If you live on the west coast of India, you have already heard it. The gigantic and grotesque monster: Banzilla has reared its ugly head again. Stomping across India’s cable TV landscape sending people scrambling in panic.
Snarling “No Adult Content” and “Movie Channel Ban,” he is once again here to remind us all that the “explosive” growth in the entertainment industry we all talk about is based on shaky foundations. It is going after cable operators and shutting down movie channels, until they get certification from the Censorship Board of India for their content. The cable operators are complaining and saying that it is the stations that should be penalized because they are to blame.
Strange things happened to tell of Banzilla’s arrival, our tails turned brackish and the sea water turned sweet. Various holy statues across the country began to drink milk. All the omens that give us a small idea of what our great nation is in one word: PARADOX.
We approved the RTI Law (Right to Information) only to change it later and lose its power. We privatized television and radio just to introduce a broadcast bill that could at any moment sink the very freedoms our media has come to enjoy and flourish. As Banzilla wanders sending shockwaves through the land, people wonder if this newfound prosperity/freedom is real or a fantasy. In a true democracy, power resides with the people, and after 60 years of independence, India is finally getting there.
We have to fight Banzilla and send him back to his deep water home because he is threatening our future as a society and as a nation. A few months ago, the Government requested all Music Television Channels to broadcast continuous text, apologizing for showing lewd programming. It was like asking a dishonest student to write 500 times on a blackboard: “I will not cheat on the exam.” Come on, can’t we have a better policy to control what is shown at what time of day on what channels? It’s not rocket science. It happens all over the world and it can happen here too.
We hear again and again that our reforms are irreversible. Which means there is no turning back. However, Banzilla will try to take us back from time to time and we must prove over and over again that he will not defeat us. He needs to be told that we are reasonable people mature enough to decide what we want to look, when we want to see and where We want to see it. If the one hundred and two foot creature needs to sit down to eat and discuss it, no problem. May we suggest the new Hitler’s Cross restaurant in Mumbai as a place where we could get together and sort out this mess?
