Traditionally, there have been two ways of judging the success of TV shows. Marketing mavens will tell you that the true indication of a show’s success is its popularity with the viewers and advertisers (the two being interlinked). The creative side will tell you that it is critical approbation that drives them. Very few shows achieve both. But now, add a third way of judging success.

India’s Most Wanted has taken on a role of a link agancy between the public and the lawkeepers and made something of a success out of it. Up until recently, this was just another show that exploited the seamier, criminal side of human nature to titilate and excite a gawking public. Almost overnight it has gone from being the exploiter to the champion; from the sensational to the serious. The cause for this shift; the arrest of two criminals - Sushila Srivastava and Anoop Kumar Roy - featured on the show in the fourth and fouteenth episodes of the show on the basis of information provided by the viewers of the show.

The show is a documentation of some of the more heinous, unsolved crimes committed in and around Delhi over the years. The show is a “systematic attempt to collect information about wanted criminals and moulding it into a docu-drama form, based on actual, authentic facts.” Along with the re-enactment of the crime, photographs and sketches of the criminals are flashed, with phone and fax numbers should the viewers want to report sightings of these criminals. The arrest of two criminals is seen as a vindication of the purpose of the programme, and an increased awareness among the people to fight crime and assist the law-enforcers.

Whether the show has created history or not is debatable. The idea of flashing photographs of missing persons and alleged criminals in the media is a well entrenched practice the world over. Doordarshan kendra’s all over India flash photographs of missing persons and criminals routinely. Statistics on the success rate of such flashes is unavailable, as admitted by Mr. R D Tyagi, ex-commissioner of police, Mumbai and now advisor to the Zee Group. And this is where India’s Most Wanted scores. The arrest of the two criminals was the direct result of information provided by the public following the telecast of the shows.

Education, stresses Mr. Tyagi, is the sole purpose of the show. “India’s Most Wanted is a helpful tool in educating the public in crime prevention. The process of education is on-going because the show elaborates the modus operandi of the criminals, and this will prove helpful in preventing crimes of a similar nature,” he elaborates.

Mr. Subhash Chandra, chairman Zee Telefilms Ltd., sees the arrest of the two criminals as evidence of the effectiveness of “a television channel in furthering the cause of government and administration”. In a self-congratulatory letter to Mr. L.K. Advani, union home minister, Subhash Chandra says that, “Contrary to popular perception of (Zee) as a commercial channel, we have once again established that we are committed to public causes and are socially responsible to the polity and society.”

These may be tall claims, but there is no doubting that India’s Most Wanted has increased awareness about criminals and started a process of interaction between the law-enforcers and the general public in combating crime. The show airs on Zee TV on Tuesdays at 9.00 p.m.