"Your Actors are Unethical. Come watch Hindi movies" : Indian English Media?

During the recently climaxed Nikhita-ban episode in Kannada Film Market someone wrote "But it is also a fact that kannada film industry needs serious overhauling and crass cinema needs to be rooted out!". True. And here's what I have to add at this juncture.

The English media in this country needs an overhaul too. Firstly of course on ethical grounds, and then on similar grounds where they owe their responsibility towards their readers and towards general public welfare.

Bollywood is mostly Indian English media's selling counter. Bollywood is predominantly where women are portrayed more naked than any other "*woods" in India. That means more page-3 stuff for these brokers of lewdity & voyeurism, and this stuff only attracts more people to walk-in naked into their subsequent page-3s - Which explains the repetitive Hindi sloganeering by the back-end teams of these news 'makers'. Kissa-kursi-ka, Silsila, Pati-patni-aur-woh - these are the punchlines the purported English media employs to sell their cheap news items. 

So much held up with Bollywood and its accompanying vulgarity (conveniently renamed as cool & hot based on context!) is this inefficient English media that they hardly ever have spare time on the other *woods, also benefited by portraying Bollywood as the movie-wood of the entire nation. Thereby solemnizing their neglect towards other language movie industries.

So when there's some sensation (like the Nikhita ban) happening around Sandalwood, say, this English media doesn't blink an eyelid before pouring all of its karmas on Sandalwood and trying to suck out any remnant of an intention in people to watch Kannada movies. It does its best to defame Sandalwood in the already rendered semi-liquid minds of Sandalwood cine-goers.

But the same media family doesn't find value in sensationalizing the equally undemocratic dubbing ban that has been stinking in Karnataka since decades. Not a word of opposition or a paragraph of reporting, nor a column of news, and surely not a blog or an essay about the industry features in their dailies. 

Doesn't it all expose the English media's lackluster attitude towards the welfare and entertainment needs of its audience in Karnataka? This episode of Nikhita-ban has only brought to light in front of Kannadigas that the English media just doesn't care a damn for what Kannada movies mean to Kannadigas or what Kannada itself should mean to Kannadigas; all it is bothered about is carving out the cheapest tunnel to traffic Kannada cine-goers away from Sandalwood towards Bollywood - its selling counter - obviously something that will push its bottom-line upward.

Turning a blind eye to the diversity in its audience has probably brought short-term benefits to the English Media in this country. Short-term. Yet, unfortunate.

Let this September open our eyes!

The Indian union formed by the coming together of several provinces, and especially people from various backgrounds, practising different cultures and speaking many languages set a unique case in the list of democratic countries in the late forties. It is this diversity in India, and the diversity behind the one identity of Indianness that keeps India's attractive quotient alive even today. This diversity needs to be cherished, protected and nourished in order to insure a bright future for generations that inherit this nation from us.

With this background, a nation 'constructed' by the union of such diverse people would be expected to peacefully co-exist (internally) and prosper only when all of its shared heritages find equal respect in the union, and no one particular constituent heritage gets any special attention & focus of the government and its undertakings regardless of the expanse of geography and population who inherit that one heritage or culture.

Unfortunately in the last 6 decades this doesn't seem to have happened - with documents right from the Indian constitution to various legislations passed in the parliament and various rules framed for the executive wing to operate in - have all shown serious bias towards the Hindi language:-

1. Beginning right from "Part-17" of the Indian constitution which proclaims Hindi to be the "official language" of the Indian Union - one particular constituent language of the union is made Official here, indirectly rejecting all other Indian languages as unofficial and signaling them as second-grade or unwelcome in the union. 
2. The omnipresent Three-Language policy of the union government also makes Hindi usage (even in non-Hindi speaking areas) mandatory simply because the concerned organization is remotely, partly or fully funded by the central government - a govt that is elected so as to be neutral, equal & federal in its structure and operations! 
3. Legislations that bind appointed ministers to use only Hindi while speaking in the parliament, denying them basic rights to even speak in their mother tongue are but clear examples of such undue bias shown towards Hindi much at the peril of fair representation and progress of the Indian peoples speaking different languages.

