[cr-india] CR Forum report - Indian Express

[sajan venniyoor]

‘See what our community radio is doing, it’s time to relax policy’
SEEMA CHISHTI, Indian Express, 
February 01, 2007, http://www.indianexpress.com/story/22237.html

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 31: “We may fall in the ‘suicide belt’ but we’ve never seen a farmer kill himself,” says Narsamma. It’s difficult to miss the pride and the sense of achievement in the voice of this 25-year-old Dalit woman who researches, scripts, produces and anchors a weekly radio magazine with Algole Narsamma.

“Our area is full of small marginal farmers, who have one to three-acre plots on dry red soil. But for 20 years, we have practised self-sufficient agriculture which does not require the kind of credit that many farmers take and pay with their life for. We devised our own way to become self-sufficient,” says Narsamma, who is called General.

She believes that her local ‘radio’ station may have helped add to levels of awareness in this dark corner. Her radio magazine reaches out to about 5,000 fellow Maadiga (Dalit) village women each week. With the help of UNESCO, an NGO called Deccan Development Society has given the Narsammas a school education and helped them “narrow cast” (or talk) to their fellow sisters about local problems, health issues, social problems, and most importantly, tips on agriculture.

“We communicate in Telengana Telugu. The radio stations in AP all speak stiff Telugu which is not similar to our dialect. Also, they don’t understand our local problems or concerns either. We try and tackle local problems and we also have songs, by the way. We are heard through radio recorders over a public address system in large groups, you see permission ledu (there is no permission).”

But the two Narsammas haven’t managed to get permission to broadcast, so they record their radio magazines on tape. But that doesn’t seem to discourage the feisty duo.

And it’s not just the Narsammas in Andhra Pradesh. There’s Namma Dhwani (our voice) in Kannada since 2000, reaching out to three villages in the state through loudspeaker narrowcasts, Charkha—a development communications NGO in the North-East and Jharkhand since 1994, who continue undaunted despite not getting their own licence.

About 70 such organisations from all over India-aspirants to genuine community radio broadcasting-will come together tomorrow at a conference to urge the governement to ease the process of applying for a broadcast licence.

The Union Cabinet had cleared the proposal for community radio stations in November 2006, but small groups complain that there is still no clarity about how to do things. The conference has been organised by the Community Radio Forum-an initiative of Drishti-an Ahmedabad-based media and arts NGO.

Despite the landmark Supreme Court judgment in 1995 in the context of cricket telecast rights, saying airwaves are not the government’s monopoly and belong to the people, all governments have since chosen to hold radio networks close to their chests. And this, despite the cable revolution opening up radio. Grudgingly, licenses have been given to about 23 private entities on FM.

News by private players is still a government monopoly, restricting private players to entertainment. This, despite the fact that these local community “narrow casters” can really make a difference in natural calamities, as was demonstrated during the Bhuj earthquake by a radio station run by women from Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan.

Electrician Rajinder Negi from Tehri in Uttarakhand, who devotes two days a week to voluntary services for the radio magazine Samudaayak Radio Henval Vani, says: “I courier my work to Noida to be relayed on Worldspace, but I cannot air it here, because of our radio policy! I tape and distribute people’s voices and problems with some solutions in our local language for my village and surroundings. At least, 500 people hear and benefit from it.”

“Look at issues on TV, is there any programme which can claim to be listening to people in the interiors? Only little radio operations can do that,” he adds.

At the conference tomorrow, there will be several innovative cheap broadcast equipment on display-for instance the Radio-in-a-box, an entire radio station in a box, which costs half as much of a radio studio. But more than that, the organisers hope to win support for little people like themselves, who they say, add up to most of India.

seema.chishti at expressindia.com
  
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