Where is community radio in India today?

I've written briefly about radio in India as of today, and this is mainly my diatribe about what's happening with the third category of radio in India- Community Radio.
To get to the nub of the story straight away, its been one year (give or take a week) since the Government of India, declared that NGOs, colleges and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (and not communities!!!) can apply for community radio licenses.
Today not even one NGO is on air. About 30 colleges are on air today, but nobody knows what kind of programming they are doing, how much of the community they are involving, what kind of impact has it had and so on. There is no central or organizing force which makes this kind of information available.
So in the land of committees and sub-committees, how on Earth did we miss this one out? Of course we didn't!
Sometime in Jan 2007, a body calling itself Community Radio Forum (CRF) was formed, with some of the people who have been associated with community radio initiatives, being at the centre of things.
They would have campuses, NGOs, Krishi Vigyan Kendras as members (since the policy has forced them to share the roof). They would organize details about members, their programming, their impact, their policies, would take up their case in advocacy matters, at the time of application, in case they got in to trouble with the government, create awareness about the concept, facilitate better technology for community radio etc. A noble thought, and what's more, a noble action, the meeting I mean.
We have already seen how seriously the government has taken its own policy.
Now its going to be a year since the CRF was formed. Even today, the CRF has not registered itself. So there is no question of members. Some people who are interested, use the open mailing list cr-india@sarai.net.
My open challenge is to approach the communities anywhere in India, and see if they have heard about the CRF. My guess is that you would be able to count them on a single hand.
Many NGO's have got their application for radio rejected (despite them being rooted in the community) merely on grounds that they are based in conflict areas. Sadly, there is no organization to come to their defence.
NGOs or institutions new to this matter have no idea how to apply, or what equipment to buy or generally, what to do and when.
According to the laws of physics, there are more than 5 million community radio stations which can come up in India, and after a year, about 30 colleges is the best we can showcase to the world and to our people.
Today, the hype is over, people have gone back to their own jobs, and soon new policies will come and its going to be the same new circus all over again. I say with shame that the sheer potential of community radio in India (especially in India!) may never be realized, and we would have lost the opportunity of a lifetime to hand over the power of a medium like radio to the real people of India, who need it the most.
signing off- An ashamed member of the CRF

And the Dead Tree Gives No Shelter

A play by the same title was performed today by Parnab Mukerhjee, a development consultant and a creative mentor (don't ask me what that means!) at Koramangala.
The play stitches together three narratives, two of which are short stories by Mahasweta Devi, one of the more prolific short story writers and activists, based in West Bengal, India. The props used in the play were simple- A cloth with a Dali painting- The Persistence of Memory , a miniature face mask, some clips for drying clothes, a clothesline, some rope, black scotch tape, a chair and a bedsheet.
The play begins with the story of Yashodha, a tribal woman somewhere in Purulia, West Bengal, but place is insignificant as it resembles the tribal landscape anywhere else in India. The story is simple- the woman is young but her husband loses both legs in an accident, his employer is a lecherous fellow, and his employer's wife offers her money but she has to breastfeed her grandsons in return. She is a private fascist but just doesn't show it. Soon Yashoda starts breastfeeding other children in return for earning money. There is the conflict of why her identity should be reduced to her breasts only to earn some money but on the outward, she goes through the motions stoically. Soon, she learns that her husband has got property elsewhere and so he abandons her to start life anew with another woman. Her two daughters elope when the time is right. All three family members show disgust at being supported through the breastfeeding money (even though that was the sole means of support for them). Soon she dies from blood cancer.
The story is a front for reserving comment on the state of the Advasi in India, what is the extent to which they occupy the mindscape of ordinary people like you and me, what is the violent displacement they undergo and their miserable integration in to the urban life, by becoming servants, construction workers etc at the expense of state sponsored SEZ type projects.
The second story is that of Ram, who is a photographer who has attained fame by shooting Shurpanaki, an adivasi woman who was shot bare chested in all her innocence. This shot makes it to a calendar sold in New York and she becomes famous. Soon, the fame starts fading, and one day 12 members of the local Panchayat rape her precisely because of her fame. She confronts Ram (who is unaware of this incident) and he tries to placate her with some kind of compensation or rehabilitation, but she is way beyond such talk. She has totally lost all inkling of hope. Ultimately, Shurpanaki, who lives in a Shanty by the railway station in Mumbai, starts running towards the train, with Ram behind her. The newspaper states that two bodies have disappeared, in the next day's news.
The third story is Parnab's personal story, as a middle class failure, who in the days of successful role models, wants to become a model failure by committing suicide in full media glare. And so he invites the media people to cover his suicide, (by cutting himself with the free safety blades he got at an offer at a supermarket). He wants to die because he has no options left. He refers to researchers, academicians, fund loving NGOs, etc who all are a part of this hypocritical society who will watch and discuss and sympathise while the poor are systematically getting raped and murdered all over India.

All through the play, the emphasis was on the body itself. The body became the point of reference, and this was particularly thought provoking because today when everyone is talking about community, globalization and generally of a flat, uniform world; bringing the focus back on the body singles the individual, her feelings, her identity and brings the individual back into the picture. Perhaps this is a comment on how Adivasis are different from the rest of us, how they have always been neglected, been getting the raw end of the deal and how State attitudes and middle class attitudes in India don't really work for these Adivasi individuals whose stories are portrayed in this play. Ultimately, the play hits hard the point that all arts are either escapist or political, and maybe this is true of people on a larger level also, and Parnab provokes us into thinking whether we want to keep on living our lives with our aspirations and escape the realities around us or make a conscious decision to be political and actually have the courage to face the differences of this "socialist, democratic, secular and fairly well known republic called India"

The play does not assume to have any answers to the problem, and does not articulate any specific "social problems" either. All it does is tell some stories, largely unheard stories, and asks us to think about what we as individuals want to do about these stories.

