![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
In this paper, we study some of the politics involved in representing neighbouring country Pakistan with reference to the launching of a new television channel in India, Zindagi/Life. Zindagi was launched on 23 June 2014 and owned by the Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. which airs syndicated television shows from Pakistan. Zindagi became the first ever general entertainment channel (GEC) in India to air syndicated content from Pakistan. Our paper aims to explore how in the popular teleserials of Zindagi the representation of the ‘other’ (here Pakistan and its people) has become part of the viewing practices for Indian audiences. The present context of the Indian political and media scenario (after BJP came to power in the last Lok Sabha election in 2014) with national GECs’ increasing involvement in telecasting Hindu mythological and historical serials makes the airing of Zindagi more interesting (In the last Lok Sabha elections (2014), Bharatiya Janata Party (which formed the government with maximum majority) campaigned extensively through state-run and private-owned satellite television networks. Following this, it is imperative to note how in the recent years National General Entertainment channels actively engaged in telecasting Hindu mythological and historical serials like Devo Ka Dev Mahadev (Life OK, December 2011–2014), Mahabharat (Star Plus, September 2013–August 2014), Siya Ke Ram (Star Plus, 2015–2016), Sankat Mochan Mahabali Hanuman (SONY, 2015), Bharat Ke Veer Putra Maharana Pratap (SONY, May 2013–December 2015), Chandragupta Maurya (Imagine/Dangal TV, March 2011–April 2012/December 2014), Dharti Ke Veer Yodha Prithvi Raj Chauhan (Star Plus, 2006–2009), Veer Shivaji (Colors, September 2011–May 2012) and Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat (Colors, 2015–2016).). Amidst such a context of politics and television programming that fiercely focused around a monolithic construct of Hindu culture, identity and history, Zindagi enters the Indian satellite market by telecasting Pakistani social lives and raising questions on representing the ‘other’ for the Indian viewers. The channel has been well received by the Indian print and electronic media (For instance, one can see articles like ‘5 reasons that make Zee’s new channel “Zindagi” a must-watch’ (dnaindia, 20 June 2014) ‘Bye-bye unending television dramas, welcome Zindagi’ (Times of India, 1 July 2014), ‘Zindagi Gulzar Hai: cross-border love on screen’ ( Hindustan Times, 7 June 2014), etc.). Reports of rising TRPs of teleserials like Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai (on Zindagi) were published in the popular press, which along with social networking sites generated stardom discourses around actors like Fawad Khan. With reference to the politics of representing a neighbouring country and Muslim identity on Indian television, our paper explores questions including couple space and conjugality in the teleserial narratives of Zindagi. Our article discusses two teleserials, Zindagi Gulzar Hain and Humsafar, focusing on how the portrayal of Muslim men and women on Zindagi marks a departure from the stereotypical representation of Muslim characters in Indian cinema and television.
Notes
1. ‘Opinion-makers and influencers, those from the entertainment, political sectors, advocates, teachers, professors and housewives, watch Zindagi. The channel is clear about its audience and the mindset it is attracting. The genre is pretty well defined and people will turn out in large numbers, but it will take some time’ (Srivastava Citation2014).
2. Purnima Mankekar discusses how post-colonial nationalism in India constitutes the emancipated New Indian Woman [Nayi Bharatiya Nari] as gendered citizen-subject who is expected to serve as custodian of national integration. Women’s issue being an intrinsic part of the state’s project of nation-building, earliest teleserials on Doordarshan reflected the state’s need to mobilize women toward development and modernization and to construct womanhood as the repository of authentic Indian ness (104–7).
3. For instance, in 2010, two leading media houses The Jang Group in Pakistan and The Times of India in India initiated a campaign Aman ki Asha (‘Hope for Peace’). The campaign aims for cultural exchange between two countries and development of the diplomatic and cultural relations between the two countries. It started on 1 January 2010. The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, a non-profit organisation dedicated to cultural and historic preservation took an initiative in 2013 which aimed at improving relationships between two countries involving the students of both these countries. The programme included an exchange of letters, postcards, pictures, artwork and videos and it encouraged Indian and Pakistani citizen to form their own opinions and have a clearer understanding of history and culture through cross cultural communications between India and Pakistan.
