Smut - coming soon to a TV screen near you

TV news channels, especially Hindi, seem to have become electronic versions of Mayapuri and Manohar Kahaniyaan.

Tune in to any news channel, and chances are you will see aliens making surreptitious landings, prostitution rings, haunted places, aghoris dancing half nude in cemeteries, astrology, or a mad dog terrorising a neighbourhood. There was this one time when the channel, which by its own admission delivers news the quickest, showed a 2-min clipping of two serpents having intercourse. Going by the anchor’s fever pitched voice, it was news to him that snakes are born out of physical enterprise and not produced on trees. ‘Dekho, kaise lipat rahe hain ek doosre se’ (Watch, how they are embracing each other), read his script.

Quite clearly, either there is a lack of serious news to fill in 24 hours of airtime or the newsmen have lost their bearings and the understanding of what constitutes ‘news’. It might also be a marketing strategy to appeal to the lowest common denominator of audiences, grab eyeballs and subsequently ad revenue. For a few channels, it does seem to be working. India TV seems to lead the pack, and purportedly enjoys an 18 percent market share. Audiences in the cow belt and in the hinterland do not really distinguish—or are bothered about differentiating—between hard-nosed news, fiction or pure bunkum. Surprisingly, viewers in metros, belonging to SEC A and B class homes, regularly tune in to these programmes.

The government’s programming guidelines clearly prohibit channels from promoting superstition and sleaze. But channels brazenly flout this rule. There are stories abound of self-styled babas curing possessed villagers by thrashing them when they are not caught in romps with starlets; babies being thrown from rooftops to ward off evil, titillating MMS’ involving teenagers in hormonal overdrive, gigolos selling their wares on Delhi’s streets, fisticuffs between step wives… everything seems to be ‘Breaking News’.

Clearly, sleaze, slander and smut have become the name of the game. And viewers seem to be lapping it up. No wonder, our leaders continue to screw the country’s future, while its citizens are busy watching smut.

Corporate social irresponsibility

Responsibility is a big word. So when the words ‘corporate social responsibility’ are treated as casually as Rahul Mahajan treats women, it takes a disaster like the BP oil explosion to jolt businesses out of their complacence. Today, CSR has become part of a marketing mix of a company. Corporates expect due publicity out of every CSR activity they undertake, however insignificant it might be. I don’t think we can actually save tigers by signing online petitions and writing blogs. But if a company expects people to know about its philanthropic causes, I don’t think their concerns are misplaced. It’s human tendency to feel more gratified when we help people when others are looking. A business entity is no different? The problem arises when it does not fulfill its primary responsibility. British Petroleum spent a lot of time and money to change its image. Companies which exploit natural resources like those in oil & gas, mining, steel sectors, have a tough time managing their image. A minor slip and hell breaks loose. BP tried to present a more humane face to its business: it changed its logo to a more colourful one; rechristened itself ‘Beyond Petroleum’ and initiated several CSR activities in the markets where it did business. But all those efforts have gone down the Gulf of Mexico. The situation was exacerbated by the puerile reaction of a cornered CEO who said, “I want my life back” at a time when his company was responsible for one of the biggest environmental tragedies of our time. If BP had paid as much attention to its operations as it did to burnish its image, it would have done a lot of good to the company, its shareholders and to the planet. A single act of irresponsibility undid years of corporate social responsibility efforts. Some of Union Carbide’s slogans sound so ironic in hindsight, ‘Safety is everyone’s priority’, ‘A hand in things to come’, ‘More jobs through Science’. I think companies would work in the service of the society if they fulfill their primary responsibilities first, and then focus on CSR.