Recently, I was invited to speak at a seminar about ‘Media in the
Market Place versus Media in the Public Sphere’, which gave me a chance to
interrogate the limitations and possibilities of both "public" and
"market" in relation to the preposition "versus". While I was thinking
through the two words, I received an email from a former student of mine
working for a leading television production company. The mail read as
follows:
"Dear Shohini,
I am going crazy working in a news channel… not that it’s not good
work. But there is a lot of false glamour attached to a job on television.
Apparently [Channel X] is the number one channel… I don’t believe the TRP
game since the entire thing is lopsided. But anyway, having said that, all
the creative, experimental ideas are now being shelved because they fail
to generate numbers for the channel. And being [Channel X] there is focus
first on profit and then if there is scope for creativity, they’ll give it
a go! I did, early in the channel, get an opportunity to do a lot of
exciting things but the days of glory are officially over and a lot of
saleable things are being solicited. Unfortunately, I know that channels
are not meant to be creative, they are mostly commercial. And my expecting
something outstanding from a news channel is immature."
This email is typical of the emails that I receive almost every week
from former students who have found employment with various television
channels jostling to become number one in the TRP (television rating
points) race. The email sums up perfectly the compulsions and aspirations
of media in the marketplace. But I must clarify at the outset that my
critique and reservations about the corporate media never makes me
nostalgic for a pre-liberalisation era when the state had monopoly over
the airwaves. Doordarshan’s political dishonesty combined with its
spectacular lack of imagination is a chapter that needs firmly to be put
in the past.
But both Doordarshan and the corporate media have used the term
"public" to justify their politics and functioning. Doordarshan’s
selective reporting and repressive culture was perpetuated in the name of
"public interest" while corporate television claims to cater to "public
demands" as testified by TRPs. Both state and corporate media liberally
use terms like "public concern", "public issue", "public interest",
"public service" and "public morality".
In the last decade, "public interest" has been cited as the guiding
principle behind corporate media’s spectacular intrusion into private
spaces through "sting operations" using hidden cameras and a range of
entrapment strategies. The most high profile sting operation, Operation
West End, was conducted by the web portal, Tehelka, where hidden cameras
and ‘set-ups’ were used to ‘expose’ corruption in defence deals.
Two journalists posing as agents from a fictitious arms company called
West End hawked a non-existent product to the defence ministry and paid
money to the president of the (ruling) BJP, bureaucrats and army men in
order to push the deal through. All transactions were recorded on spy cams
and the footage was released at a press conference. Operation West End
created a sensation and came to be reported widely in the print and
electronic media.
Tarun Tejpal, editor of the web portal, Tehelka, and mastermind behind
Operation West End, justified the use of spy cams by insisting that
"extraordinary circumstances demanded extraordinary means" and argued that
by exposing corruption in defence deals Tehelka had served "public" and
"national interest". Unfortunately, the extraordinary means did not yield
extraordinary results as the "entrapped" politicians went largely
unpunished and were eventually reinstated in public life. Tehelka, on the
contrary, had to provide lengthy explanations to the enquiry commission
appointed to investigate the Tehelka exposé until finally the web portal
had to be shut down.
The spate of sting operations that followed amply illustrated the lack
of consensus in interpreting "public interest". In 2005, India TV
conducted a "sting operation" to prove the existence of the ‘casting
couch’ in the Bombay film industry. A 21-year-old reporter pretending to
be an aspiring starlet solicited the mentorship of Shakti Kapoor (best
known for playing the villain in Bombay films) to make a career in films.
She pursued the actor, invited him to a room and offered him a drink.
Predictably, Shakti Kapoor offered his mentorship in exchange for sexual
favours at which point the ‘hidden’ camera crew barged in, claiming to
have "exposed" the "casting couch" and the "sexual exploitation" of young
women in the film industry.
Even a cursory telling of the story reveals how flawed the ‘rationale’
for such an exercise is. Coercion and violation of consent are central to
the definition of harassment, none of which existed in this case. This was
a case of two consenting adults agreeing to indulge in unethical business
practices of which the exchange of sexual favours was a part. Moreover,
corruption, unethical negotiations, the exchange of favours (both material
and sexual), are not exclusive to the entertainment industry but rampant
in all professions and institutions including supposedly ‘respectable’
professions like law, medicine, education and even journalism! Money,
privilege and sexual favours have always been staple ingredients of
bribery and corruption. Consequently, the sting operation achieved nothing
apart from making invasion of privacy synonymous with the ‘right to know’.
During a recent debate on the ethics of using hidden cameras, Tehelka
editor, Tarun Tejpal wrote, "Every responsible journalist believes that
stings should not cross into private lives" and that "every sting should
be tested on the anvil of public interest". Were we to take stock of the
entire gamut of sting operations carried out after Operation West End, we
would find them to be poised precariously between private lives and
perceived public interest. Where does public interest end and private life
begin? For instance, does the planting of spy cams in the homes of public
officials constitute public interest or violation of privacy? The line
between the two is as slippery as the one that divides pornography from
erotica. As the old saying goes, "what I like is erotica and what you
like is pornography."
