[cr-india] 'Hearing the Unheard' - two part series on community radio in Scroll.in

[Sajan Venniyoor]

"Why India has only 179 community radio stations instead of the promised
4,000
<http://scroll.in/article/725834/why-india-has-only-179-community-radio-stations-instead-of-the-promised-4000>"
- 11 May, Scroll.in

"From forced Mann Ki Baat broadcasts to ban on politics, community radio in
India is choking
<http://scroll.in/article/725837/from-forced-mann-ki-baat-broadcasts-to-ban-on-politics-community-radio-in-india-is-choking>"
- 12 May, Scroll.in

Sajan

Why India has only 179 community radio stations instead of the promised
4,000
<http://scroll.in/article/725834/why-india-has-only-179-community-radio-stations-instead-of-the-promised-4000>
Mayank Jain | 11 May | Scroll.in

In the summer of 1923, the Bombay Presidency Radio Club started
broadcasting in India over a small radius of less than 500 metres. In 1927,
two privately-owned transmitters were set up by Broadcasting Services at
Bombay and Calcutta, which got taken over by the government in 1930 and
became the Indian Broadcasting Service. It  became All India Radio in 1936.
This was the beginning of a new era of communication in a country which was
waiting for both independence and industrialisation. All India Radio
finally came to be known as Akashvani from 1957. Because of its wide reach,
it was expected to connect the country – but, did it?

Almost a hundred years later, India has 245 commercial radio stations
spread across 50-odd cities out of a total of 1,600 cities and towns in the
country. Some might argue that radio is an ageing technology and shouldn't
be revived, but it is dying even faster where it is needed the most: in
rural hinterlands and communities.

More than 70% of Indian population lives in villages and a vast majority of
them have little to no connectivity to Internet, electricity or telephone
lines making radio the only feasible medium for mass communication.
However, 13 years after India first opened itself to the idea of having
community-run radio stations, only 179 such stations are currently
functional in the country, far short of the 4,000 stations the government
in 2007 promised
<http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24250&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html>
would be set up "in a few years".

*The community myth*

Even these 179 radios are far from useful as community radio services,
experts say. “Community radio in India is a well-cultivated myth,” said
Shubhranshu Choudhary, the founder of CGNet Swara, an organisation involved
with setting up community radio and call centres to relay citizen news in
Chhattisgarh. “Out of the existing radios, most are run by educational
institutions and others are by non-governmental organisations, so there’s
no role of a community.”

Choudhary is not far off the mark. The policy guidelines framed by the
government in 2002 originally only allowed well-established educational
institutions to set up community radios. It took three years of petitioning
and lobbying by activists to get the policy to include non profit
organisations as well.

Currently, a non-profit organisation that wishes to apply for a community
radio license has to have a track record of existence and service to the
community for at least three years to even be eligible for consideration.

Activists working in the space feel that the policy of only allowing NGOs
to set up radios needs a review. “NGOs have their own interests in mind
when they apply for community radios,” Choudhary said. “Those in the
communities speak regional dialects and tongues that NGOs have no intention
of broadcasting in because their listener base reduces as soon as they
switch from a common tongue to a dialect, but thousands of people speak
these dialects which people sitting in Delhi don’t care about.”

*Identity crisis*

The issue, however, is broader than merely that of local dialects and
languages. A small number of community radio stations apprise people of
local updates, news, weather and such information which can prove really
helpful, both during everyday agriculture activities or at the time of
disasters.

Nepal, with a small fraction of India's population, has 260 community radio
stations, and no restrictions, which helps make radio useful at the time of
need. The recent earthquake which claimed over 7,000 lives proved to be one
such opportunity where the radio stations did their best to relay critical
information to the centres of activity in the cities and informed about the
relief and rehabilitation efforts.

In India, All India Radio can be called the mainstay of those dependent on
radio for their news and information but even that is far from enough for
hundreds of communities with their own dialects. “The AIR broadcast is only
in 20-30 popular languages with just 47 stations in a country of 1.2
billion people,” said an official on the screening committee of the
ministry of information and broadcasting. “The AIR broadcast can’t compete
with the power of a community radio because it is neither in the language
that each region speaks nor carries the local news which actually matters
to them.”

*Beyond the reach*

For those who might really want to set up a community radio, the process is
indeed cumbersome. The process requires an NGO with three years of
existence to apply for the license, pay Rs 19,700 in spectrum fee, take
permissions from four to five ministries and buy transmitters only from
sellers authorised by the government.

This process, the I&B ministry official said, takes at least three years to
complete. Many who are currently running the stations struggle to sustain
themselves on a mere five minute advertising slot allowed every hour when
the radio doesn't cover a large enough geographical area. Choudhary pointed
out, “The guidelines say that the transmission can’t go beyond the limit of
12 kilometres, but the equipment we get can’t even reach beyond 7
kilometers, limiting the reach to just one village often.”

Not all agree, though. Hemant Babu, director of Nomad India, an
organisation involved in the manufacture and setting up of community radio
stations, feels that it is better to have low intensity radios to prevent
the monopoly of a few players. "If the government allows high power
broadcast, only a few players would cover whole regions," he said. "We need
smaller players but a large number of them so the government should focus
on making it easier to set up radios instead of handing over permission to
broadcast over long range."

