Now cable operators impose censorship!
More censorship. We just can’t seem to get enough of it these days, it seems!
After having come through blog blockade, RTI Act dilution, art gag, the next medium to bear the brunt of censorship is television.
Cable operators, in at least Mumbai, have arbitrarily pulled all private channels off air without any prior notice! As of now as far as I know, only DD National, DD Sahyadri, DD Bharati and Janmat are on air. All other channels have been blocked out.
The following message is being scrolled on a black background on some of the channels.
IN TERMS OF BOMBAY HIGH COURT ORDER 21st DECEMBER 2005 CERTAIN CHANNELS WHICH ARE ALLEGEDLY CARRYING ADULT CONTENT WHICH ARE NOT TO BE SHOWN INCABLENET HAS SOUGHT CLARIFICATIONS FROM THE COURT WHICH IS PENDING. TILL THEN THESE CHANNELS ARE NOT SHOWN. INCONVENIENCE GIVEN IS REGRETTED. [sic]
What?!! Adult content on cartoon channels, news channels, Discovery, National Geographic, sports channels?!!
Basically, any attempt to deny me the right to gain information from any of these channels for viewing which I am paying money, is a gross suppression of my freedoms. I don’t care who is at fault here… the cable operators, the High Court or the government. This is ridiculous… utterly, pathetically ridiculous!!
Just a few days ago, I was complaining to a friend how the IB Ministry had forced music channels to run scrolling messages that made the music channels admit that they were showing ‘objectionable’ content and they would not do so in the future. Kinda reminded me of school where teachers used to ask troublemakers in the class to write things like “I will not talk in the class” a 100 times in their notebooks!
Incidentally, I wonder why the cable operators are still carrying the government-owned DD channels on air?!
Update: You can follow this story at the BloggersCollective and India Uncut.
Update 2: It is now fairly clear that the cable blackout is a form of protest by the Mumbai MSOs (Multi-system Operators) through the local cable operators, against the police action against them, in the form of raids. The Bombay High Court order dated 21st Dec 2005 had prohibited the cable operators and service providers from showing any material unsuitable for unrestricted public viewing.
As per the order, which takes immediate effect, cable operators will have to block any film on any channel certified as ‘A’ or for a particular class or profession by the Central Board of Film Certification. In effect, only films with a ?U? (unrestricted viewing) certificate can be beamed into people’s homes.
I fail to understand why the cable operators are being asked to regulate the content delivered to our homes?! The content is being generated and aired by the private channels, most of which are pay-channels. So per se, there is no unrestricted viewership i.e. the viewership is controlled by the virtue of a price associated with it. If you pay the price, you are opting-in voluntarily. Then if you are unsatisfied with it, you alone should be responsible for deciding whether you want to continue availing that service or not. Why on earth should a court or the government decide that for me?!
Moreover, if the content has been explicitly classified as ‘Adult’ and this classification prominently displayed, doesn’t the responsibility then lie with parents to control the type of programming that their children watch on TV? Why should some people’s skewed value systems and lifestyles affect the choice that I should be free to make for myself?!
I agree that technically speaking, until individual subscribers don’t have the ability to granularly subscribe/unsubscribe to individual channels, the current cable/satellite TV setup, of paying a lumpsum monthly rent to the operator, is pretty much unrestricted and depends largely on the discretion of the cable operator. But with DTH and CAS set to proliferate throughout the country, surely its only time before the people get the power to reject programmes/channels that they find unsuitable. As such, it could’ve been better for the High Court to direct the government to expedite the CAS rollout.
I am pissed off at the cable operators for imposing a blanket ban. But I am even more angry at prudes like Pratibha Naithani and absolutely dismayed that the Bombay High Court has passed an order that is technologically-ignorant and which belittles the Indian citizens’ ability to make their own choices.
Update 3: I have weighed in on the futility of allowing U/A movies but not ‘A’ rated movies, in a later post titled ‘Control TV habits, not TV content‘.
8 comments
prathibha naithani wants the whole country to see what she views.
star movies and hbo show nothing objectionable.they do less harm
than mega serials of ektha kapoor etc.infact star movies and hbo
show good quality movies which local film makers don’t provide.
Srinivas >> You are absolutely right about star movies and hbo. I don’t recall having seen a single ‘18′ rated movie in a long long time. They limit themselves to ‘15′. But the problem is that the courts will not necessarily recognize these certifications. They want all content that is to be shown in India to be certified by our censor board. And we know the arbitrary parameters used to rate our movies by our censor board. If they have anything to do with it, hardly any ‘15′ rated movie would get shown in India as almost all of them might get classified as ‘A’ in India.
As far as Pratibha Naithani is concerned, I’m sure she has no evil designs of controlling the minds of Indians by deciding what they ought to watch. She has the right to protest against what doesn’t suit her sensitivities. But asking the court for a ban is a bit draconian! :-)
Agree with you fully. But this is not the first time that the Bombay High Court has poked its nose into things it has nothing to do with. For my rant on this, please read this
I dont know who is Pratibha Naithani to decide what Indians should watch. If she wants her kids not to watch movies let her control them. No channels are screening Adult movies now and i dont know the role High Court in interfering peoples leaving behind lot of issues of National Interest Behind. If parents dont want their children to watch this material let them use parental lock. Internet , DVDs and Cds are a majot source of Porn and i dont think kids of current gets ruined of just watching some scenes on a movie. I think Pratibha Naithani wants to be the cultural police . Piss off Pratibha Naithani
Unknown Indian>> I agree. However, in this case the High Court was sticking to the law as it stood. Pratibha Naithani’s complaint took refuge in the letter of the law and the court upheld it while ruling that the cable operators could not legally broadcast “A” rated content or unrated content on TV. The courts don’t make the law… the government does! Courts have to follow the laws. However the point is… if a law itself is ambiguous and ill-thought-out, then should the courts intervene and go beyond the law while considering the basic rights/freedoms in the constitution as sacrosanct! This is where the High Court failed. I would have expected the aggrieved parties to appeal to the Supreme Court… but the cable operators didn’t do that. They valued their business more than their consumers’ rights.
Bhupathy>> You are right in that anyone, including Pratibha Naithani, should not try to judge what is good for the society as a whole. The society is made up of individuals and each individual, if an adult, should have the right to choose. However, she is right in being worried for children. When children are exposed to content unsuitable for their age group, an avenue for their abuse is kept open. This abuse may take any form. So she is right about being worried. However, her problem is that the solution she is trying to impose is far worse than the problem. We know that if there is even a small demand for something that is restricted, then black market in that commodity flourishes. And when children get exposed to the content illegally, there is very little that the parents can do about it. The better solution is to keep eveything above board and then exercise self-regulation rather than asking the government to do that for you.
Ekta Kapoor should be held accountable for the harms she is doing to our society by showing irrelevent and ‘not possible things in real life’. Society is being dragged towards un-natural way of life. THIS is poision to our society. This should stop immidiately.
THERE ARE VARIOUS WAYS LIKE LOCKING THE CHANNELS OR T.V ITSELF. SO WHEN PARENTS ARE OUT THEY CAN OPT FOR THIS METHOD THAN GOVT RESTRICTING THE CHANNELS AS A WHOLE
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