The resurrection of the History Channel as History TV 18 has been given fillip since it was taken over by TV 18 last year. Full Disclosure: I’d been involved in the second coming of the History Channel when we took it from History Channel to History Entertainment. And while every effort was made to kick the channel alive, for some reason Indian viewers just didn’t seem too keen on watching anything historical.

So in its latest avatar, the born again History TV 18 tried to shock-and-awe by announcing history-savvy Salman Khan as its new brand ambassador. This announcement did do what it was supposed to. It made sure that everyone was suddenly aware that there is indeed a channel called History (Channel/Entertainment/TV 18) and it was ‘cool’ to watch it. But while Sallu might have got people to look for History TV 18 on their Tata Sky menu guide, TV 18 didn’t want you to think that History had dumbed down that much. So the first big ticket programme from the channel is The Greatest Indian, in association with Reliance Mobile and CNN IBN.

Now if you visit the programme website, you might get just a little confused by its multiple posers. The site asks you, “Who is The Greatest Indian after Mahatma Gandhi?” on its homepage. Then when you enter the About Us section, it says that it is “presenting a national debate on the one question – ‘Who is the greatest Indian after Independence?’” Well at least we have a new slogan now, Independence is Gandhi, Gandhi is Independence. Or a case of – you say potato, I say potâto.

So what is this programme? Like all good or bad ideas on Indian television, even this one is borrowed. From our erstwhile lords and masters – the British. It’s based on an international format first shown on the Beeb a decade ago – called The Greatest Briton. And then 22 countries copied it. And then India followed. Well better late than never. The programme is aimed at selecting the one Indian after Mahatma Gandhi who is the most “influential, iconic & inspirational and has impacted your life”.  Okay then.

Just one problem. The BBC-version had high-profile correspondents and presenters from Jeremy Clarkson (the popular host of the cult show Top Gear) to Andrew Marr who has been political editor of BBC News, telling us who their pick is and dedicates an entire episode trying to convince us through a documentary-travel show format to agree with them. Compelling viewing. On the Indian version so far, we just see the usual talking heads on TV sitting in a studio – talking. Also, there were no qualifiers in the original avatar like The Greatest Briton since Churchil or any such. That could be because The Mahatma is so far ahead that anything with him in the contest is – a no contest or it could be that Indians will not question traditional norms or even open them up for debate which is why established customs (caste, class, dowry, polictical trends etc) take forever to change.

The Indian nominees include a mixed bag of the dead, the living and the almost dying. And we are told by Rajdeep that from 100 nominees the jury chose 50 ranging from Mohammad Rafi and MS Subbalakshmi, JP Narayan and Nehru and Homi Babha and Sreedharan to Vishwanathan Anand. Mother Teresa is there as well – so it includes even those who are Indian at heart. (10 on 10 from Sonia Madam at this display of inclusive behaviour by CNN IBN.) There’s also Kapil Dev, Rajni Sir, Amitabh, Baba Amte and of course Dhirubhai. Which then begs you to ask that if Dhirubhai could make it, why not Ratan Tata or Adi Godrej? But let’s not split polyester threads.

Also Dhirubhai should get a special mention for the unique position he holds amongst all nominees internationally. He’s the only nominee to have sponsored the contest itself. It’s like Robert Redford being nominated in the Sundance Festival.

The 28 jury members include writers and politicians and musicians and artists and administrators. So you have N Ram, Ram Guha, Vidya Balan, Inder Malhotra, Yogendra Yadava AND Shobha De and the ever-engaging and bright Chetan Bhagat.

For the record, Churchill was nominated as the greatest Briton and Reagan as the greatest American. So there, Rosa Parks. Which means there’s every possibility that B S Iyengar or Rajnikant will be chosen as the greatest Indian.

