India - Hum Raahi

In August 1986, PCI’s efforts prompted the creation of a new private sector family planning broadcast production unit within Doordarshan television, with commercial sponsorship from the late J. R. D. Tata, Chairman of the Board of Tata Sons Ltd., India's largest industrial conglomerate. Following a training session for the show’s creative and production team lead by PCI founder David Poindexter, producer and former PCI board member Roger Pereira of Bombay undertook the creation of television series. Humraahi ("Come Along With Me"), went on the air in January 1992.

Within four months, Humraahi was the top-rated program on Indian television. The estimated audience was 100 million viewers. In the series, a servant girl, 15, dies in childbirth after being forced into an arranged marriage at age 14 by her parents. Following that episode, the other characters lament the plight of young Indian women and the tragedy of early marriage and pregnancy.

Issues Covered: Status of women, with particular attention to age of marriage, age of first pregnancy, gender bias in childbearing and child rearing, equal educational opportunity, and the right of women to choose their own husbands.

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