In a conversation with Dr. K. Parameswaran, Associate Professor of Law and former Dean of Academics at prestigious Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, we learnt legal insights on Bigg Boss, a popular television reality show broadcast in many countries. He unravels unique legal thoughts that law students and researchers ought to learn from this simple entertainment show. Based on the approach of integral dimensions of law, he explains growth of society, culture of law, human psychology and development of legal knowledge.
As such, Bigg Boss broadcast currently in India is what I consider for this review. Let me explain Bigg Boss with a background theme to connect to law. We have our routine of daily life in a social collectivity. We move about with daily chores, enjoy them, face problems and overcome them relatively or completely. We have a legal system with laws where regulations govern our social behavior to ensure equality among all, liberty of freedoms and expressions, fraternity and justice in everyone’s life. We have Constitutional Law by which all laws are made, a State with three Organs (legislature, executive and judiciary) to look into this life-cycle as a whole through legal governance of human behavior in society. In this way, we develop socially, culturally, economically and politically etc., with legal system in back ground making society move gradually from one stage to another, grappling with all kinds of practical life-affairs.
Consider another situation. A group of 50 people from a society get deserted into a no-man land with no connection whatsoever to current society or world. They have nothing readymade there nor did they arrange anything as we see in today’s world and life around us. With only Nature and bare resources available there, they will have to start from scratch, struggle step by step in everything, make food, shelter and dress. Then, discover new ways of collaboration among group members towards protection, preservation and methods of progress, roles and responsibilities. They have to face threats, risks and unpredictable situations from Nature, animals or even unknown things. What will they do and how will they move about? Will they fight to exploit or be good to share with each other what they get? What about rights, duties, freedoms and expressions, likes and dislikes? In a way, this group will look like re-enacting the origins and cycle of human life since prehistoric times.
Consider another extreme situation. A group of 10 people enter a place or house or compound where everything needed for life is already arranged and made practically available. They want a thing and, it is just there! They get all whatever they want. Also, there is no need for the group to work to earn livelihood and safeguard their daily sustenance. Everything is provided like, say by a miracle-god or supernatural power or even say by an ideal State and Government. But, there is also a condition given to that group that they will be completely locked inside in that place or house or compound for certain amount of time; 100 or 150 days. And, they cannot come out of that house in between, except medical or emergencies.
Group is left alone in that place with no communication or interaction with outside society and life. They can interact and talk only with their group members or play some games. There is no television or radio or anything that will link the group to world outside. This in nutshell is the Bigg Boss house! It is a reality entertainment television show for viewers like us to watch how members of group are going to behave to themselves as well as to whole group! Bigg Boss house is an altered or ultra model life-situation; a move from normal world to extreme or unreal or abnormal or below-normal life-situations. In simple terms, outcome or reward for our life that we get by everyday work and office, family and life, society and interactions is given freely to them without doing anything or any work to earn all these. Thought emotion-body complex movement which works and earns life and things are stopped in Bigg Boss for a while. How will human nature accustomed to all these work and life react to a situation when given freely all of a sudden? There is a lot of legal knowledge about human behavior that a legal mind can draw from Bigg Boss reality show because people in that group are a representation or replica of what society is today at large, as a whole.
When material-life accessories and things of all kinds are taken care of with a condition they all remain inside with no contact outside, only to enjoy their dailylife requirements without any stimulus to work to earn life-necessities and comforts, one is left only with one’s own self. One begins to see, feel, and observe something new or different in themselves individually as well as collectively. One only has one’s own psychological energy to support and bear one’s thoughts, emotions and physical movements with no interchange of energies except with that group. In normal life, rights and duties come without asking, which we cannot avoid. Suppose, if those normal rights and duties are changed and a new set of rights and duties are created and fixed upon us? Mind, emotion and body has to learn to think, feel and act on those new rights and duties.
Not only for individual life but also for collective group life as well. This situation brings something for law students to understand how legal knowledge is developed and ensured. Law students get to see how psychology of human nature and social collectivity shape external behavior and conduct. Influence of smaller group behavior and culture results in wider social and psychological behavior towards one another which is what law wants to regulate to avoid clash or disharmony through violation of rights and duties. I call this Bigg Boss a simulated sociopsychological experiment though shown as an entertainment game and reality show.
