Drama in reel life

INDIA and Britain are similar in some ways because they have a shared history but there are also deep differences.

One is about what can be shown on TV. India generally steers clear of dramatising recent events, such as say, the Mumbai massacre or the fatal gang rape by five men of a 23-yearold medical intern on a bus in Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012. A juvenile suspect was released after three years, one committed suicide in Tihar jail and the remaining three were hanged. Leslee Udwin, who made a documentary, India’s Daughter, after interviewing some of the men before their trial, had to flee India. She was targeted even by feminists. The subject was too sensitive for India.

The UK audience last week saw Des on ITV about the serial killer

Dennis Nilsen, who claimed in 1983 that he had murdered 15 people. The three-part drama was based on Killing for Company by Brian Masters (Watkins), who established a strange working relationship with Nilsen (David Tennant) both before and after conviction.

British television has also dramatised The Salisbury Poisonings; White House Farm on how Jeremy Bamber murdered his own family; and Little Boy Blue, on the shooting of Rhys Milford Jones, 11, by Sean Mercer, 16, who got 22 years in 2008.

Perhaps it is using crime for “entertainment”. Whether Indian society is ready for the dramatisation of recent traumatic events is hard to say. It seems to prefer ‘shouty’ political panel shows of the kind hosted by one Arnab Goswami.