[cr-india] Shashi Kumar on CR

[sajan venniyoor]

(Excerpts from ) Localisation of Indian Broadcasting
SEMINAR, May 2006
By Shashi Kumar, Founder Chairman, Asian College of Journalism (Media Development Foundation), Chennai

Alongside 
 manifest developments in, and concerns about, the ICE sector, a quieter local-specific presence being felt is that of community radio. Restricted yet largely to academic campuses, its grassroot potential as an instrument of empowerment has been driven home dramatically in the wake of the recent tsunami disaster. To inhabitants along a stretch of the Tamil Nadu coast, a community-radio-like set-up served as an early warning against the killer waves, and it has now become a model widely espoused by NGOs to target far-flung communities in different areas.

At a time when the private corporate FM radio is set to make local waves, opening up the community radio to public spirited initiatives ad players would be a welcome countervailing influence. For this to happen, the skewed and narrow bureaucratic mindset that the radio, given its bottoming-out reach, is more politically and socially sensitive – and therefore more vulnerable – than the other electronic media, must yield to an appreciation of its transformative quality in a community environment by providing actionable information. For too long now babudom in India has been dabbling in pulp psychology about the way radio can make or mar the lives of what are seen as the lower denominations of impressionable, naïve listeners. Therefore, goes the argument, the need for vigil over the medium. Indeed the same illogic has been applied to keep news and current affairs outside the purview of licensing for FM radio, so much so that FM sans news is today a laughable anomaly in a context where tidbits of news assail us every step of our daily lives – from the ubiquitous mobile phone, internet, the host of local, national and international TV channels, to other radio offerings like WorldSpace, BBC, broadcasts from neighbouring countries and so on.


>From ‘Media Matters’ -  a symposium on growth, diversification and challenges before our media, SEMINAR Vol 561, May 2006.

 
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