On Sunday 6th June 2010, Zee 24 Taas in their Prime Time News telecast showed an interesting news from Nanded, Maharashtra, where 50 families came in the open bringing their TV sets from home and smashing them one after the other. The News channel reported the angry mob belonging to Bagwan community, who openly appealed to their community members comprising of about 2200 families living in that place, to completely stop viewing TV, in protest against the indecent programmes telecast by some of the channels.

The head of the community, who spoke to the news channel, stated that such indecent programmes shown by some of the channels were bad for children. “They are only teaching them some of the bad practices, as a result of which children who are supposed to go to their bed after sunset are now days tempted to watch some of the TV programmes till late night. It is high time that all our families unite together and stop watching TV and hence the appeal. We are sure, by 14th June, you will find total response from our community, when none of them will have TV sets in their home,” he added.

The TV channel however, called it as a ‘Fatwa’ issued by the community head and also blamed the administration for not intervening to stop such a show on the road. Now, for the news channels, it becomes a breaking news and at the same time a big scare; obviously, as their viewer ship may come down. After all, most of the news channels also have their entertainment channels. Just imagine, if many more families join this protest opened by one community, it won’t take time to flare up the issue over such indecent programmes.

We already have censorship for feature films shown in Theatre, but on television channels even the indecent scenes from ‘A’ certified films in the form of film promos are openly shown. Some of the advertisements are also indecent, but we have already seen action being taken on some of them after the viewers have complained about the same to ASCI ( The Advertising Standards Council of India). They already have their website and any viewer can lodge a complaint directly via e-mail. As per their policy, they do not disclose identity of the complainant, hence have been receiving good response.

It is high time that even for TV programmes, which are viewed by children, we should have a regulatory body on the lines of ASCI, to check the indecency in various programmes. That will also avoid such spontaneous protests by the furious groups of people. In a democratic country like India, every individual has a right to protest as a consumer, be it a TV programme or a film. However, it is the duty of administration to prevent such protests by having strict regulation by way of censorship, to prevent telecast of such indecent programmes.

by Ulhas Shirke © MMW