Law students can understand how social conduct emerges towards wellbeing of all. Law is a product of society and social norms are made of cultural, psychological, political and economic causes that come through inter-actional or inter-relational exchanges of ideas, emotions and movements. That is why in legal research we also observe bottom-up or top-down models of growth and development in law and social transformation. State and its three Organs through their agents, actors and institutions play mediator roles. I explain this by showing how even law subjects taught in NLUs and legal education as per BCI, is a complex product of this serious multi-tiered play of forces; social, psychological, cultural, political, religious, economic etc., with a tug-of-war between individual and collective. Nature-studies and progressive education movements of early 20th century point out that human societies have much to learn from their own inner history of organic nature to succeed. Spiritually speaking, Nature and the cosmic cycle invents methods to revive life as a whole every now and then.
Yes. For example, there are three things that happen in Bigg Boss which can be legally understood. Acceptance, adjustment and accomplishment. Acceptance is accepting others in other’s conditions and not under one’s own conditions. This is the source of all freedom and liberty. Adjustment is more than tolerating others in which one only controls external display of likes and dislikes. One truly adjusts only by the spirit of acceptance. This is the source for social equality or goodwill which allows freedoms and liberties, rights and duties without restrictions.
Accomplishment is not only for one’s own individual life but also for the collective and social. All these three are interdependent and a value-play between rights and duties. One gets to know about limits of individualism and collaboration too. Thus, in Bigg Boss, you come to watch these three things in behavior and interaction of individuals among group members. Interestingly in Bigg Boss, as wider social interaction and challenges are not there like real-life or real-world situations, they are being watched through television as a show and voted for elimination and re-integration. This social interaction and real-life challenges is what we see in our laws too, where punishments or compensations are given in order to transform one’s individual and social psychology and behaviors, and then, one is sent back to wider social life. Yet another insight is that we observe what kind of participants are voted for or against in the Bigg Boss rounds. They are certainly the ones based on this accept-adjust-accomplish formula of life. For a legal scholar, this study opens a gateway to understand current social norms and thereby use them in law-making, law executing, law-interpreting and finally legal implementation.
In this whole entertainment game, you learn about yourself. Your thoughts, emotions and reasoning come out revealing your hidden personality, your true psychological nature and emotional or intellectual self. In a normal real-life situation we also accept, adjust and accomplish. But they are largely out of self interest or self-preservation though exceptions are there. In Bigg Boss game, one can get to see this real nature and a chance to come out with renewed knowledge of who, how and what one is to one’s self and to others. One can observe oneself and understand one’s nature, get knowledge about one’s personality through which one can modify habits, cultural bias, social stigmas and taboos and help justice in the making. One comes to know to respect rights of others, recognize freedoms and liberties of others without any need for State and law to monitor or patrol especially when integral legal research shows diminishing value of deterrence and punishments. I would say, the study of such reality shows can take one not only to inter, multi and trans-disciplinary studies, but eventually to integral dimensions of law. A legal scholar can connect a variety of disciplines with Bigg Boss as a case study of human thought, emotion, behavior, sociology, psychology, culture, law inherent in human beings, law imposed out of social collectivity or created out of necessity etc.
Many claim that participants of Bigg Boss violate provisions of criminal laws or public policy; hurt sentiments, religious feelings, defame, incite or even a voyeurism etc. Of course no one can violate these laws and injure anyone. No one is above law. Society and State’s legal systems too should consider roles of psychology, sociology, entertainment and arts-forms, which help us to understand each other, grow collectively with mutual respect of freedom and dignity – true goals of our Constitutional aspirations.
Whether Bigg Boss and its participants undertake this game with this motive or not, law students, law teachers and researchers can see interesting sidelights on social life that can be of help for justice behavior and habit, effective law-making and finally positive law-enforcements. In short, when one human being understands himself or herself, one understands other human beings too as the stuff of human nature is more or less the same with only minor variations. With this deeper knowledge of human life in society, we automatically behave not to injure others, hurt or cheat others which in legal terms is violation of rights and freedoms. This makes justice simple, direct and straight without any need to go through complicated processes. This prevents injustice, which is better than legal cure of injustice as injury of injustice happened cannot be remodified for victims except punishing offenders or monetary considerations. In this, life and society teaches many things. And they become the true Bigg Boss for all of us!
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