Last night was the 2^nd episode of the programme. (Which is oddly shown only on CNN IBN and not on History TV 18.) Thankfully Salman wasn’t hosting it, and Rajdeep was. Against a blood red sky as a backdrop. This entire week, the names of the nominees will be revealed – for those without internet but with cable connections – along with a debate with jury members. The 2nd episode had Soli Sorabjee, Shabana Azmi, Vinod Mehta, Girish Karnad, Shashi Tharoor and Ramchandra Guha from the “jury of equal stature” to the greatest Indian!

What works in favour of the programme is that it is informative. It provides viewers with details of the nominees which they might not be aware of. We all know of M S Subbalakshmi, but how many of us know that she had performed at 240 charity shows for free? Well, now we do. Also, it is quite an impressive list of nominees. There are some oddities like BKS Iyengar or Rajnikant, but then they are balanced out by other names.

Rajdeep did shout out that the greatest Indian would be the one who displayed an ability to bring about change.  And then introduced the list of ‘Social’ nominees from Baba Amte to Mother Teresa, Ela Bhatt, Vinoba Bhave, Kamla Devi Chattopadhyay and BKS Iyengar. And then opened it up to what can only loosely be called a debate.

What lets the programme down is exactly this – the rather pointless discussion. The jurors who were present did make a few relevant statements, but mainly kept repeating the obvious – that the nominees should have brought about change, that you can’t compare actors to politicians or activists. As Shabana Azmi said so perceptively, it was like comparing apples to oranges. Girish Karnad said what we all know, that the influence of politicians has waned. Ram Guha did make an interesting point that the choice of nominee should be dependent on institution building, which was why Vinob Bhave lost out for him, as he had not left behind a legacy. In his eyes, Kamla Devi ranked with Nehru. Vinod Mehta did wrinkle his nose at Iyengar’s inclusion. And made the interesting and of course controversial point that he was not greatly in favour of Mother Teresa’s work as it was motivated by religious impulse – to serve Jesus Christ. And that for him, the religious influence on her work detracted from it.

On the Fine Arts nominees – RK Narayan, RK Laxman, Ravi Shankar and the others, Shashi Tharoor pointed out that it was impressive that RK Laxman and RK Narayan were the only two siblings to make it to the list. And Azmi did notice that it was odd that only one writer had made it to the list and that too, a writer writing in English. Which Ram Guha explained as the fallout of having an English-speaking jury. Which makes you wonder why – if the criterion is that the person should have acted as an ambassador for spreading awareness of India internationally – a Salman Rushdie wasn’t included?

The discussion left much to be desired. It looked more like a platform for introducing the jury members than the nominees. Ideally, if you are trying to build awareness of History TV 18, the biographies of each of these nominees should have been a bit longer than the 10 seconds or so they were shown for – even at this early stage of the programme. Simply to build on History TV 18’s programming strengths. I can’t understand why anyone would tune in to watch Rajdeep simply narrating nominee names and a bunch of jury members stating not much of relevance.

Also, Rajdeep’s twitter feed didn’t elicit much hope for the programme because he first announced, “More names for #TheGreatestIndian being unveiled and discussed now on CNN IBN. Include some personal favourites!”. And as you got ready to tune in, he showed that he’d rather watch the Beeb’s telecast of the Queen’s Diamond Coronation Concert than his own programme, by writing, “Yup, Tom Jones singing Delilah is the ultimate in nostalgia. Loving it”.

And once the mini-biopics were shown and the jury started speaking, other than for Ram Guha, you wouldn’t have been blamed for following Rajdeep’s lead and switching over to BBC Entertainment as well.

It’s definitely an interesting idea for a programme. And in a country which loves voting on rubbish reality shows from Indian Idol to Bigg Boss, it’s fair for the channel to expect that viewers will also be motivated to vote for not just the next Sunidhi Chauhan and Sunny Leone, but also the Greatest Indian. If they don’t fall asleep while watching the jurors debate, that is.

But then again, Chetan Bhagat and Shobha De are yet to make their appearance on the programme. And maybe some of their greatness will rub off on the channel and the programme.