GILL'S been guillotined. MTV'S been muffled. Sundry other cultural 'deviants', including G. Bharat Bala, the producer of the music video of Lata Mangeshkar's recent rendition of Vande Mataram, have been damned. But for Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the voluble, know-it-all minister of state for information and broadcasting, Operation Clean-up has only just begun. Two down, but there're more to go before the BJP's sole Muslim MP in the 12th Lok Sabha can get off his high horse. "TV is subverting Indian culture," he says. "Vulgar images that the West has rejected are being dumped on us. The government can't watch in silence."
Indeed, silence isn't his forte. Give him a platform and an oral diktat is ready to fly. The 41-year-old Naqvi has donned the role of morality cop. In the line of his fire are the private satellite channels. "They are corrupting impressionable minds. Our children are growing up with a distorted idea about our rich culture," says Naqvi.
The minister recently told a national daily that the Vande Mataram video has an objectionable sequence in which the national flag is shown lying on the ground. He however denies planning any action against Bala. "I only said I had received a complaint. I haven't taken any official stand," he clarifies. Bala can only react with disbelief. "Nobody can point a finger at our effort or the emotion behind it," he says.
Clearly, the man who came in from the cold (Naqvi represents Rampur, UP) is now leaving many media players cold and confused. "We might not be able to stop every ill, but the government has to protect the people from harmful influences," he says, pleased that MTV has erased the colours of the national flag from its logo. Will other private channels also do his bidding: dump all shows that Naqvi is unhappy with?
Former Prasar Bharati CEO S.S Gill did stand up to him when Naqvi accused him of malfeasance. But the latter has had his way: Gill no longer heads Prasar Bharati. "Mr Gill had threatened to file a defamation case six weeks ago, but I haven't heard from him since," says the minister with barely concealed glee. But Naqvi wasn't exactly beside himself with joy when the Prasar Bharati ordinance was promulgated on August 29. His amour-propre was pricked because Sushma Swaraj cold-shouldered him for she felt that his anti-Gill tirade was weakening the ministry's case. So miffed was Naqvi that he stayed away from the specially convened press conference the following day. Naqvi, of course, denies the speculation. "I have no reason to be upset. There's no division of work in the I&B ministry. Every file goes through me and we take all decisions in unison," he asserts.
The skirmish with MTV has been less exacting but has given the minister just as much media mileage as the 'oust Gill' campaign. "It wasn't a whim," says Naqvi. "I acted only after I received a large number of complaints about the misuse of the national flag by MTV." MTV India's general manager Sunil Lulla had to rush back from Singapore to launch a quick troubleshooting operation. "It has been determined," says an official MTV statement, "that MTV has not violated any law with regard to the national flag.... However, since the company has been told that the colours of the logo have offended a few, MTV will change the colours."
Controversy has stalked Naqvi all his life but he has rarely changed colours. His opponents claim that the minister, who entered politics through Jayaprakash Narayan's movement in the mid-'70s, is actually a Hindu. His wife is a Hindu, they whisper, and Naqvi embraced Hinduism when he married her. That's a canard, says the first-time MP. "I'm being targeted because I'm a Muslim in the BJP. When you do anything that people can't reconcile with the general run of things, all they can do is spread misinformation."
But Naqvi keeps going. He is the rat-a-tat man in Atal Behari Vajpayee's pack, and he will knock on every door that promises to lead him to a swadeshi Utopia shorn of cultural impurities. Some will be slammed on his face, others will have to be prised open with force. But Naqvi will be banking on the ones that will open without a squeak.
