Indian reality TV’s tryst with truth draws protests

Indian reality TV’s tryst with truth draws protests

NEW DELHI: The Indian version of a US reality TV show that extracts secrets from minor celebrities has caused protests and a furore in parliament with its focus on infidelity, incest and other taboo subjects.

MPs from various parties queued up this week to denounce ‘Sach Ka Saamna’ or ‘Facing the Truth’ as indecent and an assault on Indian culture.

On Wednesday, the government issued the Star TV company that broadcasts the programme with a show cause notice, asking it to explain why the show should not be banned.

Petitions demanding a stay on broadcasts of the show have been filed with the New Delhi High Court and there have been organised protests outside Star's main offices.

The channel insists the programme -- a version of the US show ‘Moment of Truth’ -- helps expose social hypocrisy, while cultural commentators have voiced concerns that the government is overstepping on a free speech issue.

Star India Pvt Ltd. is a member of the regional Star TV stable owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

‘Facing the Truth’ features Indian celebrities who are asked a series of personal questions which they answer in front of a live audience, as well as family and friends.

If they answer truthfully -- determined with the help of a polygraph test -- they win 10 million rupees (208,000 dollars).

As in the US format, contestants are free to quit at any point during the show if they feel uncomfortable.

The questions range from the mildly transgressive: ‘Have you ever stolen bed linen from hotels you have stayed in?’ to the deeply personal: ‘Have you ever asked a woman to abort your child?’ Such questions are ‘obscene,’ according to regional Samajwadi Party MP Kamal Akhtar, who was particularly shocked by one woman being asked, in her husband's presence, whether she was ever tempted to cheat on him.

‘The show is against Indian culture,’ Akhtar said in parliament.

Hindu nationalist lawmaker S.S. Ahluwalia said the show's backers were ‘trying to destroy civilised society.’

Star has until July 27 to respond to the show cause notice, which notes charges that ‘Sach Ka Saamna’ includes content ‘offending good taste and decency’.

The television company insists the accusations are unfounded.

‘The show is about having strength of character to face the truth and turn over a new leaf. It is a show that promotes truth and honesty,’ a Star spokeswoman told AFP.

Rejecting the charge of indecency, she argued that viewers ‘have the remote at their finger tips,’ and can change channels if they feel offended.

Siddarth Basu, head of the production company Big Synergy which puts the show together said it was about ‘lifting the veil off hypocrisy’.

‘The contestants know all the questions because the final 21 are chosen from the 50 they face during the polygraph test. What they don't know is the result of the polygraph test which is revealed during the show,’ he told CNN-IBN news channel in an interview.

‘Many of them want to tell the truth.’Media critics have focused less on the show's content and more on the government's intervention, which some see as nanny-state censorship.

Mannika Chopra, columnist with the Tribune and Hindustan Times papers, said it was ‘not up to parliamentarians’ to decide what people should watch on TV, no matter how offended they might be.

Indian Express columnist Shubhra Gupta was similarly insistent that viewers should be the final arbiters of what constitutes good taste -- and good television.

‘Unless it appeals to the audiences the show will not run,’ Gupta said.

‘The line of questioning may be questionable but I don't have the right to force my opinion down anyone's throat,’ she said, adding that ‘Sach Ka Saamna’had ‘raised the bar’ on what is permissible.

‘In that sense it is a landmark for Indian TV.’