Some time in the eighties, the features magazine I then worked for asked me to do a story on the alleged casting couch in the film industry using a method similar, at least in principle, to the one adopted by the now infamous ‘Ruchi’ of India TV. Armed with some pictures taken by the office photographer and an assumed alibi I was supposed to visit the offices of assorted producers, directors, photographers, in the guise of an aspiring actress and then describe what happened. We were far from certain that unsavoury advances would be made. And if they were we were extremely wary of the legal implications of naming names. What we did hope to do, however, was to provide a genuine first-person account that would confirm or deny the existence of what was clearly an exploitative phenomenon. A sudden illness forced me — to my relief, I must confess — to abandon the story soon after I had started. So I have no gory revelations to offer. The reason why I mention the incident at all is because the recent India TV-Shakti Kapoor sting revealed just how dramatically things have changed in the intervening years. No publication at that time, for instance, would have considered printing Shakti Kapoor’s accusations about third parties without evidence. Even the most sensational tabloid would have feared defamation suits. Today a television channel has no such compunctions. And the film industry, for its part, chooses to act against a loud mouth — who did not even know his indiscretions were being recorded — rather than against the channel that aired them. Both actions widen the scope for innuendo and speculation that does no good to the credibility of either industry. But despite the hue and cry, what is striking is the almost anachronistic air about the expose. It has come simply a decade or two too late. Check out the discussion in columns and on the net, and it will be obvious that nobody outside the film industry is particularly shocked by Kapoor’s drunken revelations. Nor is there much scepticism about the probability of there being a casting couch in Bollywood. “A reality”, “a cliche”, are the kind of words being used to describe the mythical couch. In fact the age of innocence has long passed. The type of sexual exploitation that is under the scanner currently has spread far beyond the film industry. The fashion industry is rife with similar stories not just about women, but men too. Shobhaa De, a keen observer of social trends, claims it is happening in corporate houses, television newsrooms (“across the board, across the world”). In fact the very applicability of the word “exploitation” may be in doubt as erstwhile victims are seen increasingly as colluding partners and sex as a price for success. “No one forces the newcomers. They do it willingly,” claims Subhash K. Jha on Rediff.com. A posting on a college alumni website maintains wisely: “In all walks of life corporate/bollywood any damn thing..ppl who want an easy rise have to pay a price for it.” Most people commenting on the issue has found it necessary to focus more on the very dubious methods employed by the channel’s staffers; the invasion of privacy and other such matters rather than sexual exploitation. Preity Zinta, one of the big names dropped by Shakti Kapoor, suggests a certain irrelevance about it when she wants to know why “the channel couldn’t do a sting operation on corruption or mass murderers — something that actually affected the public”. Vir Sanghvi in The Hindustan Times expresses similar reservations on the significance of the India TV expose, maintaining: “You cannot use the same standards you apply to a public servant who takes a bribe to sanction a weapons purchase for two private individuals who engage in consensual sex, even if one of the parties hopes that the sex will advance her career.” It is an ironical situation: that a story seeking to expose an apparently pernicious practice with the aim, as India TV head Rajat Sharma claims, of warning the many hapless small-town girls dreaming of stardom, finds itself somewhat out of sync with public morality itself. Perhaps that is the real story, then. How did a feudal, undesirable practice that should have died out with time, modernisation and the growing emancipation of women and other formerly weaker sections of society, grow and gain such widespread acceptability? Sex as currency, whether volunteered or not, is incompatible with the ideals of a liberal, merit-based society. It is a pity that the lesser issue of sting journalism and its potential abuse has derailed any possible discussion on this more serious social issue.
