DDI BOSS KEEN TO PLEASE CHINA

On 9 March, the international audience of Doordarshan found itself at loss when a well produced half-an-hour English show on the life and achievements of the Tibetan refugee community in India was pushed out of the screen. The Sunday Guardian learnt that a senior babu of Additional Director General rank, who also heads the DDI, threw tantrums, as the show started running, over the fear that the Chinese embassy in New Delhi might raise objections to showing images of the Tibetans’ top spiritual head Dalai Lama (and that too with first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru) and Tibetan refugees.

Interestingly, the show was conceived, approved and produced by the DDI’S own in-house team. The main guests of the show included Gyari Dolma, a prominent Tibetan leader. The show also featured a young Tibetan nurse and a computer engineer who profusely thanked the Indian government and people of this country for providing them affection, hospitality, opportunities for higher education and getting jobs.

For the Tibetans and their support groups across the world, this abrupt end to the show was too humiliating to ignore. But before it could become an issue of dispute or protests, the matter came to the notice of the Information and Broadcasting Minister. It was on his initiative that the show was reviewed and telecast the next day on 10 March albeit with a modification in the title. The show was earlier titled, “Tibet: Past, Present & Future; 60 Years on—a

Look at the Lives of Tibetans in India”. It was changed to “Tibetans in India”.