Choudhary, however, feels that the impact of having a radio gets severely
limited as communities tend to be widely dispersed – the Gondi community,
composed of 50 lakh people, is spread over five states, for instance.
“Community radio is a joke,” he said. “It’s not meant for communities but
for the rich and powerful who funnily enough, don’t threaten the
government, but common people do.”
***

>From forced Mann Ki Baat broadcasts to ban on politics, community radio in
India is choking
<http://scroll.in/article/725837/from-forced-mann-ki-baat-broadcasts-to-ban-on-politics-community-radio-in-india-is-choking>
Mayank Jain | 12 May | Scroll.in

India, with a population of 120 crore people, has 179 community radio
stations, many of which are struggling to survive on shoe-string budgets.
And they face constant government interference. The latest missive came
from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on April 30 ordering
community radio stations to record and send their daily programming
schedules to Delhi over email.

The order, which was seen as a brutal form of crackdown over community
voices, after its action on the non governmental organisations, was
reversed the very next day because of a fear of backlash from the activists
who have been long fighting cases in the courts to free up community radio
in India from the clutches of the government.

While the latest order may have been withdrawn, community radio is far from
free in the country, 13 years after the government first opened itself to
the idea of having community-run radio services. Even now, the community
radio stations are required to maintain archives for three months and the
government is free to ask them for programming of a certain day in case it
receives a complaint.

However, an official at the I&B ministry claimed that not one complaint has
been received in the history of community radios in India.

“The format is self correcting, if you violate community sentiments nobody
will hear you,” said the official, requesting anonymity. “The government
should be trying to promote, instead of curtailing, the freedom of
community radios.”

*Only dance and drama*

The policy guidelines framed for community radio services bar stations from
airing anything remotely political or news-like. The problem arises because
the restriction has made the radio lose its relevance and importance for
certain communities.

“The policy document is so loosely worded that it hangs like a sword over
us all,” said Hemant Babu, director of Nomad Communication which
manufactures transmitters and helps set up community radio stations across
the country. “Anything could be political or newsworthy for the government
when it tries to prosecute you and there’s no way of getting out of it.”

Shubhranshu Choudhary, who has won accolades for his work with community
radio and citizen journalism in Chhattisgarh, agrees. “All that we have on
community radio is government propaganda, dance and music,” he said.
“Nothing remotely political or newsworthy can be transmitted. A farmer
needs to know what’s happening around him and a fisherman cares about
high-low tide more than he cares about what new scheme the government has
come up with.”

The grouse of not being able to air news programmes is one of the few
common things between community and commercial radio stations as they stand
together to support a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court which
argues that radio is the only media barred from broadcasting news in the
country.

“India is perhaps the lone democracy where the dissemination of news and
current affairs programmes on radio remains a monopoly of the
government-owned broadcaster, Prasar Bharati Corporation, which owns and
operates All India Radio/Akashvaani,” the petition by the NGO Common Cause
stated.

Calling the different policies for community and commercial radio stations
“discriminatory”, the petition argues for the government to allow political
news as well since a lot of news like weather updates is already bundled
under the banner of “information”.

*Arm-twisting tactics*

>From attempts at monitoring to informal circulars advising these radios to
run programmes on Prime Minister’s pet projects such as Mann Ki Baat and
Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan, those who operate these services don’t view the
recent decisions in a very positive light.

“These are not orders, these are ‘strong advisories’ for the broadcasters
to do Mann Ki Baat and other programmes,” said Babu. “Many of our partners
claim that they are forced to broadcast because otherwise their grants will
be delayed and they would be arm-twisted further.”

The I&B official corroborated this. “Over time, the screening committee on
community radios is being overruled by orders from the top,” he said. “From
broadcasting government programmes to granting of licenses, nothing has
ever worked on principle.”

*Back door entry*

Evidently, people like Shubhranshu Choudhary and Hemant Babu have been
waiting for licenses to come their way while government departments have
been getting licenses in complete violation of the guidelines.

The government of Madhya Pradesh’s tribal affairs department Vanya has at
least two community radio stations listed under its name even though the
policy document clearly bars any political or government arm from obtaining
a license.

Similarly, religious groups have long been receiving licenses, despite the
screening committee rejecting their applications. “In such cases, the
government manages to overrule whatever we suggest,” said a member of the
committee, on condition of anonymity. “There are many temples, churches and
other religious organisations in India running community radios under the
garb of being an NGO while we all know that they are not.”

Hemant Babu, who has applied for a license of starting a community radio in
Maharashtra, said that his application has been pending for four years now.
“We have fulfilled all the necessary conditions yet it’s turning out hard
to obtain the permission,” he said. “On the other hand there are radios
operating out of temples in Karnataka where saints and demigods sit and
broadcast their messages to the community violating all guidelines.”

*Source: http://scroll.in/article/725834/why-india-has-only-179-community-radio-stations-instead-of-the-promised-4000
<http://scroll.in/article/725834/why-india-has-only-179-community-radio-stations-instead-of-the-promised-4000>*
*Source: http://scroll.in/article/725837/from-forced-mann-ki-baat-broadcasts-to-ban-on-politics-community-radio-in-india-is-choking
<http://scroll.in/article/725837/from-forced-mann-ki-baat-broadcasts-to-ban-on-politics-community-radio-in-india-is-choking>*
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