Anuj was humiliated on II2 - Page 3

Tears and protests created a deafening crescendo after Amey Date was voted out.

I was attending a conference in Orissa. Televisions in our hotel rooms had a limited number of channels and Sony was not one of them. This was a Friday. In the evening, there was the usual get together. Even in their slightly inebriated state, I found many middle-aged men remembering to call their homes to find out who got chucked out that week — Rahul or Arpita or Ravinder? Indian Idol has brought back some of the frenzy that was associated with earlier superhits like KBC. People are again asking on Thursdays: Sade nau baj gaye kya?

There is just one reservation that keeps getting voiced. In the final stage of the competition, the jury has been changed. From experts, the onus to choose the winners has been passed on to the public. No, the debate is not whether the public is equipped to judge the talents of these singers. Many in fact argue that it is the public that pays money to consume their talent, so it is only fair that they judge the talent.

The issue that engages many minds is whether true public opinion is being reflected. Why the doubt? Inevitably it is because an individual choice has quarrelled with the collective. The petite girl you were rooting for got eliminated. You have every right to feel upset — after all, it is your choice that is being negated. And you are as much a part of the public as anyone else.

The issue being debated is whether the judgment reflects true public opinion. To answer this, we must know who the "public" is. Is everybody getting included? What if you are not watching the programme? What if you do not have a mobile phone or find it too expensive to make a long-distance call from the landline?

Now, now, now, I can hear the channel top brass censuring me, do not go overboard with this. This is an upmarket television programme and that is the segment of the Indian public we are interested in. Fair enough. The question that remains is still very pertinent: are the selections reflecting the views of this smaller universe? Yes, of course, many would say, just witness the millions of SMSs Sony gets every week.

The catch is elsewhere. True public opinion can only be gauged by knowing the views of every member of the public, whichever way you choose to define it. But census is an expensive proposition. Even the Government of India can afford to do it only once every 10 years.

Every Thursday, Sony leaves it to us to decide whether we want our views to be included. We have the choice. And like airlines and hotel feedback forms, only those of us with extreme emotions of happiness or anger take the trouble of responding. The rest of us are happy criticising the system. The sample is not random but self-selecting. And a self-selected sample can have very little claim to representativeness and veracity.

Let me remind you that the process of selecting our MLAs and MPs is the same. To vote or not to vote is our choice; the sample is self-selecting. We conveniently assume that those of us who do not vote have the same preference as those who are voting. If we can do that for deciding who should run our country, should we crib about the Indian Idol?