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Lok Sabha elections 2014: Time to move from kitchen politics to real politics?

While shows based on American politics are a huge hit with Indian audiences why aren't there any shows on the desi Raajneeti scenario. After Hrs analyses...

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The three things that we Indians are most obsessed with are religion, Bollywood and cricket. Then there is politics. I'd say that it comes at No 1 because it's uses all of our three obsessions as mentioned earlier. In India, there is no politics without religion. The other two become tools when we make our film stars and cricket stars win elections with huge margins even though they have no experience in the field.

We take our politics as seriously (and emotionally) as England takes it's royalty. Where else in the world would you find dynasty rule when it comes to the prime ministers of the country? Politics is part of our dinner conversations. We have more news channels than in any other country, more newspapers than we can read, and our social networking behaviour reflects what our voting pattern doesn't. Considering politics is such a big part of our lives, I wonder why politics doesn't reflect in our television content. Whether art imitates life, or the other way round, political dramas should be a mainstay on our telly screens, moving on from kitchen politics for a change.

Copying the West
Let's face it, that's the one thing we are really good at. So when there are dozens of American TV shows on president and the White House, why don't we have even one? I find it interesting when friends and colleagues speak so passionately about the smashingly successful White House drama House Of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood, an extremely conniving politician who will go to any extent humanly possible to become vice president, I find it interesting that so many people I know relate so strongly with The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's behind the scenes news based show, delving into the Republican vs. Democrat ideology, I find it interesting when we all cheer (by plastering our Facebook status's) when Julia Louis Dreyfuss's role in the HBO drama Veep, playing a female vice president wins awards. Clearly there is interest, so why the television content developers in our general entertainment channels don't take any heed of the consumer preferences. What is their obsession with the kitchen drama format to even notice other formats can be super successful?

Revisiting the past?
We have zero shows on politics on our TV today. That was not always the case. Don't we all speak fondly about the brilliance of Sri Lal Sukla's brilliant novel, Raag Darbari that was outstandingly adapted for Indian television in the 80's? Don't we all remember Ji Mantriji, an Indian adaptation of the British satirical sitcom Yes Minister. The show was so powerful that it even attracted Farooque Sheikh, traditionally a film actor to work in a television series. The Rajya Sabha channel currently airs a show called Samvidhan, which is a 10-part series on the making of Indian constitution, directed by film maker par excellence, Shyam Benegal, unfortunately the channel didn't have the marketing budgets that general entertainment channels usually do, and unfortunately it didn't reach out to the number of people it should have. Pradhanmantri is an Indian television politics-based reality series/documentary series, hosted by actor-director Shekhar Kapur on Hindi news channel ABP News, this is the 2nd show (about politics) currently airing on a news channel, I wonder why is there no space for such shows on channels that have a larger reach. Why are there no soaps on the first family of politics? On the inner workings of 10 Janpath? Or a story on the life of Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi? They seem to occupy the mindspace of an average indian as much as an Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan -- if Twitter is any indication.

Notes from Bollywood
Our TV shows are inspired by our films. Whether it is the large family like in a Sooraj Bharjatya films, the sets inspired by Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films, or even a show like Jodha Akbar. So why are the TV exec latching on to the trend of political films? Bollywood has always flirted with politics as a subject. Whether it is patriotic films like Bhagat Singh or war films like Azaad, partition films, or even a film like Aandhi which was supposedly based on the life of Indira Gandhi. 
In recent times, Bollywood movies against political backdrops all prominent stars and became bona fide box office successes. From Prakash Jha's Raajneeti, look at Ram Gopal Verma's Sarkar Raj, or Dibakar Banerjee's Shanghai, Then in recent times there was Ranjhanaa, Gulabi Gang, . There are more sych films planned this year Kundan Shah's P Se PM Tak, Vishal Bharadwaj's Haider, Jackky Bhagnani starrer Youngistan. (ADD NAMES) But this is not a new trend. Stalwarts like Gulzar started off their careers making entertaining movies, but the ones that don't insult the audience's intelligence, like Mere Apne and Aandhi. The former was based on the anti establishment, where unemployment was at an all time high, resulting in youngster's having to resort to crime, the latter about a love affair during the emergency period. Shyam Benegal directed Kalyug, which is considered a masterpiece and a true Indian classic. It was an adaptation of the Mahabharata set in a political backdrop. Why is it that our television channels underestimate the IQ of the Indian viewer, and having this compulsion to dumb down everything that goes on air.

It's election time!
So much is said about the media consumption force of young audiences today, the largest jump in electoral cards for the upcoming election has been shown in the age group of 18-30, there are 12 Crore first time voters in 2014. That number alone is bigger than the populations of so many first world countries. This shows their interest in politics, an unquenchable thirst for wanting to be aware and the inclination to want to make a change. And yet, not one channel has even thought about cashing in on this. And that is the reason why the Indian youth will always prefer American shows to Indian shows. Because they not interested in clichéd, archaic, loud background score ridden soap dramas. America has a lesser population than us, yet their movies and TV shows reach millions across the world. I don't see why I should watch American TV dramas if the quality of Indian shows matches those, or at least attempt to? In fact if they make such shows here, they will be all the more relevant, relatable and of more consequence to an Indian audience.

The great divide
It's alarming how the channels have polarized TV content between men and women. Soap's are for women. Sports and news are for men. If more attention is paid by the channels to content (rather than their fancy offsite's and incentives), I don't see why an entire family has to collide on what to watch during dinner at primetime? Channel executives are content with the fact that they clock ratings of 7 and 8 daily on their soap dramas, they forget that we are a billion people in this country, they forget that TV reach in India is growing faster than any other country in the world, they forget that if they pay more attention, to quality content, those ratings can be 12, 13 or even 25, the sky is not the limit, it is far beyond it, but alas, forgive them lord for they are myopic, and myopia is a bigger disease than any other.

See the writing on the wall
Ask any college kid today what their fave tv shows are and chances are you will hear, Preety Little Liars, The Big Bang Theory or How I met Your Mother. The TV networks in India that broadcast English programming are booming more than ever, they are growing fast, the current numbers may be niche, but are only better than they were 10 years ago, and will be a lot more a decade from now. From one channel showing us a few English programmes in the 90's, we have over 20 channels that show us foreign content today. Do the math! We live in times where attention spans and memories are at an all time low, the lowest since the 1960's. We live in times where art forms like television programming, are important largely because they document the times we live in, these will be the reference points for generations and generations to follow when they look back upon us. The generations before us (largely) have had paintings, and literature to document their eras, and therefore are looked upon as golden times; unfortunately we have kitchen politics, and regressive mindsets to be the swansong of our existence.

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