Santosh Desai, president, McCann-Erickson India, in an article called The Vanishing Village,
for the Economic Times talks about how the notion of rural India has
undergone a change, in its representation in films and advertising
today. His perspectives on emergent views of villages as represented in
cinema and television - and his conclusion that the village is an image
we consume in our cities resonated with me.
"The village today has no voice of its own-all three discourses
outlined above are all perspectives that are urban in origin. The
village is an image that we consume in our cities. Our reactions differ
depending on the meaning we want to extract from the idea of the
village- be it fear, nostalgia or interventionist zeal. Overall then
this is the Age of the City. Our reference point is Chicago and not
Chikmagalur. From this vantage point, rural India is another planet
with which we have at best a dim affinity. Bollywood has little
patience with rural India; it no longer provides any material for
fantasy."
Mr. Desai says that representations of Rural India follow one of three distinct discourses.
"- The first is of the village as the headquarter of primitive
passions; a place where politicians run kingdoms and policemen gouge
out eyes. The village is no longer a location but an indictment; it is
today a projection of urban fears about a powerful but thankfully
distant other. In other words, in our minds all of rural India has
become equal to Bihar. A place where people in Laloo accents create
muscled mayhem only to have their eyes gouged out occasionally by
policemen in idealistic rage. - The second discourse is that of the village seen through the
nostalgia-tinted lenses of the NRI. This is the village of the
zamindaars with photogenic mustard fields swaying in synchronised
grandeur. The village becomes the seat of hallowed memory and is
aggrandised in retrospect. Films like DDLJ, Pardes, Pyaar to Hona Hi
Tha all celebrated the notion of families wrapped up in abundant
fertility that overcame the potentially disruptive forces of modernity.
The NRI village reeks of desi ghee not cow dung and prefers havelis to
hovels. - A third and emergent view of the village is as a project
that needs urgent attention. Shah Rukh Khan in Swades typifies this new
sense of the village that can be saved by the objective forces of
science. It marks a new depiction of rural India as seen from the eyes
of the city. The village is made to value all that the city does.
Technology is seen as the change agent that can transform the village
into a version of the city. This theme is echoed in highly innovative
e-choupal initiative launched by ITC; the advertising shows a farmer
leapfrogging into an entirely new world, leaving all the problems of
the village well and truly behind."
I wonder what discourses or stereotypes the virtually-blind postmaster I met in a village recently has of urban India!!
While technology can transform the lives of many villagers,
there are those without even the most basic amenities like electricity,
water, roads and healthcare feel about these stereotypes (or
discourses). In my more recent visits to villages upcountry, I saw cow
dung still forming the basis of many village home structures and for
cooking fuel. Ash is still used by many to clean utensils. Still, talk to villagers and many say that their aspirations
for their children are a more perceived urban way of life. Reasons?
Greater opportunities to earn a living, a more convenient life
delivered through a lower dependence on the terrain and weather, more
regular sources of income, and easy accessibility to technology,
products and services.  Found this neat essay - Creating brands for Rural India - which is "a
plea to really stop this one-sided movement that seeks to make the
rural man a consumptive animal of cornflake and dog biscuit alike!" More from there ...
"Till the wave of liberalization set in. And when this happened,
Indian businesses actually steered Virtual India. What's more, Virtual
India took charge of the way Real India was to be run as well. And in
Virtual India, the businesses that dictate the soap that needs to be
placed in your toilet and the detergent in your bathroom and the
cooking gas in your kitchen, actually ran Real India. Real India is
today run by Virtual India. The largest part of land-mass and the
larger part of the population base is controlled in many-many ways by
the way the urban man in urban India wants it run. A true blue hegemony
of the Urban Indian! Remember again that all marketing men and their
kin in advertising, market research and branding are mostly urban
souls.
Many in disguise as well! Real India (read as: rural India
henceforth) is fast morphing to the needs, wants, desires and
aspirations discovered by the urban man. Television as a medium has
created awareness, a raging interest in brands, a latent desire to
consume and possess what is shown on the
not-such-an-idiot-afterall-box! Television has spurred on consumptive
action and has acted as a brand consumption catalyst in many ways. And
television has continually shown us images that make everything Urban
desirable and everything Rural as something that is basic...too basic!"
10:19:57 AM 
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