Introducing the real Indian secularist; Reality Television

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For over 60 years the Indian government and its huge media machine has been trying to project a unified India. Sometimes bravely, sometimes with little logic, they have sought to create one culture that represents India.

If you look at the coverage of Kashmir & the North-East from Doordarshan, you would be led to believe that these regions are the sweetest, most peaceful regions in the world. Their populace spends their time singing and dancing and working off the land.

In a genre of film making that died with the soviet era, we see a strange cinematic parody of sub-cultures mixed with very poor quality documentary film making creating a lost in space and time feeling. In reality these regions have been the centre of bitter struggles, and the populace has suffered first at the hands of indifferent governments and then at the hands of rebels turned terrorists and extortionists.

A deadly cocktail of poverty, corruption and sheer indifference from the ruling parties has created these hot spots of terror. Of course not all of the north east is in conflict, some states live in idyllic harmony while other states burn. China's recent public claim over the beautiful state of Arunachal Pradesh has put the North East centre stage again.

In a country dominated by a very strong Hindi heartland culture, creating an ideological and cultural space for the north eastern people was a huge issue. In the number game, only the south with its strong linguistic and Dravidian roots and the Bengalis with their powerful cultural roots have managed to co-exist with the dominating Hindi heartland culture. This has created a huge public relations problem for every successive government. How do they project a unified India when the reality is that we are under threat from multiple internal forces that are tearing the country apart?

The Naxal brigade has already built an effective 'red corridor' through at least 5 states, creating an alternative ecosystem within the state. Their only real resistance comes from villagers who are now sickened by their hypocrisy and violence. Their only hope is that they embrace the larger economic system and start climbing out of the poverty trap they live in. The government with all its policing and power has not managed to kill this internal threat. The answer has always been socio-economic and cultural, not via the barrel of a gun.

Except for the khalistan/sikh separatist movement, every other movement for separation will find its roots in a story of poverty and exploitation. The reality is that we, the people of India have created our own monsters, and the quicker we all own up, the quicker we can all migrate to the path of less pain, which is the active assimilation of all classes of people into the wealth creating system.

In the midst of all this there has emerged one saviour; private television and the consumerist myth. It might sound superficial and strange, but large game shows, music shows and reality shows have captured the imagination of diverse people from all over India. Competing in them and getting larger acclaim and attention has become a matter of regional pride and points to a new hybrid class of people who have adopted the television driven consumerist and global ecosystem. From bands to singers to participants in game shows, the country is reeling under a new 'oneness' that is based on common group responses to stimulus. You will see people from hugely different regions singing and dancing and crying in the same show.

You will find people from all over India cheering for performers from radically different regions. Indians who were early known for their parochial regional vantage points have now jumped up and grabbed their mobile phones, sending messages, voting and taking part in national shows in a really secular way. Of course the Indian scams, he gets all his pals to sms from one region, but for the first time in independent India, people are acknowledging their countrymen from all over the land in the public domain. They are allowing themselves to get emotionally involved in other people's myths and stories.

This has created a larger cultural catharsis that has resulted in the creation of national legends like Sachin, Rehman, Amitabh, SRK, Dhoni, Abhinav Bhindra, and many more that have become lanterns of secular change. On another plane, certain institutions and heroes associated with their functioning like the NSG, BSF, and the Indian Armed Forces have grown in stature re-enforcing this change. Through television they have acquired mythological stature, giving our parched minds hope and new myths and heroes which we so desperately need.

The new icons of media supported India are truly secular and non-region specific and this culture percolates to every winner of Roadies, Indian Idol, India Rocks or any Dance Show. This is the biggest single achievement of modern culture building in India.

This is the unity and secularism that our founding fathers dreamed off. This is why the constitution was written. The only irony is that this change has been chiefly engineered by one of the most under-estimated and criticized forces in modern India; the idiot box.

I say; keep up the game shows, roll on the reality TV, I want to see every Indian on the box, from all over India, laughing, crying, singing, dancing and making an idiot of himself. A great performer is only great because his audience believes in him. It's the turn of the modern, simple aspiring Indian, from every corner of India.

Let's all become one unified audience and cheer him on?

If the idiot box can engineer the first steps towards unity, why can't we, with our complex array of cultural traditions and history get our act together and start behaving like one country?

Like Sachin Tendulkar, we should all rise up and say 'I am an Indian first', the rest will follow.