Yeh kaisa insaaf? Can someone scrap the Rakhi show please?
The man from Jhansi was just 25 for God’s sake! He was battling marital woes just 10 months into his marriage and not finding a way out of the mess. And then he thought he got a platform to have his problem solved. The channel even offered him money as an added lure to speak about his discord with his new bride. And then Rakhi Sawant happened to him. He got abused on national television by her. He was told by her again and again that he was impotent and did not deserve the marriage. Twenty days later, the man ended his life — apparently by starving himself to death.
The issue here is not whether the man is at fault and whether it really was suicide or not. The issue here is that Indian television has gotten more and more greedy about TRPs and has stepped into the zone of blatant insensitivity, no social responsibility and definitely no conscience. The sad part is that Imagine TV, which has provided the platform to Rakhi to decimate unsuspecting victims brought to her on the show, will actually say it has no regrets. More alarmingly, the death of this youngster will give added fillip to its ad revenue generated by this awful show. Life will go on, till another person gets to take his life because he thought he could make some money.
Reality shows on television have an inherent problem. They thrive on public voyeurism and they catch public imagination very fast. Take the heinous ones like Emotional Atyachar. It films infidelity and then puts the involved couples into the fighting ring. The TRPs, I am told, are very high and this truly criminal show is going into its next season!
Channels like Imagine TV which has been thriving on shows like Rakhi Ka Insaaf (it also did the highly objectionable Rahul (Mahajan) Dulhaniya Le Jayega), has gone on record on previous occasions saying it has no social responsibility and that the contestants know what they are in for when they choose to feature on their shows. Even for the outrageous things she says and does on her show, Rakhi refuses to take any responsibility saying she has been given complete freedom by the channel and all questions about her brazen demeanour should be directed to the channel.
Of course they know. But who is luring them? The channel itself with a lot of money which, for people, like the ones who come on shows making a spectacle of themselves, is either very essential or grossly needed. They are truly unsuspecting victims. Take the case of the Saharanpur Muslim widow who came on Rakhi’s show seeking to get her son back from her sisters. Did Rakhi or the channel have any business to secretly install CCTV cameras in her house and catch her on tape hugging a married man? The channel did not just air the footage on the show much to the shock of the woman but also told her how she was characterless enough to not deserve her son!
The woman who lives, rather used to live, in a conservative locality of Saharanpur has since gone missing. Quite obviously, there was no way she could have continued to live at that place with neighbours who now know she “has sinned.” The woman now is not just a widow but also a homeless one at that, thanks to Imagine TV’s intense need to make money on her. Yes, the woman did take the money (one is told they offered her Rs 25,000 to appear on the show promising her justice and Rs 10,000 to her three sisters who have custody of her son) but the crime is the channel’s which exploited her need without a thought to the consequences.
As per the Indian law, luring with money is graft, a crime. Abetting the death of someone is also a crime. The channel and Rakhi are liable in both cases and it will be in the interest of the Indian society in general if the punishment comes severely enough to stem such shows on the Indian television. In a democracy, one is told, you can’t gag the freedom of expression. So be it Arundhati Roy stoking secession or Imagine TV triggering deaths, depressions and displacements, law will be an ass.
That is what is worrying and that is what is sad. You can’t rein in public voyeurism. But if you are a responsible medium you will certainly steer clear of greed and keep it at bay. Indian television programmes need to introspect about this intangible.
May be then the TRP race would not amount to a crime run going unheeded, untackled and totally unhindered.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, November 14, 2010
The issue here is not whether the man is at fault and whether it really was suicide or not. The issue here is that Indian television has gotten more and more greedy about TRPs and has stepped into the zone of blatant insensitivity, no social responsibility and definitely no conscience. The sad part is that Imagine TV, which has provided the platform to Rakhi to decimate unsuspecting victims brought to her on the show, will actually say it has no regrets. More alarmingly, the death of this youngster will give added fillip to its ad revenue generated by this awful show. Life will go on, till another person gets to take his life because he thought he could make some money.
Reality shows on television have an inherent problem. They thrive on public voyeurism and they catch public imagination very fast. Take the heinous ones like Emotional Atyachar. It films infidelity and then puts the involved couples into the fighting ring. The TRPs, I am told, are very high and this truly criminal show is going into its next season!
Channels like Imagine TV which has been thriving on shows like Rakhi Ka Insaaf (it also did the highly objectionable Rahul (Mahajan) Dulhaniya Le Jayega), has gone on record on previous occasions saying it has no social responsibility and that the contestants know what they are in for when they choose to feature on their shows. Even for the outrageous things she says and does on her show, Rakhi refuses to take any responsibility saying she has been given complete freedom by the channel and all questions about her brazen demeanour should be directed to the channel.
Of course they know. But who is luring them? The channel itself with a lot of money which, for people, like the ones who come on shows making a spectacle of themselves, is either very essential or grossly needed. They are truly unsuspecting victims. Take the case of the Saharanpur Muslim widow who came on Rakhi’s show seeking to get her son back from her sisters. Did Rakhi or the channel have any business to secretly install CCTV cameras in her house and catch her on tape hugging a married man? The channel did not just air the footage on the show much to the shock of the woman but also told her how she was characterless enough to not deserve her son!
The woman who lives, rather used to live, in a conservative locality of Saharanpur has since gone missing. Quite obviously, there was no way she could have continued to live at that place with neighbours who now know she “has sinned.” The woman now is not just a widow but also a homeless one at that, thanks to Imagine TV’s intense need to make money on her. Yes, the woman did take the money (one is told they offered her Rs 25,000 to appear on the show promising her justice and Rs 10,000 to her three sisters who have custody of her son) but the crime is the channel’s which exploited her need without a thought to the consequences.
As per the Indian law, luring with money is graft, a crime. Abetting the death of someone is also a crime. The channel and Rakhi are liable in both cases and it will be in the interest of the Indian society in general if the punishment comes severely enough to stem such shows on the Indian television. In a democracy, one is told, you can’t gag the freedom of expression. So be it Arundhati Roy stoking secession or Imagine TV triggering deaths, depressions and displacements, law will be an ass.
That is what is worrying and that is what is sad. You can’t rein in public voyeurism. But if you are a responsible medium you will certainly steer clear of greed and keep it at bay. Indian television programmes need to introspect about this intangible.
May be then the TRP race would not amount to a crime run going unheeded, untackled and totally unhindered.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, November 14, 2010
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