Page 275 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

upsurge in the sort of hybrid programming that marries the sacred marketplace
to the profane religiosity of the moment, as well as certain engagements with
technology.
It is in the current heated debate around Direct-to-Home (DTH) transfer
that the lineaments of the ®exible logic of Hindu nationalism, or what I term
“digital Hinduism,” comes to the fore in the clearest fashion. DTH technology
enables the reception of satellite transmission directly from the satellite broad-
casting TV network, thus effectively cutting out the cable operator, whose dish
at present is the hub through which satellite feed is cabled into subscribers’
homes. DTH is also the technological platform for the provision of other ser-
vices such as e-mail, the Internet, visophony, and telephone and cyber com-
merce. According to the vociferous attacks on foreign broadcasting from the
Hindu Right, such a development would further distance government control
of programming (itself limited to the Cable Network Regulation Act which
merely requires cable operators to register with the post of¤ce and makes no
programming demands, although some are currently being made such as a
minimum number of DD channels). However, it is in fact the BJP Information
and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan who shows the most support for
DTH. “The air is open to all, the sky is the limit” is his opening salvo in the
heated debate around DTH. But this expansiveness toward technological change
is argued forcefully as follows: “DTH actually means viewing the channels with
a 12 inches [sic] antenna instead of a 12 feet [sic] antenna. We cannot oppose
technology. We must learn to use them [sic] to our best advantage. And whoever
comes ¤rst is bound to have the early bird advantages” (Mahajan 1999, 11).
By couching the discussion around DTH in purely technological terms (six
feet to six inch receivers), Mahajan neatly sidesteps the discourse of his own
party in its vociferous attacks on foreign networks, the “air attacks” on the na-
tion’s Chiti. The realpolitik sentiment of “¤rst come, ¤rst serve” hides the fact
that in terms of either ¤nancial resources or programming material, the state
broadcaster DD would be unable to compete effectively with global networks
such as NewsCorp which have already taken up the cudgels against the In-
dian government for its restrictive law on a maximum foreign participation of
20 percent in broadcasting. NewsCorp, CNN, and other networks have been
lobbying the U.S. State Department on this issue for some time. At stake are
millions of dollars in advertising revenue, and the pond is big enough for major
Indian satellite networks to dip into. Mahajan’s “open skies” policy, besides its
convenient framing in terms of keeping up with technology, is paralleled by the
RSS public organ, The Organiser, framing a feature article discussion of the
DTH issue in the sanskritized tones of Hindutva: “An no bhadrah kritavo yantu
vishwatah (Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides)—Rg Veda” (Mishra
1999, 9). Here the native subject of nationalism is constructed and strengthened
in its moral, cultural superiority through the deployment of precisely those sig-
ni¤ers of modernity which have been traditionally understood to belong else-
where. More important, in the context of Hindutva and its philosophical under-
pinnings, the belief in development, holistic thinking and its execution through

264 Sudeep Dasgupta