We need to remember that the acceptability of such intrusive strategies
in the name of investigative journalism comes from being embedded in a
larger culture of surveillance that has become endemic to our urban
existence. Security cameras in public and private spaces, wiretapping,
citizen journalists brandishing phone cams, information supplied to banks
and credit card companies, and legislations like TADA (Terrorist and
Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act) routinely violate our privacy.
Research done by friends at Sarai: the Old and New Media Centre in Delhi
reports that the Ministry of Home Affairs has a proposal for a
multi-purpose national identity card system that will probably house the
largest collection of biometric data the world has seen and will include
information on health, medical services, education, lifestyle, economic
status and transactions, fingerprints and retinal scans. It will not be
long before we hand over to the state an enormous slice of our private
lives imagining that we have "nothing to hide". The long shadow of
surveillance will soon be cast over the many overlaps between our private
lives and public selves.
Most importantly, private spaces are not just for the playing out of
personal lives but are integral to the nurturing of political thought and
the contemplation of social action. Take, for instance, the attempt to
stifle the circulation of Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom),
Sanjay Kak’s new documentary on the Kashmir crisis. On July 27, 2007 the
Mumbai police stopped a preview of the film for an invited audience at the
Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan in Prabhadevi.
Notwithstanding irate protests from the audience, the police seized and
confiscated copies of the DVD. Next, they issued a notice to Prithvi
Theatre where a subsequent preview had been scheduled, warning them of
consequences were they to show the film. The justification for this
unwarranted intervention arrived in the form of a letter dated July 29
that senior inspector of the Dadar police station, MG Sankhe, wrote to
Sanjay Kak. Quoting Section 7 of the Cinematograph Act in defence of the
seizure, the letter directs Kak to apply for a censor certificate because
"the film contains inflammatory and provocative scenes based on terrorism
in Kashmir". It further states that "there are certain scenes that are
objectionable and if the said film is shown to public (sic), it may create
law and order problem".
Jashn-e-Azadi has had a number of previews across the country and
has not caused any "law and order" problems. Made over two years, the
139-minute documentary is a meditation on the political crisis that has
gripped the valley for over a decade and is an articulation of the
disillusionment and alienation that the Kashmiri people feel at this
historical juncture. One may reasonably ask why Sanjay Kak is being
difficult and not applying for a censor certificate. The answer is
obvious. He will never get one. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)
will insist on cuts that would defeat the very purpose of the film.
Besides, the granting of a censor certificate would not guarantee safety
for either film or filmmaker.
The extra-legal censoring of Deepa Mehta’s Fire despite a censor
certificate is one such instance. The "law and order" argument has always
functioned as a veiled threat. Paraphrased, it means, "If some individual
or group does not agree with your work and puts your life and work in
danger, don’t count on us for protection. On the contrary, we may press
criminal charges against you for causing such inconvenience." This
argument is akin to the ‘tight-sweater excuse’ that sexual harassers
resort to when they declare that the victim of harassment "had asked for
it". Painter MF Husain and more recently, writer Taslima Nasreen, are
victims of this twisted logic.
In the last decade, documentary filmmakers have persistently campaigned
against censorship, and demanded an urgent review and amendment to the
Cinematograph Act under which the CBFC was set up in 1952. The three
amendments urgently proposed have a direct bearing on the Jashn-e-Azadi
case. The first proposed amendment seeks to make the CBFC an autonomous
body free from the stranglehold of the government. The second amendment
demands that the CBFC have powers of certification (through ratings and
classifications) and not the power to censor. The third and most urgent
amendment proposes that non-commercial public screenings be decriminalised.
According to the existing law, screening a film without a censor
certificate, even within educational institutions, classrooms, clubs or
private gatherings, is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment (for
up to three years) and a minimum fine of one lakh rupees. All three
amendments are long overdue and essential for upholding the constitutional
right of free expression. Demanding the decriminalisation of
non-commercial public screenings will be an important step in creating a
strong civil society that is not threatened by cultural experimentation,
dissident expression or new and outrageous ideas.
The 21st century confronts us with both utopian and dystopian
possibilities around the access and circulation of information. The
dystopian impulse of allowing our lives to be subject to increasing
censorship and surveillance needs to be resisted by the creation of "new
publics" that lie outside state control and corporate interests. These new
publics may not reside within concrete venues but may appear anywhere,
albeit temporarily, as people and ideas converge.
Take the independent documentary film, for instance. In the absence of
television broadcasts and theatrical releases, documentary films are
screened in spaces where people and ideas converge and "new publics" are
born. These new publics are created, dismantled and endlessly recreated in
a multitude of spaces as the documentary film travels from one place to
another.
The power and potential of this new public was not lost on those who
stopped the screening of Jashn-e-Azadi. Which is all the more
reason why we should fight for our right to occupy such spaces. This holds
true for all writers, artists and media practitioners whose work may not
find circulation through mainstream distribution channels. Every film,
media product or artwork should be able to carry with it possibilities of
its own exhibition and circulation.
The age of portable new publics has finally arrived.