Thiruvananthapuram: For the first time ever, the makers of a hugely popular serial with a child protagonist have been forced to change their story following the intervention of the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.
Overnight, the child protagonist Janaki Kutty metamorphosed into a grown up female, her cruel stepmother inexplicably softened, and her crueller step-grandmother deeply repentant after a sudden accident.
The Commission found that the serial 'Manju-rukum Kalam', telecast on Mazhavil Manorama, propagated violence and "gave an impression to society at large that it was permissible to abuse a child in the domestic sphere". The Commission also felt that the serial created a negative impression about adoption.
The Commission, in its complaint to Broadcasting Contents Complaints Council (BCCC), said that the private channel was blatantly violating the Indian Broadcasting Foun-dation's (IBF) Self Reg-ulation Guidelines which it said categorically stipulated, under the subject matter 'Harm and Offence", that the programmes should not in any manner show scenes involving children in violence, as victims or as perpetrators or as forced witnesses to violence or being subjected to any form of child abuse'.
The serial portrays the life of a minor girl child in an adoptive family in which her stepmother and other family members continuously ill treat her. The child is made to do all household chores and is often mentally and physically harassed. The serial depicts the child as a victim of all forms of abuses. The BCCC then summoned the producers and channel representatives. They were let off the hook only after they promised to change the story.