As a result (Cultural) Diversity which formed the foundation stone of unity (& thereby progress) of this pillaring nation, has gradually been converted & demonized as something that the nation must dread and hate in the background while picturing Hindi in the foreground as 'one language' that can unite the different peoples of this subcontinent. All this at a dear cost to the various non-Hindi cultures of this subcontinent.


The various policies incorporated by subsequent elected governments at the center only seem to have imposed and further engraved in people's minds that uniformity (anti- diversity) is required to build & sustain unity in the Indian union. This unity rhetoric is dangerous, not just wrong, because neither unity nor progress, nor development of the Indian union retains any further meaning after the nation is left without its characteristic diversity and 'one selected' language is licensed to bulldoze upon all other Indian languages and permitted to feign representation of the entire linguistic & cultural landscape of the nation.

(image technology courtesy www.ragemaker.com)

However wrong that might be, incidental progress & developments continue to be shown as by-products of this unity. But this unity, whatever it is actually, is coming at the cost of several bonds being broken between people and their respective cherished identities. This Hindi imposition upon different peoples of India is sucking the rich diversity of India from within, creating big problems for all the non-Hindi speakers in India. Above all problems, Hindi imposition is a highly immoral and illegal activity for a democratically elected government to indulge in.


Going by available data, be it in relation to

• TV channels, 
• Textbooks,
• Banks,
• Railway network, 
• Airports, 
• Highways, 
• Museums, 
• Cultural, Tourist & Archaelogical hotspots
• Subsidy programs, 
• People enumeration/enrolment programs 

among other Union Government undertakings, even some state government undertakings, or even some projects that the emerging private sector in India runs in the post-liberalization era, the projected image of Hindi suggests that it represents the entire nation and its citizens, and this single medium is 'enough' to reach out to a massively diverse Indian society. This is the myth people of India need to wake up to. This is the myth we Kannadigas need to wake up to, and oppose Hindi imposition in all its forms. That is the only way this nation's tall pillars can be held strong, the only way people of all backgrounds, cultures and languages can get fair & equal representation and chance to retain their identity even while carving out better lives for themselves. For that is indeed true development of people - one that happens without requiring an individual to give up his/her inherited identity altogether.

Now, lets look at this in current context - on September 14th every year the Indian government runs nationwide celebrations labeled as Hindi Divas - a day, and lately a complete week (Hindi Saptaah) in which programs run under the aegis of center's Department of Official language drain public money - towards rewarding people & govt. organizations that display 'excellence' in Hindi, towards fostering better 'performances' in coming years promising & announcing promotions to people who successfully deploy Hindi in their daily usage at work instead of their respective mother tongues. While these expenditures appear biased towards Hindi and aren't justifiable themselves, this is just a valedictory of year-long expenditures of similar kind. For instance, statistics from various central govt. programs show that more money gets spent on Hindi programs than towards Civil Defence - most vital for internal security.

With such glaring examples, the ill-effects of Hindi imposition can't be clearer. I strongly oppose Hindi Imposition and the various programs & celebrations that follow on its lines.

Saku Hindi Herike Nillisi!

Hindi Imposition Must Stop!

While You Were Taking an Ad Break!

After watching a recent TV ad for a small car I fell into a reverie, only to come out wondering if my hunch were true, however deep it might seem. It was this shady impression the advertising industry (in this country, or worldwide?) seemed to have about societies in general. Do these ad makers take us for no-brainers? Have they started believing their ads are shaping societies? Are these ad makers blindly plagiarizing ideas from another society? I am talking about how unnatural ads appear today, and what scum they could be holding beneath.

