The self appointed guardians of all things moral are at it again. The I&B minister P.R. Dasmunshi has banned the Sony-owned AXN channel on the grounds that its “world’s sexiest advertisements” was “a programme against good taste or decency and is likely to adversely affect public morality,”.
Why do these politicians consider themselves the vanguards of Indian morality? This entire concept of the government teaching us individuals about what our morality is or should be is a throw back to socialist and communist times and not worthy in an open and democratic society. In democracy, it is absolutely imperative that people have a right to read and watch anything that they please so long as it does not adversely affect anyone else. And this should include the so-called “morally objectionable” content as well.
What we need is a well-defined system where by channels who use free public airwaves to broadcast without paying any airwaves license fees to the government (like Doordarshan) to abide by the “decency” standards until say 11 pm (as proposed for everyone under the proposed Broadcasting Bill). However, if public is paying for certain channels – as will happen with the upcoming conditional access system for cable television, the choice should be left entirely up to the consumers.
We do not need moral policing – especially from the politicians who, except for a few exceptions, are shameless users of their power and position to advance their own agenda and not their constituents' and have no right to talk about morality and definitely don’t have the right to force it down society’s throat.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment