ABSTRACT
The Indian state's scepticism about the legitimacy of the cinematic public in project of nation-building extended to radio, as radio became a major site for transmission of Indian popular film songs. The flagship 'interactive' show of Doordarshan, recording the highest audience participation on Indian television for quite some time was Surabhi. Doordarshan never tried to invite much audience participation through the 1960s and the 1970s. All it tried to create at most was a 'national audience' through either development programming or its idea of 'entertainment' later through programmes like Chitrahaar. It is precisely from such vantage points of statisticization, informatization, consumption and participation that we can start exploring some major trends of participatory culture on private television. But if we look at indigenization as broader category beyond language, as process of re-fashioning the emergent global values to appeal to national, regional and local identities, examples could be drawn from many trends in 1990s, the most significant was the TV commercial.