Picture these - An ad about Chevrolet Spark, or a Tata Nano, or a Maruti Alto never fails to meticulously deal with the family that the car enters into, projecting the car as either the most awaited new-comer in the buyer's family or the one that ushers in a new family. But that's not how an ad of the high-end Chevrolet Cruze, or a Tata Aria, or a Suzuki Kizashi portrays the new car to be. These ads on the other hand try their best at keeping the car and people apart. Business as usual, no time for humans!? It appears the makers of the latter ads have a perception that high-end cars and a warm and closely knit family should not co-exist! The buyer, if at all featured in such ads, comes across as a late-coming boyfriend, or a callous husband & father of a newborn whose aloofness towards the family is held in contrast with the family attachment of the small-car buyer. But to anyone's ghastly surprise that seems to be the very chord of pride these ads are striking their note on.

Figure this too - An airline ad - apparently this man can't sleep without a midnight snack, but his wife denies it, arguably for the good health of her husband. The very next moment in the ad, the same person is sitting wide awake in an airplane, and the air-hostess tosses the person some noodles, much to the guy's pleasant surprise! Superb hospitality, eh? The makers of the ad seem to have paid almost zero attention to the reasons behind a wife's denying of noodles at midnight, and that there's a crisp difference between the hospitality of an air-hostess (representing an airplane company driven by profits) and the uncompromising love of a not-for-profit wife (working only for the welfare of her family). Why do these ads have to pick tiny moments in everyday life, package them to their benefit, and then offer an unnecessary alternative of sorts? What are these ads trying to sell after all? Who are they trying to replace in our societies, and with whom?!

Figure this three! - An ad for men's fairness cream. Talk about painting people black, and then painting them white. Either way, the painter makes money, but people are being polarized as the painted and the unpainted classes. And all this because of wrong, skewed (read creative) and ill interpretations of skin proteins and the differing conditions man lives in. Health implications apart, these ads are definitely not serving any good to our societies as much adversities they could be causing, socially.

Oh, by the way, I also saw a hoarding ad the other day announcing a renowned hospital looking for business development managers! Read the italicised words together again.

Where are all these ads headed?!
With few ads available to comment against these trends, it is readily evident that ads such as these are trying to conquer a weird little spot in our societies. It is shocking to realize that these ads are - hinting societal distancing to be the way to affluence, deciding which skin color to be a better tool towards affluence, offering unnecessary, impractical alternatives to long established social relationships etc. In doing so, are these ads making human learnings from millenia of civilizational living appear zero-sum?

Aren't these ads expected to deliver any good (not evil) to our societies at all? Even though there is a body setting advertising standards in India chartered to streamline issues with ads, can we customers lay back without doing our bit? As customers and recipients of these ads why are we letting our social behavior get influenced by such ads? Apart from getting socially programmed, why are we letting these ad makers reign over our needs and convert their projections into our wants? Isn't it time we woke up to realize the boundaries of advertising and their real need, if any? Isn't it time we wrote to makers and sponsors of these ads to mend their methods?

When Regulation Borders on Sponsored Aberration

In these inflationary times one would not be surprised if the nation's central bank - RBI - finds its way into news stands every now and then. But it is a surprise when the top executives of RBI - banker to the nation's banks - while expressing their concerns over an apparent gap between common man's language and the banking language, mention that "Hindi has become the contact language of the country," and also go on to say that "Encouraging the use of Hindi is not only our statutory responsibility but it is also necessary for taking banking to the common person."

Somehow everything here doesn't seem to be in place. I am finding it difficult to link this set of words, as found in the RBI Act 1934, describing RBI's charter in India:

...to regulate the issue of Bank notes and the keeping of reserves with a view to securing monetary stability in India and generally to operate the currency and credit system of the country to its advantage

and the following words uttered by RBI top executives:

Encouraging the use of Hindi is not only our statutory responsibility but it is also necessary for taking banking to the common person.

What on earth is the RBI actually heading towards? 
On one hand we have a billion strong nation and a substantial percentage of them unable to support a square meal for themselves every night, and now the relentless food inflation has only made matters worse. On the other hand we seem to find RBI digressing, or unreasonably extending its charter (as said in the RBI Act) to include encouraging the use of Hindi under the pretext of statutory responsibility. It is also shocking to find RBI reasoning this by saying that it is necessary for taking banking to the common person. Is RBI aware of the problems such policies are actually creating to people of various languages in this country? Isn't RBI shooting itself in the foot by implementing such blind policies in the name of increasing financial inclusion?

