Madras Cafe is a Bollywood film, a fictional feature based on real events – in this case, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) role in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, on his comeback trail. (The LTTE assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, on his comeback trail, later saying it was “a blunder”.)
I haven’t seen the film because UK cinema chains Cineworld, Odeon and Vue, won’t let me. Apparently in response to protests from the local Tamil community, Cineworld issued an anodyne statement, saying: “Our policy is to show a wide range of films for different audiences. However, following customer feedback and working with the film distributors, we have decided to not show Madras Café. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Customer feedback? Press reports suggested that some Tamils had complained that the film was anti-Tamil. The Facebook page of the Tamil Youth Organisation UK has been full of agitation against the film, but I was curious about the basis of the chain’s decision, so I asked them what kind of feedback they had received. Was it in writing or a phone call? Had the customers giving such feedback seen the film? (How, considering that the film was being released simultaneously worldwide on 23 August?) I also asked if it was normal practice for Cineworld to see customer feedback before showing each film. I’m not sure if Cineworld had shown any of the following films, so I wanted to know if they had sought prior customer feedback from any of the communities that may have been offended by films like “Borat” (Kazakhs), “LOC Kargil,” “Gadar: A Love Story”, or “Zero Dark Thirty” (Pakistanis), “Bruno” (gay people), “Waltz With Bashir” (Israelis), or the many American films critical of US foreign policy and Vietnam war? If not, why not? A Cineworld official sent me, again, the press release about customer feedback.
True, protests in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has also led to the film being withdrawn from most cities there. Ransacking and attacking theatres is not unusual in India. But this is Britain. I wanted to know if there had been a violent threat, and if so, did the theatre seek police protection. But we didn’t reach that far.
Have we learned nothing? A quarter century ago, Muslims in Bradford burned copies of Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses because the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on the novelist. At that time, some in Britain didn’t want anything to do with the problem. Outraged by the intellectual acquiescence of some, Hanif Kureishi wrote the fine novel, The Black Album ridiculing the fundamentalists and the fair-weather free speech defenders.
At that time of The Satanic Verses protests, while some bookshops caved in to pressure, as Rushdie has noted later, many brave booksellers insisted on displaying the novel and selling it, reinforcing freedom of expression, and keeping the idea of unfettered imagination alive.
That was then. It is different now.
In 2004, when Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti wrote a play, Behzti (Dishonour) which dealt with rape and abuse in a gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship), the Birmingham Repertory stopped performances because some members of the local Sikh community threatened violence. Later, “Behzti” could have readings in London, and Bhatti even wrote another play in 2010 – “Behud” (Beyond Belief) – which examined the state of censorship and artistic freedom in Britain.
And now? Madras Cafe can’t be shown, and much of the British media has ignored the story, except industry publications. That reflects the underlying paternalism of the media towards the politics within Britain’s minorities. Like female genital mutation, which was initially considered a quaint ritual among immigrants, and forced marriage, which was confused with arranged marriages among Britain’s Asians, intolerance by young hotheads is seen as a cultural characteristic of specific immigrant groups, and being good multicultural people, we should all accept that. Rights – of equality, of expression – are seen as the privileged majority’s heirloom. Since loud individuals within a minority don’t want it, why impose “our” values on them?
But those values are universal, not western. Madras Cafe may be a terrible film – who knows? – but that should be for the viewers and audiences to decide. The aggrieved Tamils have no obligation to see it; indeed, they have the right to picket peacefully outside theatres. They also have the right to tell their story and broaden our understanding of the Sri Lankan conflict, so that the British leaders who go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Sri Lanka in November know the kind of hosts whose hands they will shake.
The Sri Lankan story is complex, with neither the government nor the LTTE coming out looking good. The many victims of that conflict – Sinhala and Tamil alike – deserve better. Madras Cafe won’t tell that story – that was never its aim. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be shown.
Cinema chains need to rise to the challenge, and screen the film, with police protection, if necessary. Far more is at stake than a Bollywood blockbuster’s box office returns.
The PIL seeks to protect citizens of India from cyber crimes, which according to the government, has cost the exchequer $4 billion last year. Some of the highlights include the PIL pointing out that despite guidelines given by the government for companies to follow the KYC normal (“know your customer”), social networking companies do not follow them. The PIL believes that Facebook is not verifying its users, and instead allowing minors to set up accounts because it uses them for marketing, advertising, and data mining purposes.
Under Indian law, children under 13 are incompetent to enter into any legal contract, yet it states that Facebook allows children to sign into its website unverified because it seeks to make revenue from them through online gaming – and this is a direct reference to a contract between Facebook and Zynga to provide gaming applications to kids that accounts for 12.5% of Facebook revenue. The PIL stipulates that through incessant data mining through the unauthorized use of emails, photographs, passwords, chats, and so on, Facebook is infringing on the right to privacy of the Indian subscriber.
The bench of the Delhi High Court took the PIL seriously in light of the allegation that minors are entering into social media networking sites and are then being lured into illegal activities, either knowingly or unknowingly. According to reports the court’s direction came after counsel for Facebook submitted that the site operated under the US law Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as per which a child below 13 is not allowed to open an account. The Court expressed unhappiness that there is no mechanism that currently exists to verify the age of a child online, and that while children were protected in the US, what of the children in India.
Facebook filed a counter-affidavit to the PIL and argued that limiting social media can limit an individual’s freedom of speech and expression. Drawing on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution that internet is a human right, Facebook has argued that the “internet is increasingly becoming a platform for citizens including minors to interact and voice their opinions and, therefore, a meaningful interpretation of the right to freedom of speech and expression would include the freedom to access social media.”
However, cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal points out that despite the freedom of expression argument, “the issue still remains that a minor doesn’t have the capacity to act under the Contract Act.” Others have pointed out that users enter into agreements with Facebook and social networking sites, not contracts. Further, law professor Saurav Datta feels that the PIL’s suggestion that all users be verified itself impinges on their privacy, and that it, “the goal of the PIL is wrong. We need to protect children, not keep people out.”
Moving ahead, it remains to be seen what social networking sites can suggest for protecting minors online. At the same time, it seems educating minors about the dangers of the internet is a good way forward as well. Facebook has joined the Internet and Mobile Association of India to bring an Internet Safety Education programme for children between the ages of 13-17. Even though this was not designed as a response to the PIL, it certainly seems a step in the right direction, regardless of the Court’s decision.
The media’s infatuation with a single narrative is drowning out the country’s diversity, giving way to sensationalist reporting and “paid for” news. But, says Bharat Bhushan, moves towards regulation could have a chilling effect too (more…)
As talk in India turns to media plurality and regulation, attention is turning to murky ownership structures and monopolistic practices. But some see the government’s moves as attempts to muzzle the press.
In May 2012, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India got a new boss – a retired bureaucrat named Rahul Khullar, who has the unenviable job of not just sorting out 2011’s 2G scam that hit Indian telecom sector hard, but also trying to ensure that the growth of the Indian media is “plural and diverse”.
In what has become a controversial interview, Khullar suggested bringing regulation to control cross-media ownership in India, suggesting that a single entity should be restricted to owning only one or two types of media carriage. “We are not talking about content but carriage.” he said in an interview to The Hindu.
India’s largest media houses, including Sun TV, Star India and the Essel Group, own multiple media platforms. In fact some media houses are so huge, with complicated and largely hidden ownership structures, that it can be unclear who really owns the company. The Indian media has been covering this subject heavily since the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asked channels to disclose their equity structures as a results of the Saradha scam in West Bengal where businessmen were running news channels at the behest of politicians. Independent news portals have been trying to disclose ownership details on their sites, revealing that many politicians partly own the news channels/papers that report on them, as do big industrial houses, mostly unknown to citizens.
Khullar’s suggestion has been drawn from telecom regulator TRAI’s recent consultation paper on cross media ownership which has suggested that media houses investing in all forms — television, print, and radio — has led to “horizontal integration,” and asked whether there ought to be safeguards to curb this monopolistic growth. The lack of these checks, it believes, is the reason why broadcasters have become “politically backed entities for distribution of their channels in that region.”
Overwhelmingly, the media industry has reacted negatively at the suggestion of being regulated. In an passionate argument, the Times of India’s Executive Editor, suggests that this latest move by TRAI is part of a larger play by the government of India to muzzle the media following its active role in exposing many scams in the last few years – some which have ended with cabinet ministers in jail. Drawing a line between regulating ownership and accountability, the article points out that India has over 80,000 plus publications and 800 channels, thereby showing extreme plurality already.
Others, such as the opinionated online magazine Firspost – owned by Network18 which is partly funded by the corporate giant, Reliance Group – has argued against this move from a media freedom point of view. It argues that corporate houses have the constitutional right to own media houses and that, “one reason why corporate houses enter the picture relates to the non-viability of many traditional media houses. If they didn’t bankroll the media, many journalists would lose their jobs. So to label corporates as villains when they are actually white knights in some cases is wrong.”
In another interview with Mint, the TRAI chairman clarified that, “in many countries you have absolute bans. Some people just cannot own a newspaper, for instance, an advertising agency cannot own a newspaper. There are pure entry issues. Then there are safeguards—like the 2×3 rule. In virtually all jurisdictions, if you own a newspaper and a TV station, you cannot own radio stations.”
However, the most compelling argument against this suggestion, made by Firstpost, but also others, is the question of the internet; that TV and print are fast merging with the internet, and in that in reality, it would be tough to restrict media ownership to only two platforms. While TRAI has no ready answers, its consultation paper on cross media ownership stipulates that any future rules on the subject must include broadcasting, print and new media.
At the same time, the crux of the matter — “It is, therefore, important that an arm‘s length distance is ensured between the media and organs of governance, political institutions and other entities which have a profound sway over public opinion” – is addressed in the paper, by suggesting that political bodies, religious bodies, government departments and ministries, urban and local bodies and state governments should not be permitted to enter the business of broadcasting and/or distribution of TV channels.
There can be no doubt that in India, corporate and political interests have invested heavily in the media. The Economist carried a story in June 2013 about the condition of TV news in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, stating – “every large party in the state now has an affiliated station, often owned or co-owned by the party leader’s followers or relatives.” It talks of the Sun Group, a Chennai-based conglomerate with 32 TV channels and 45 radio stations. Sun, which is run by former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi’s grand-nephew, and also owns one of the more lucrative parts of the television industry—a cable-distribution network. This is exactly the kind of media monopoly TRAI is looking to break, or at the very least, limit.
However, is the way forward to diverse news to limit the growth of media empires, even if they do tend to be monopolistic? How does the state broadcaster, both over TV and radio, fit into this model? Is it better to focus on regulating ownership or content to ensure citizens get a plurality of voices? There is already a parallel debate on media regulation in the country to ensure that the content reaching Indians is not paid for by vested interests and is clearly identified when it is. And finally, is TRAI’s solution take away corporate control and hand it over to the State?
These are questions India must grapple with very carefully, if it aims to retain press freedom – already perilously at 140 on the Press Freedom Index, 2013.
Mahima Kaul is a New Delhi-based writer and a Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, India. She tweets @misskaul
submitted that the site operated under the US law Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as per which a child below 13 is not allowed to open an account. The Court expressed unhappiness that there is no mechanism that currently exists to verify the age of a child online, and that while children were protected in the US, what of the children in India.