Reincarnation does not attract viewers
Abhijit Dasgupta, National Coordinator from India
How long have you been participating in the conference? What makes it unique?
I’ve been participating in INPUT for seven years. Above all, this is a place where independent, professional minds meet. I think that what we should have in common is an attitude, a certain perception of what the goal of public television is. We constantly need to carry a message. We also have to challenge commercial television. They keep fighting for the viewer, try to keep him in front of the television set. We must also grab our viewer by the eyeballs and chain him to the television.
As part of the Disclosure session, we were able to watch the program Ambres - Dead Man Talking. During the discussion, you questioned the reliability of the document.
Once again, this is about the message, about reaching the viewer. This program might be successful in Scandinavian countries, but in India the commercial media are full of people who claim to remember their previous lives. They are individuals from the lower castes, nothing but charlatans. I’m not sure whether public TV should be interested in cultivating exaggerations.
I believe such a program isn’t especially educational. Strictly speaking, we watched an hour-long monologue. We weren’t presented with any evidence against, nor any other witnesses. We saw a person using certain terms connected with our spirituality, but no other consequences or statements from other people on this topic.
INPUT is a presentation of programs that are, first, unconventional, second, experimental, and third, bold in the way they present issues. This film would have a chance of succeeding in India only as an experiment. It wouldn’t attract viewers, it wouldn’t grab viewers by the eyeballs.
As I said, our media are full of such individuals and this man was speaking of certain notions connected with our beliefs, mentioning Maya and karma. In our country such a movie would not stand. The viewer would have many other choices and would simply change the channel.
Yet there are no such programs in other countries. The Ambres movie was watched by many delegates and it attracted their attention.
Of course, that’s why I’m glad I have the possibility to get to know other views. I still don’t think it has much influence on the activity of public television, but our culture is different. It’s a very unusual thing there, yet in India we see such broadcasts every day.
Interviewed by Jakub Osiejewski
