Monday, March 27, 2006

Kya Karega Qazi - Zee News - The irresponsible & disgusting Behavior of media

One of the most irresponsible & disgusting Behavior of media that I have seen in recent times.

Caught the tail end of a program called "Kya Karega Qazi" on Zee News a little before 8pm today. It disgusted me, as to the depths to which media responsibility has sunk.

Essentially a muslim woman, has been divorced by her husband for being abusive. The panel comprised of this muslim woman totally unidentifiable in her simple burkha, another woman in a saree who wasn't saying much, the husband who was getting very aggressive, a qazi who was ostensibly there to sort out the matter & an extrmely irritating, irresponsible, unempathetic, rude anchor who thought himself to be India's answer to Oprah Winfrey. And a studio audience.

From what I could understand about the matter:
The husband had divorced the wife because she was abusive. They have a 4-6 year old daughter. The husband now wants custody of the daughter too. The qazi was trying to resolve the matter.

What went wrong in the process:
The anchor kept pressurising the woman, asking her what she wanted. Now asking a woman what she wants or how she wants to resolve a matter is a good thing, but the way you ask it, your tone, your manner, should be one that puts her at ease & not one that scares her to death.
The studio audience of about 40 comprised of only 2 other women both of whom were also wearing burkhas. (I do not have anything against the burkha or women who choose to wear one. That is their choice.)
The social background that the protagonists seemed to come from was lower middle class. Now most of us are aware that the status of women in this class is lower than that of women in other strata.
In a lot of interior regions in India (not just the rural areas) women are not comfortable talking to their husbands in public (even if they dare to talk to them in private, it is an achievement)
Women are not expected to talk when there are males present.
In this scenario of a 99% male gathering, the anchor was pressurising this poor woman to say something against her husband. Is it logical ? Is it reasonable ? How can she break generations of suppression to become an advocate for womens rights ? Did the anchor honestly think that if he was rude enough, he might discover another Nisha (the one who said no to marrying the man who demanded dowry the day of the wedding) ?

Instead of empathising with the woman, trying to make her comfortable in an alien setting and being gently probing (which may or may not have got any answers, but is at least a better approach) he was downright rude & insolent. He was shouting at her and saying "Why aren't you saying anything ? You will lose your child also, don't you have any balls ? Why don't you say something? You are going to lose everything."

Culturally, socially, economically. what foot could this woman stand on ? I can only imagine the fear this poor woman must have been trembling with.

What hapenned in their marital home, none except those concerned know. Who is at fault is not up to us to decide. The religion they belong to, who said what, how they should behave, is not relevant to my post. What I want to know is, who is going to bring such irresponsible news anchors to task ? Is there a governing body ? If this same scenario between the anchor & the woman had taken place in a prison instead of a news studio, the Human Rights commissions could have gone ballistic on the way the woman was being treated.

At the end of this disgusting display of reprehensible media ethics, an SMS vote was thrown open to the public. What do u think she should do :
a. Go back to her husband ?
b. Start living on her own ?
c. Go & live with her parents ?

Is there anything we can do, to stop such denigration & degradation of women on National Television ?

3 comments:

Kim said...

I have posted a copy of this piece to inews@zeenetwork.com

Its the contact detail givenm by Z News on their web site
http://www.zeenews.com/contactus.asp?

Lets c what response it gets from them

*~mad munky~* said...

sounds horrific... :oS

Kim said...

It was. Quite a shameful display.

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