There was uproar in parliament. But it happens frequently. What’s so special about this? Yes it has happened. Parliament is seized of the Sach Ka Samna question and the clouds of outrage are darkening visibly. Charges of vulgarity and fears about potential damage to the Indian way of life are rife.
Grow up my fellow parliamentarians. This program is telecasted at 10:30. Its time for kids to go to bed. Message is flashed on screen that it should be viewed under parental supervision. We in Indian society protect our child from so many evils then why not from an evil TV show. While surfing the web a child meanders into a different world of adult. We don’t question the site or demand it to be banned. We question the child or even better teach him what is good and what is bad for him. Why can't this rule be applied to a TV program?
And if there is a question of breaking up of families and its values. The participants of this show are all grown up adults and willingly participate in this show. They must be fully aware of the nature of questions being asked and if they are willing to sacrifice the happiness of their near and dear ones for money, its their choice. Then why moral policing?
Its not that I am an avid admirer/follower of this show. Neither am I a kind of person who likes to peeps into personal lives of other people nor or a big fan of reality show but the row in parliament over a TV series made me curious. This debate is sure to increase the TRP of this show. I went to You Tube to get a first hand answer to all this debate.
But after watching a week’s episode I was shocked. A participant disrobes himself in full public view of all that he considers most intimate, stripping himself of not only dignity and self-respect but dismantling in the process, the trust he evokes from those he loves most. We watch in voyeuristic disbelief, with a combination of fascination, horror, guilt and smug superiority at someone else misery all in the name of "facing the truth" or for some money. Yet the issue is not so simple.
We keep talking about the virtues of honesty in our life and personal relationships. We teach our kids to speak the truth. And all that this show does is to deal in the truth. Participants know not just the kind of questions they will be asked but have been exposed to the specific questions that come their way. They know their family will be at hand. The format produces a forced kind of honesty, but at least it deals with the truth and isn’t that supposed to set us free?
No not really, at least in our real life. This is where the motivations that surround this show become important. The show is not interested in the truth but specifically seeks that truth which will cause damage to the individual’s self-esteem and poison relationships. It is a spectacle only when participants disclose something scandalous. Like in first episode a lady called Smita Mathai exposed her troubled married life and her relationship with her in-laws. She revealed that at one point of time she even prayed for her husband’s death to set her husband free from the pain he was going through. This did not catch the imagination of the public, as did her question of sleeping with a man other than her husband. The reason why the family is such an important part of the show is because in some ways it is the show. We have in effect created a market for preying on someone else’s personal misery.
We can make money on the basis of our looks, education, ability, luck, our willingness to do stupid things and our openness to making our private life public. Everything has exchange value, we can monetize all parts of our life as evident by people marrying, dying and selling their virginity on screen for a price. Reality shows in general and Sach Ka Samna in particular serves, to turn societies instruments against themselves. The individual is extracted from the folds of her inner world as all that constitutes ones private inner world is laid bare with the seductive aid of money and fame. We become consumers of ourselves as we turn our insides out for the consumption of the outside world. In effect, society turns cannibalistic as it feeds on itself and its most cherished institutions.
The trouble with Sach Ka Samna is not that India is not ready for it, At a certain level, no society in the world is and given the way it challenges the fundamental assumptions on which we build societies. It is also almost certainly not illegal. Nothing that is said or shown in the show is particularly shocking or new. That husbands stray, wives fantasize and siblings betray is hardly anything we have not around us in our lives. It is also unlikely to specifically lead to permanently damaging the fabric of Indian society. The trouble with Sach Ka Samna is that it crosses an invisible line we had drawn for ourselves. It tells us that we are comfortable consuming all that we value in our own lives in the name of entertainment. In the disguise of modernity it takes us back to the primitive.
The wounds of facing the truth may heal with time the scar will remain for ever. For one crore you have to strip yourself naked in front of one crore people. In the end it may turn turn out to be more than the moment of truth exposing yourself. Sach Ka Samna is not a sign of the changes to come, it is a symptom of the changes that have already happened.
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