The Central government has empowered the Information and Broadcasting ministry not to renew licences of TV channels if they aired programmes which appear to be vulgar, obscene, anti-national and so on. Media monitoring has thus been entrusted to a bureaucracy, which protects vested interests and has no expert-knowledge on the subject. There is already a functioning self-regulatory News Broadcasters Association which has its own redressal mechanism to keep vigil. The government’s job is to ease tension in the sensitive area. Now it has authorised bureaucrats in the I&B ministry to be regulators of programme content. Censorship may be necessary but it has been made arbitrary as the norms are vague.
This is of a piece with the government’s intention to tighten the RTI which has been introduced to ensure the government’s transparency. The UPA government is on paper committed to transparency down the line. But controlling the media is very much at odds with such commitment. True, previous governments also made a bid to introduce media censorship even though it was anachronistic. But the proposals fell through. The Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2006 was opposed for its Zdanovist rigorousness. Sweeping powers were given to the government and its representatives to regulate media. State control of media stifles democracy and is reminiscent of the Emergency in 1975. As for obscenity, it is said to be in the eye of the beholder. Indian society is still conservative. The audience does not like an excessive dose of sex and violence. Advertisers also shy away from such content lest it should alienate target viewers. But if the internet can exhibit explicit sex, what is wrong with the TV?. The decision should be taken by professionals and not by mindless officials. What is more to the point is that TV channels should not be pressed into spreading political propaganda for one party or the other.