Ministry of morality

Does the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B Ministry) have the reputation of being the last word on middle-class morality, regardless of who its Minister is? Recent events suggest that this may be true. In the early years of the 21st century, this reputation gained currency when a risqué song-and-dance number featuring a blue thong was released at the time of the first National Democratic Alliance government’s rule. The repeated telecast of this song was enough for the Minister of State in the I&B Ministry, who is now a very senior Minister, to shoot off strictures in the form of guidelines. The thong was banished on air with an executive fiat — a preserve of the Ministry.

Similarly, the programme head of FTV, a fashion channel which beamed into India, was summoned without fail every month by the same government and admonished for showing extremely “inappropriate” content. The channel was banned for a week not only by that government, but also for two months by the following United Progressive Alliance government. The I&B Ministry in the UPA government said the channel was “likely to adversely affect public morality”.

Then, there was another time in the phase of the NDA-1 government when a Minister wondered whether it was appropriate to air condom commercials on prime time, especially when it came to children and impressionable teenagers and whether the condom could be replaced with some other visual distraction. The I&B Minister equated television with family viewing; she did not want happy grandparents, grandchildren and sundry aunts and uncles to squirm while seated together in their living rooms.

The point is that both BJP and Congress governments have taken turns to guard hemlines and necklines. In the UPA government, a former Minister tried his hand at regulating news to make it appropriate for viewing. He had a simple suggestion: news was to be categorised as ‘adult’ and ‘unrestricted’ in a set of guidelines which were never issued. So, adult content, quoting from the guidelines, was defined as sustained depiction of violence, and sexually explicit stories, which could be shown only in the late-night slots, strictly after 11 p.m. The Minister felt that with the explosion of news channels, it was time to regulate news content.

None of this is surprising. The I&B Ministry is a legacy of the British colonial government. Its primary job at the time was to be the eyes and ears of that government, as well as its propaganda chief and content regulator. To this day, the Ministry has not been able to shake off that image. That’s why you periodically hear of monitoring services, real-time monitoring of online content, and more, accompanied by a lot of noise. So, don’t blame Smriti Irani. She is just another Minister who is keeping the image of her Ministry and its legacy — a colonial legacy — intact.

The writer is with The Hindu in New Delhi