The Home Office tells us that our prisons are overflowing and then all these paedophiles and yobs terrorising our neighbourhoods get released with a slap on the wrist. But they don't tell you that there are all these women in prison, for the heinous, bloodcurdling crime of not paying TV licences.

Two years ago I almost became part of that part of that statistic.

We are told that if we want to watch TV, then we have to pay a TV licence of £131.50 every year (I hear it's about to go up). But of the five channels that we as licencees have the pleasure of viewing, it isn't ITV, Channel 4 or Channel Five that we pay for - they get their revenues through advertising. It's the two BBC channels, 1 and 2.

Without dwelling too much on the fact that while the TV licence fees is used to pay for all the eight BBC channels we are given access to only two, but we as consumers aren't even given the right to choose whether we want to pay to watch BBC. Sounds more like a Maoist regime than a democratic society. So I as a consumer and especially as a Hindu refused to pay the TV licence any more.

Why did I refuse to pay? Because the programmes on BBC are crap, not to mention the fact that as a Hindu there is next to nothing on BBC that caters to me. I like watching TV but I don't want to pay for a channel something that doesn't consider or respect me as a viewer. 700000 Hindus in the country, paying more than 20 million pounds in TV licence fee, and what do we get after that - a measly one hour programme on Hinduism on late Diwali night when most people are about to get in, and that too full of distortions and reeking of the BBC's lack of understanding of Hinduism at best or anti-Hindus bias at worst. Rest of the year, Hindus are lucky if they even get mentioned.

And what should I even say of the intense bias that the BBC projects in its coverage. Matters are made even worse by the BBC's world service which only serves to wipe out regional dialects and local languages.

I didn't wish to be a criminal or be criminalised by not paying the licence, but sometimes you just have to put your foot down and stand up to this type of injustice (not to mention bad service). My only regret is that I couldn't live to the standard of pacific resistance set by another Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, to the end and eventually had to fork out the £1000 fine; I didn't mind going to jail on principle but I had my two young daughters to think of, I didn't want to see them put in a care home.

This article was provided by a Hindu Voice UK reader who wished to remain anonymous. If you have any experiences or viewpoints you wish to share with a wide audience, please send to editor@hinduvoice.co.uk. Articles must be no longer than 1,500 words.