By all yardsticks, Bollywood icon Aamir Khan’s weekly 90-minute social reform television programme Satyamev Jayate (SMJ, ‘Let truth prevail’) aired on national and cable television for 13 weeks between May and July 2012, has been a phenomenal success. It generated an unprecedented volume of commentary in the print and social media. By the end of the first episode, the show’s website had crashed; even though the last episode of SMJ ended on July 29, it continues to provoke intense debate in the social media.
Some cynics have panned the programme as the venal ego-trip of a Bollywood star looking to bask in the reflected glory of years of hard work of dedicated social reformers. Others have attacked the show’s televisual format. But such criticism is facile. Obviously television has its const-raints — ad breaks, episode limits and so on — but the depth of penetration it achieves simply can’t be matched by other media.
The plain truth is that Satyamev Jayate has stirred a national awakening and brought the country’s acute social problems into more homes than any other show in Indian media history. Critics who take objection to Aamir Khan’s elevation as the country’s social conscience, seem to overlook the fact that the show also champions many of India’s unsung heroes. This has been the basis for a rain of accu-sations in the Twitterverse, ranging from Khan’s alleged crocodile tears to the exorbitant fee (reportedly Rs.3 crore per episode) paid to him by Reliance Industries — India’s largest private company — which sponsored SMJ. Even if some allegations are true, it doesn’t really matter. And those who argue that the show has made no material impact, miss the point of television entirely.
What SMJ has achieved, without question, is awareness of social injustices on an epic scale. The show has beamed the spotlight on a raft of “wicked problems” (water shortages, environmental degradation, rampant female foeticide, child malnutrition etc), and brought these gritty realities into 100 million homes countrywide. By doing so, it has afforded a profile to deserving individuals, groups and projects, and hopefully, has also catalysed a new wave of activity as viewers — either moved by the plight of peo-ple suffering injustices or inspired by those attempting to address them — transform into change-makers themselves.
For these reasons, neither Khan nor the show’s producers/sponsors need to worry unduly about an unfinished project with an undefined legacy. The prime concern should be to sustain the mom-entum SMJ has generated. How should they do this? By capitalising on SMJ’s enormous web following, and using the internet to promote entrepreneurial solutions to social problem-solving. The producers of the show are clearly aware its strength lies in its capacity to group people into communities of common interest, and by doing so, generate a critical mass of change-makers.
There are other opportunities to engage SMJ’s public in more creative ways, to enhance the scope and scale of change in India. This requires engaging the show’s self-generated communities to move beyond the cult of individual heroes and philanthropic patches and promote an entrepreneurial ecosystem to create sustainable solutions for social problems.
There are already numerous credible social entrepreneurial responses to some of the critical issues raised in SMJ — viz, organic farming, waste management and clean energy solutions. Many of these initiatives could benefit from business support, human resources, and technology inputs. There are also many viable ideas which need special expertise to make the leap from concept to working models with long-term, sustained impact. It’s not only resident Indians who can be of use here, but NRIs too. Engaging the Indian diaspora in the evolution of a social change ecosystem is a challenge government should also embrace.
Community time-bank models have been very successful in many countries. Why not link SMJ’s sizeable following to voluntary organisations in major cities, to enable transfer of skills and knowledge to improve, diffuse and scale social innovations? If time is an issue, organisations such as Milaap allow individuals to make loans to the toiling poor in India. These loans go towards providing primary social goods like potable drinking water, sanitation, renewable energy and enterprise development. Such enterprises usually go under the radar, while bigger, brasher, less impactful charity operations hog the media limelight. An SMJ-driven social change movement can highlight numerous ways of contributing to social enterprise movements, many of which go well beyond the conventional option of financial donations.
On its own terms, SMJ has been an unqualified success. It is a welcome antidote to the claustrophobic smog of saas bahu soap opera, bringing uncomfortable realities into Indian homes with clarity and purpose. It has also culti-vated a huge online following with the potential to unleash a massive wave of social action. It is its success in galvan-ising this wider movement, based on enterprise and creative forms of engagement, which will define its contribution to solving the chronic problems confronting India.
(Dr. Pathik Pathak is director of social enterprise at the University of Southampton, UK)