When a channel has blood on its hands: Rakhi Ka Insaaf or Reality Killer Inc.?

I write this blog with a sense of unrequited shame and impotent anger.

George Ade, an American humorist and playwright, once said: “In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment.” In India, television channels, without exception, wouldn’t think twice of showing worms mating if it would give them ratings. So, why should Imagine TV be an exception?

The biography of Sameer Nair, channel CEO, on the channel’s website claims: Imagine has carved an identity for itself with its unique, break-through reality programming and soul stirring dramas. Ramayan, Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, Bandini, Jyoti, Raaz Pichle Janam Ka, Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega, Devi are some of the programs that have helped establish Imagine firmly in the market.

Nair can now proudly extend his biography to say that his channel’s programmes can also be credited with the death, character assassination or public humiliation of ordinary Indian citizens.

The reference is to the most obnoxious and inhuman of reality shows ever shown: Rakhi Ka Insaaf (RKI).

On November 11, Laxman Prasad, a 25-year-old from Jhansi in central India passed away. Apparently he had stopped eating following a bout of extreme depression. It was caused by his appearance, along with his wife he wedded earlier this year, on RKI, a sham reality show on human relationships. It is presented by the most disgusting television personality ever, who goes by the name of Rakhi Sawant. She has the authority to say anything, mostly the most foul, to the participants. That’s Imagine TV’s ode to liberalism, I suppose.

Reflecting on the marital discord between Prasad and his wife, Sawant called him names, including describing him as an ‘impotent’. After the show, Prasad went into depression which apparently caused his death.

His uncle told the media: “Ever since he was humiliated and called names by the anchor in the programme aired on October 23, he had become an object of rebuke. This had caused him mental agony and he stopped taking food. We had gone to the programme hoping that it would help resolve Laxman's marital problems with Anita, whom he had married on February 19 this year. However, instead of finding a solution, unfounded charges were levelled against us by Rakhi who also branded Laxman as impotent.”

A person whose own character is ever in question has the audacious power to question the character of the participant! (I may be accused of being a male chauvinist by those who feel if men can be characterless and abusive then women have an equal right to be so. So be it. If that is how they calculate gender equality then Rakhi Sawant is their emancipator!)

Earlier, a Muslim widow from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh similarly fell foul in the show. Her son was in the custody of her sisters. On the show, Rakhi Sawant described the widow as characterless. A secret video showing the widow embracing a man was also shown. Since then the lady is missing from her home. If she is still alive, she would understand what Prasad went through.

Who murdered Prasad? Who is responsible for the video recording of the widow? Rakhi Sawant? No. She’s just a two-penny fiend in human shape – to borrow the phrase from Wodehouse -- who would have otherwise led a life of pathetic obscurity had not the greedy television industry raised her to this level for furthering their self interests in the name of socially uplifting entertainment. It is the television channel which is the culprit.

I have my faults, but when it comes to the programmes of Imagine TV, I draw the line. As a journalist I have seen worse, but this touches the nadir. I ensure that my daughter does not get to watch it at all. Living outside India, we initially thought that our daughter would get a peek into Indian culture if she watched Indian channels. Initially when it was new, we used to watch Imagine TV. Then it dawned in me that if people outside India watched its shows, they would not be incorrect in assuming that women in India are generally rascals, without character, vengeful, deceiving, lustful, cheating, diabolic. In sum: Dirty. And the men, unrivaled followers of de Sade.

Because that is how the women are characterized in Imagine TV’s shows. Take Jyoti, the lead in the eponymous serial. An educated girl with a supposedly independent mind, she comes across as a dumb muff, willing to suffer ignominies without a word. Or, the lead character in Bandini, who calls her husband ‘maalik’ (lord). (As if suffering oppression stoically is the Indian way to true womanhood! I don’t know what the women in the families of the channel bosses think of these shows.)

Or the other reality show in which dozens of Indian girls shamelessly parade in front of Rahul Mahajan, who has a record for using drugs and beating his wife (later, wives), for one of them to be worthy enough to be chosen as his wife. The woman who finally won, got to marry him but left him shortly complaining he used to beat and abuse her!

Indian or no Indian, I don’t want my daughter to draw inspiration from such characterisations. More importantly, I don’t want my daughter to get the impression that women in India are usually in possession of such a character as portrayed by Imagine TV. By showing women as eternally facing oppression, Imagine TV is only espousing the cause of the male chauvinist pig and certainly not that of emancipation of women. If Sameer Nair and company think otherwise they better see a shrink.

But now they should be staring at a prison sentence. Prasad’s death has raised, or lowered, the bar of civic sense. Thanks to them, we have long crossed the threshold of decency and decorum. We have now entered the arena of violence and mayhem in the name of family entertainment. It is as if Imagine TV has turned the clock back to Roman times when popular culture was epitomized by humans killing humans in a stadium. If Imagine TV is not restrained now, we will soon see live incest and orgies. We are a step away from being Caligulas.

Someone said there is no point burning dirty books; better make people not read them. I don’t prescribe to it in general, but in the case of Imagine TV I am certain it should meet a similar fate. In the name of reality shows, it is cheating ordinary people, it is guilty of breaching privacy of people (as in videotaping in the Saharanpur widow case), it is manipulating the baser instinct of people – voyeurism – it is building aspirations for a recidivist society.

But in the larger context, why blame Imagine TV? People do a lot of things for money, even picking it up with their mouths from a pile of shit. The blame lies in us, Indians. By watching such programmes we are bringing our repressive baser instincts into our family domains. The Sameer Nairs wouldn’t come up with such shows if they didn’t know us better. We get what we deserve. Shame on us.

Last year, Pallavi, a 32-year-old mother committed suicide after watching a reality show called Sach Ka Saamna. Early this year a young Mumbai girl committed suicide after not performing well in the Boogie-Woogie show.

There are many more Prasads and Pallavis in our families awaiting their fateful moments. I will ensure that my daughter leads a happy life with true knowledge of Indian culture certainly not learnt from the Indian television distortionists. The rest can go to hell if they volunteer to fall prey to the culture, nay, killer vultures of Indian general entertainment television.

Someone who read this piece tried to advise me to keep my cool and be a responsible writer. I thought, if Rakhi Sawant has the freedom to say what she wants, I have a similar freedom too. The only difference is, her words kill people and mine, I hope in vain, kills the show itself.