4. For detail, see Abhijit Roy (38). In this essay, Abhijit Roy discusses the history of developmental communication in India both as a site of hegemonic project and of the contradictions that characterize them.
5. Manohar Sham Joshi stayed in Mexico as an apprentice of television industry and after coming back to India he wrote Humlog. Humlog narrated the dreams and anxieties of a lower middle class family in urban India, consisted of Basesar Ram, his parents, his wife and their five children. The serial showed the eldest daughter Badki’s conflict with her husband and her suffering that resulted from her engagement with activist politics.
6. See Purnima Mankekar, Also, Anjali Monteiro in her essay points out the necessity to make a distinction between female power (domination) and female strength. And thus it failed to critique the institution of patriarchal family or broader context of state and political economy. As the very project of New Indian Womanhood was constructed on normative experience of Hindu, in Kalyani or in Rajani the Hindu identity was naturalized. In ‘Official Television and Unofficial Fabrications of the Self: The Spectator as Subject’ – Anjali Monteiro (176–80).
7. Shanti, the protagonist, was a woman journalist who wanted to avenge her mother’s rapists.
8. It was about struggle of Swetlana (played by Kitu Gidwani), the mistress of a dead industrialist, Keshav Malhotra Shanti’s battle against industrialists Raj J Sing and Kamesh Mahadevan (who raped her mother) and Swetlana’s struggle as the chairperson of Malhotra Industry opposing Malhotra family members, constantly disrupted male dominance in corporate patriarchy or hegemony of family. These serials had a similarity with a famous American serial Dynasty which presented a female character like Alexis.
9. Shanti had assured sponsorship from Procter and Gamble.
10. For earlier works on Star TV and Zee TV, See Transnational Television, Cultural Identity and Change – When STAR came to India, Melissa Butcher, Sage Publication, New Delhi, London, (147–63). ZEE TV Diasporic non-terrestrial television in Europe, Rajinder Dudrah, South Asian Popular Culture, 3:1, Routledge, London (163–81).
11. Some teleserials like Humsafar also introduced less familiar Urdu words providing its meaning during the telecast of the show as subtitle like text.
12. For instance see ‘Zindagi Gulzaar Hai’ Aired on Zindagi TV Stuns Indian Actors link: http://www.brandsynario.com/zindagi-gulzaar-hai-aired-on-zindagi-tv-stuns-indian-actors/, also see ‘Zindagi Gulzar Hai: Top 7 reasons why this Pakistani serial is a big hit!’ Link: http://www.india.com/top-n/zindagi-gulzar-hai-top-7-reasons-why-this-pakistani-serial-is-a-big-hit-96695/, etc.
13. It was later published as a complete novel by Ilm-o-Irfan publishing house.
14. ‘Love jihad’ is an aggressive and systematic campaign started by some right-wing Hindu organisations in India under which young Muslim boys and men are alleged to forcefully convert vulnerable Hindu women to Islam through trickery and marriage. Right-wing organizations like RSS and Dharma Jagran Manch, held ‘awareness’ rallies in Uttar Pradesh against inter religious marriages. In ‘love jihad’ campaigning any possibility of Hindu women exercising their right to love, choice of life partner and conversion is completely ignored and a common ‘Muslim other’ was created out of the Muslim male to save or protect the Hindu women.
15. It was aired from 23 March 2015. The serial was originally named as Dastaan which was based on the novel Bano, byRazia Butt and dramatized by Samira Fazal.
16. For details see ‘Notice to Zindagi channel on ‘pro-Pak’ serial’ by Himanshi Dhawan, The Times of India, 10 May, 2015. Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tv/news/hindi/Notice-to-Zindagi-channel-on-pro-Pak-serial/articleshow/47218707.cms. Access date 24 May 2016.