Is RBI free enough to think & operate?
Looking at the caliber of statesmen that RBI has always employed, the tone in their words could drive anyone to speculate over the degrees of freedom RBI enjoys in performing its regulatory duties. Is RBI given enough freedom to perform independent research about the reasons for lower financial inclusion in this linguistically diverse nation? Is RBI under any diktat that spells its surrogate language policy instead of independently designing one based on its research? Are the people & businesses of this diverse nation being shown an empowered institution as the caretaker of policies related to banking, while being kept blind to the supply of these surrogate policies, themselves from the bygone era, through the back-door? By means of such policies that not only ignore the nation's diversity but also make-believe diversity to be anti-growth, is the RBI not being implicitly projected as the body that lowers, and not elevates, the bar when it comes to achieving higher financial inclusion. In this age of globalization, liberal markets and free information, how can such a statute body conclude Hindi to be the contact language to bank with the entire nation whereas people are actually demanding banking in their respective languages, day-in day-out? Isn't RBI being denied its prerogative to operate freely and instruct banks on topics of higher gravity and let the individual banks design their remaining policies based on market demands?

Wasteful, imposing policies
With an announced goal to achieve higher financial inclusion in the country, the RBI through its policies appears to be setting up the economy for exclusion, for such policies are only digging a moat separating the financial system from the non-Hindi peoples of India - a moat that is difficult to cross even if it were to fetch financial inclusion.

For instance, by making provision of service in Hindi & English mandatory, but service in regional language optional across all functions of banks & financial institutions under its ambit, people speaking non-Hindi languages are conveniently excluded from, not included in, the financial ecosystem. While assuming Hindi to be the contact language in India is grossly wrong, this assumption has catalyzed Hindi imposition in India and fueled programs that also waste huge amounts of taxes paid by non-Hindi people of India.

The need of the hour is much more independent and federal banking regulation in India, with freedom to base their policies on their own market research. There's an urgent need to limit banking regulation to policies that cannot be based on market forces. Bottom line is that banking in India is in urgent need to steer clear of all aberrations and usher in a truly fair market to all Indians.

A 12 year Hindian Itch

Indian or Hindian?

IIFA recently announced winners of some of its annual awardees. And just how it has been in the last 11 years, this year too, this award ceremony is going to project a grand illusion that equates Hindi cinema to Indian cinema. As though they (Indian and Hindian) are not two different things, year after year this body called International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) claims great cinema being produced in India, but continues to recognize only movies made in the Hindi language. But to anyone who knows which number is bigger and which number is smaller, it is clear that there are a huge number of movies made in India that are not in Hindi; and to our ghastly surprise, IIFA in its 12 year history has never recognized a single non-Hindi 'Indian film'. And the less talked about the IIFA advisory board the better - what with the whos-who of Hindi cinema industry warming those chairs from long. How convenient to slight away all the thousands of other Indian language movies?

With all these gray facts to it, how can the IIFA still claim to be an academy of Indian Film and that too at an international level where it is that much more important to make sure India's rich diversity in its film culture gets represented in all its virginity?! In that sense IIFA has truly been polluting international opinion about the real Indian cinema industry, apart from of course plain lying to the entire world.

A lot more important and grave facts about IIFA are unraveled here on my friend's Facebook note.

Yenka says:
- ಕನ್ನಡ ಚಿತ್ರರಂಗ: ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಆಟಕ್ಕೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ, ಲೆಕ್ಕಕ್ಕೂ ಇಲ್ಲಾ!
- ಇದುನ್ನ "ಇಂಟರ್ ನ್ಯಾಷನಲ್ ಹಿಂದೀ ಫಿಲ್ಮ್ ಅಕಾಡಮಿ" ಅನ್ನೋದೇ ಸರಿ!