Hard knocks for soft power

The state is tightening its control over what we read, watch, hear or laugh at. Take a look at some of the moves made by the Union government in the last few months.

In June this year came a proposal to amend the Cinematograph Act of 1952. Among the recommended changes is one that gives the Union government the power to review a film even after it has been given a certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). This power had been struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000. By all accounts, the amended Bill will be passed soon.

This comes on top of the abolition of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal or FCAT (along with others) in April this year. If you were a filmmaker who didn’t agree with the changes or cuts the CBFC’S examining body demanded, you could always go to the revising committee. And if that didn’t work there was always FCAT. The five-member statutory body set up in 1983 had for 37 years been the voice of reason that read badly-worded CBFC orders and tried to create a middle ground where the filmmakers and babus could meet. It created the ground for the release of films like Bandit Queen (1994) and Udta Punjab (2016).

Earlier in February came the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. These govern OTTS, news websites/aggregators and social media firms. They come down with a heavy hand on compliance with the ministry of Information and Broadcasting getting involved directly at level three. These have been challenged in several courts.

Last week, the Mumbai High Court ruled in favour of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s controversial New Tariff Order 2.0. The order, along with its earlier version, has convoluted formulas on how broadcasters can price their channels, what discounts they can offer and a ceiling on per channel prices. It puts a squeeze on pay revenues and takes away any incentive to invest in programming. In a competitive market where consumers have the choice of OTT, DTH and cable, this level of control, over what is not an essential commodity, is puzzling. Not surprisingly broadcasters have gone to the Supreme Court.

Put it all together and you have a ~1.38-trillion media and entertainment business that will be in perpetual fear — of being sued in distant courts— and will self-censor (as it already does) in the hope that its CBFC certification is not revoked. The costs and the control that the IT Rules put, especially on budding online news brands, will mean less investment in journalism and more on compliance. Despite being the world’s second largest broadcast market (by volumes) India remains far behind even developing countries like Brazil on monetisation. Price control over TV signals has played a big role in that.

Across the world governments vacillate between the desire to control media and facilitate it. That is why autonomous bodies like Ofcom in the UK or the Federal Communications Commission in the US help balance the rights of consumers, businesses and society.

In India there have been several policy forays that push revenues and employment. For instance, giving industry status to films in 2000 and in subsequent years a tax holiday for multiplexes in some states. This led to a growth of almost eight times in the film business from 2002 to 2019.

This time around though the focus seems more on control than on facilitating growth. That is a pity for three reasons this column has often highlighted.

The first and biggest one is soft power. The new media economy is not about TV or print or telecom. It is about global firms such as Google, Facebook, Netflix or Apple in search of an audience across geographies, languages, genres or devices. In this new world, India is represented not by its top media, technology or telecom firms but by its storytellers. Unlike China, there are no quotas or restrictions on foreign films in India. Yet more than 90 per cent of the entertainment consumed is local. In a world swamped by Hollywood, India’s creative businesses have stood their ground for a hundred years. It is, other than Korea, one of the few markets with authentic local stories to tell and an industry that tells them well. Dangal, Gangs of Wasseypur, Vicky Donor, Uyare, Drishyam, Sairaat, are just a few from recent years.

And the world’s largest platforms are turning to this ability. Every show and film that Netflix or Amazon Prime Video commission or license, is launched in over 200 countries at the same time, crossing over in a way that even Dangal, one of the biggest Indian hits overseas couldn’t. For two years now, Indian shows — Remix, Sacred Games, Lust Stories —have been nominated for the International Emmys. In 2020, Delhi Crime won one. International Emmys are the global version of the American awards for excellence in programming where Indian shows compete with the best in the world.

Our creative industries are a powerful marker of India’s soft power, a la IT. It is a power, an ability, that countries like China struggle to build. It has been given to us on a platter, thanks to over 100 years of Indian cinema. The thing to do is leverage it to establish India more strongly in the global entertainment ecosystem a la the UK.

It also translates into more jobs and taxes, the next two reasons why facilitation not control should be the focus. Going by a Deloitte report in 2018, the total direct and indirect employment into just OTT, films and TV was 2.4 million people. Add events, outdoor, print, radio, music et al and the figure could double. That is a lot of jobs being generated by an industry whose services come under the higher slabs of the Goods and Services Tax.

Why not facilitate its growth instead of clamping down on its strengths?