The Pop Patriots

FOR India's end-of-the-millennium under-30s, patriotism isn't just pap and piffle. They often wear it on their sleeves. Sample the response of young television viewers, especially in small-town India, to Swaraj, a serial dedicated to the exploits of the nation's lesser-known freedom fighters. The 26-episode series, commissioned by DD as part of its celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Independence, ended late September, but the letters still pour in to the producer's Mumbai office. From Sangli and Shimoga, Medak and Muzzaffarpur, Panipat and Patan, Dumka and Deoria—not just Mumbai and Delhi—the congratulatory epistles implore producer Manju Singh to revive the series. "Among all the countdown shows, soaps and sitcoms, Swaraj was worth watching," writes a Guwahati schoolgirl.

 "Whenever I watched the serial, a sense of pride would well up within me," says a boy from Khandwa, MP. "Ashfaqullah impressed me very much. The day he died, I wept bitterly," confesses a young viewer from Kozhikode, Kerala. Primarily in the 15 to 30 age group, the straight-from-the-heart letters carry a clear message: in an age woefully short on genuine heroes, TV serials like Swaraj do strike a chord with the generation that has the biggest stake in the nation's future. Never mind the marketing gurus!

Not everyone has the courage of conviction to fight against the marketing theory that muck, and muck alone, sells. Manju Singh does. In the bargain, she is Rs 60 lakh in the red. But, she says: "We've been able to prove there's life beyond pop videos: there are young viewers out there who are interested in stories that talk about enduring values, people keen to make a difference given half a chance."

 Belly-buttons and babbling VJs, cacophonous countdowns and endless soaps do rule the TRP charts. Yet, one viewer of Manju Singh's serial wants to help start a 'swaraj brigade' in her town. Another decided to join the army after watching Swaraj. A third offered to create a website with the volumes that the two-year research for the series yielded. Naive, perhaps, but eloquent evidence of what the idiot box can achieve when it stops being idiotic.