YouTube angers I&B with its tasteless Gandhi video

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13 Jan, 2007

NEW DELHI: A tasteless video clip on Mahatma Gandhi by New York-based NRI comedian Gautham Prasad has got the government’s knickers in a twist. Outraged by the video, the government is seeking to shoot the medium — YouTube, currently the hottest video sharing website.

I&B ministry is understood to have taken up the matter with the IT ministry for 'action' against YouTube. While some I&B ministry sources said that YouTube would be blocked, some others said that YouTube would be asked to take off the offending video.

The government has also taken 'serious exception' to two TV channels — IBN-7 and Sahara — airing the video.

Fulminating against the 'assault on the father of the nation', I&B minister P R Dasmunsi on Friday demanded 'profound apology' from the channels, which came in pronto.

The move to block or act against YouTube — named by Time magazine as the 'Invention of the Year' for 2006 — has a throwback to the government’s action last October against Orkut, an Internet social network service that's a rage with the youth. Orkut has several communities, and messages by one Pakistan-based ‘Hate India’ community had got the government all worked up.

Neither YouTube nor Orkut are based in India, although they have huge participation by Indians. This has often pitted the government against these entities which are outside Indian laws and which, with the spread of the Net and the progress of technology, are fast becoming a big presence in the country.

Coming to the offending video, it has Gandhi doing a pole dance, stripping, playing with daggers and dining with two beautiful women. An angry I&B ministry has decided the issue will be discussed by a committee headed by the additional secretary.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...asteless_Gandhi_video/articleshow/1161665.cms

 

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NEW DELHI: While Delhi's intelligentsia did not mince words in criticising the youtube video where one person impersonating Gandhi was shown making obscene gestures, the Union government's letters to the two television channels asking them why they had aired the video drew sharp criticism as well.

Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University said, ‘‘There are two issues here. There is nothing wrong with take-offs on famous people. Even Americans do it for George Washington.

But anything which is defamatory should not be tolerated. At the same time, the government's letters to the two channels is almost like punishing them for its own ignorance. The video was out in the open, if the government's own channels were oblivious to its existence, that's their fault.

Describing the letters as an extremely dangerous sign of censorship, he maintained that the channels were just doing their duty in airing the video and making the government and the public aware about what's happening. Interestingly for a country that's usually obsessed with freedom of expression, few seemed willing to make concessions on that count when it came to the father of the nation.

Said Dr Anoop Misra, director and head of the department of diabetes and metabolic diseases, Fortis Hospital, "Freedom of expression is a larger debate. But my stand is very clear. Mahatma Gandhi has been respected by this country for 40 years. There has recently been a rejuvenation in that. Everybody in this country has the right to feel bad when he is made fun of - the same way as South Africans will feel if Nelson Mandela is ridiculed. Strong action should be taken against the website."

Agreed Shyama Chona, principal, Delhi Public School, R K Puram. "What the government has done is only fair. Freedom of expression does not mean you start abusing people and when it involves harming others, there is no question of tolerating it.

"At a time when we are teaching our children to respect the values and teachings of the Mahatma, this will only leave the youth confused and mislead and ultimately harm them."

Theatre person Luschin Dubey is not even willing to get into the freedom of expression debate. This, she feels is a sign of the times when the western culture is coming down on us almost "like an octopus. If a NRI has done something like this, it shows how little we respect ourselves because Gandhi is and will remain a revered figure not just for us but for the whole world. He did what he did without firing a gun - literally and figuratively - and whoever had the nerve to do something like this, whoever allowed it to be put up on the site, should not be spared."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gandhi_video_reignites_censorship_debate/articleshow/1161816.cms

 

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NEW DELHI: Two TV channels are facing government action after they reportedly aired a video clip depicting a man dressed up as Mahatma Gandhi performing a pole dance.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the clip, apparently pulled from a video sharing website, was in "bad taste" and called on the two private channels to apologise to the entire country.

The two-minute clip reportedly shows a man dressed in dhoti and dancing around a pole with a dagger and making obscene gestures.

"Based on a website document, an attempt was made to denigrate the honour of the father of the nation which has been in bad taste, and this was copied by two private channels in India," Information Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, said.

"Both the channels should express their profound apology to the nation for sponsoring such a ridiculous and humiliating feature of the website to assault the mind of the Indian people," he went on to say.

The clip was reportedly filmed by a New York-based non-resident Indian and posted on a popular video-sharing Internet site.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...oup_over_Gandhi_video/articleshow/1159161.cms