently made three more mistakes. Sorry folks, senility is evidently setting in.

SEVANTI NINAN

E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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