Bangladeshi men are afraid Indian soaps are giving women a wrong idea
It took some men in Bangladesh a long time to articulate their critical realisation of Indian TV serials. The idea of an immune television culture eluded the cultural puritans. Newspapers in Bangladesh such as the Daily Star, Bangladesh News and others recently reported about the cultural who’s who saying that Bangladeshi women are turning into "aliens" under the spell of Indian TV serials.
Alien because these daily soaps have inspired Bangladeshi women to deviate from the accepted socio-cultural norms. The serials with heavy dose of melodramatic rendition of the feminine are directly downlinked and watched in Bangladesh. And they allegedly erode the cultural values besides inspiring women to be emotionally independent and scheming.
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They also pointed out the negative effects — the changing dress styles, social etiquettes and women seeking divorce from husbands — of these television serials on the women audience.
The explanation is bizarre for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it has an eerie parallel to the patriarchal expectation of women’s behaviour prevalent in various parts of South Asia.
India is no exception as we often hear similar strange theories about "men will not violate women who respect Indian culture". It is almost like men’s anxiety in India about women becoming outspoken, ambitious and ready to make a choice. However, a critical realisation about the melodramatic television saga in Bangladesh is an opportune moment to question the highly repetitive formula the India TV industry is thriving on.
While Star Plus serials — Saath Nibhana Saathiya, Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?, Ek hazaaron mein meri behna hai, Yeh rishta kya kehlata hai, Pyaar Ka Dard Hai Meetha Meetha Pyaara Pyaara and Ek Veer Ki Ardaas...Veera — seem populist clones of Bollywood, soaps — Love Marriage Ya Arranged Marriage, Parvarrish, Kuch Toh Log Kahenge, Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, Kya hua tera vaada — on Sony Entertainment Television do not offer anything qualitatively different either.
Interestingly, television soaps in Bengali rival in mimicking the Hindi serial formula. Rashi, Tapur Tupur, Care Kori na (Zee Bangla) or Aanchol, Binni Dhaner Khoi (Star Jalsha) and others have similar repetitive plots.
And these serials are popular among women across age groups in Bangladesh.
It's difficult to miss the fatigued presentation styles, repetitive plots and twists, resemblance in garish dressing and high-decibel emotions in these serials. There is little doubt that grotesque rules the roost in entertainment television.
But then instead of making Indian TV soaps the villain of the piece, why has Bangladeshi television not been able to deliver the popular folk tales of the country despite a glorious past of modern theatre in Bangladesh.
After all, Pakistan’s (Zindagi) serials regaled both female and male audiences across India.
The television bonhomie between India and Pakistan was clearly palpable until the Uri attacks following which serials came under censorial scrutiny on both sides of the border.
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While some political leaders and a few others in Bollywood began to target Pakistani artists working in popular Hindi cinema, Zindagi serials too were frowned upon. But it was established by then that Pakistan can deliver the much-needed antidote to the excruciatingly suffocating Indian tele serials — the audience in India began to recognise the aesthetic value of ordinary outfits and mannerism, Muslim etiquettes, and other such unacquainted aspects.
And all this without any invocation — neither godly nor secular and patriotic.
Pakistan too has reservations about popular Indian tales, be it through Bollywood or television productions. But Bangladesh has been more forthright in denouncing the Indian soaps (with strange explanations).
While they have been mulling a ban on Indian television serials for half-a-decade now, it was nothing but a whimper.
It is only at the onset of this year that the government has mooted a clear plan. To begin with, it is to stop the flow of revenue that these serials earn through advertisements. This reveals the fact that the reservation about Indian serials is evidently premised upon a combination of cultural fear and commercial anxiety.
In the midst of the television and audience relation coming under state scanner, it seems the idea of a popular South Asia is far from being. This serves well to the disintegrated regionalism in the wake of SAARC turning into an unreliable entity and a mere turf of nationalist posturing.
Ironically enough, Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina showed optimism about SAARC while speaking on regional cooperation at Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting 2017. Fraught with rhetoric, such a deliberation hardly sheds light on the systematic attempts to fray the regional consciousness, which may arise from the flow of popular culture in the region.
A year and half ago Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made similar rhetorical declarations about Indo-Bangladesh relations and regional integration. But then, looking at cultural history of the region it is obvious that SAARC has hardly provided for relations of people across borders, let alone a clear thought on television bonhomie in the region.
After all, states can only deliver a bureaucratic humbug with which the people across borders can seldom connect.
During such times, solidarity of television artists across borders, shared spaces for performing and entertaining, mutually respectful cultural and commercial progress is nothing but wishful thinking.