All credit to Logos Theater and Parnab Mukherjee for bringing about this play, for the hard hitting lines and hopefully they will remain etched in memory long enough for us to wake up, sit and take notice.

Thought for Today-WTF

Hindus and Christians desperately trying to convert
Muslims desperate for survival
Buddhists getting stomped by generals
Jains pushed into obscurity
Sikhs fighting for identity
Today's the day
I remember Nietzsche

Leftwing genocide in Nandigram
Rightwing genocide in Gujarat
Ordinary people,
without any politics to hide behind,
thieving, killing and raping
The Congress is red taping

What government, what law and what order
What country and what border
Acually WTF

Rastey- an anthropological view of civil works

We Indians have humility
Is it philosophy?
Is it our tradition?
I think not,
what rot.
Cause if we don't look down,
we will disappear
down the holes down that road..
Our bodies-the full load..
and appear all bloated,
if not broken,
at the next sequential manhole
or pothole

Its the end of the Road!

An Ode to Whiskey

I don't know if its whiskey or whisky, but i like it with the e
So here goes:

I see the filth around me
I see the beauty
I see the lies around me
Truth abounding
Its a see-saw, hee haw
It's the economy, Stupid!
But hark, comes a day when,
bile rising in my throat,
head spinning
a smile on the face
pleasantly stupid,
cheap lobotomy
With a whisky jar in my hand
I dream on,
of a neutral universe

P.s- show me the way..to the next...

A review of Dharam

I saw Dharam, a film which has quite a sterling performance by Pankaj Kapur, who plays Pandit Chaturvedi, not to mention Supriya Pathak, who plays his wife.
Set in Varanasi, this film explores the mindset of the Hindu Brahmin, and the conflict that he faces in terms of accepting people from another community, specifically Muslims.
The story takes off with the priest accidentally touching a Dalit sweeper, on his way back from bathing in the Ganges, as a part of his morning ritual. This accidental touch results in the Dalit person getting beaten up by the onlookers, since he has defiled the priest. A rival priest, who happens to be there, says that even the shadow of a Dalit is not supposed to fall on a Brahmin.
The film then goes on to portray the priest's family life, which consists of an obedient wife, who is happy to accept everything which her husband says. He also has a daughter, who obeys his dictates, from education to not watching television! In the middle of all this, there is the beautiful young daughter of a patron, who falls in love with an American, Paul. She is supposed to be the embodiment of an Indian woman, who knows her status in society (which is nil without a husband) and quotes from the Manuskriti.
The film really takes off when an abandoned child is bought home by his daughter, and due to circumstances, the priest decides to adopt the boy, and this child becomes the son he never had. Again, it is problematic, because it presupposes that only the son can take the ideals of the priest to the next generation. And it is the wife who gives him this motivation!
Anyway, cut to eight years later, when they discover that the boy is actually Muslim. So the priest goes to great lengths to atone for his "sin", and performs various rituals for cleansing. However, he finds that he cannot get this child out of his mind, because of course, he has bonded closely with the child, and all the times he has spent teaching the boy, the rituals of a Brahmin, keep flashing in his mind.
Now the patron's son, hates the priest, because, he seemingly encourages the daughter, his sister to study, and therefore spoilt her, and encouraged the decline of culture in her. So he partners with the rival priest to remove Chaturvedi from the main priest post. In the meanwhile communal riots break out, and the child, who is now living with his real mother, comes to the priest seeking for safety, while the riots are going on. The priest and his family turn him away, only to repent. The climax is where the priest stops the mob, gives a speech about how Dharam or karma is about humanity and not duty of a particular caste. It is about accepting differences. The last shot is where the priest hugs the Muslim boy and walks away in to the sunset.

As an aesthetic exercise, the director gives us some wonderful footage of Varanasi, and there are some memorable shots of Chaturvedi bathing in the Ganges, with his students in the moonlight. However, as a film, which attempts to explore a serious issue of communal divide, I think it fails to do its job, and only asks more questions than it gives answers.

Firstly, the film is distinctly sexist in the way it portrays women characters, and the script itself relegates all the women to the sidelines. Worse, the film suggests that the role of women is just that of keeping, bearing children and sustaining the family. The girl who dared to marriage ends up being widowed, and says, it is tough to sacrifice love. Its an extremely puzzling attitude.

Secondly, the film takes on too much. The scene of Dalit Vs Brahmin is entirely wasted, and is not related to the Hindu Muslim issue at all. Even when the film explore the divide between the two religions, it dilutes the issue by playing up the internal politics in Varanasi where rivals are trying to usurp Chaturvedi from his post.
The most problematic thing in this film was the reasons given for the change of heart in the priest. He only intervenes when the child's life is at stake, and not for anything else. The film tries to simplify the whole issue, by trying to have us believe that when he says that our duty is humanity, the entire mob suddenly sees sense, and all are ashamed of their violent acts.
Throughout the film, he is made to look like a living saint, which is again very unrealistic.

All in all, its a commendable effort to make a film which differs from the run of the mill stuff. However, we must realize that sometimes, in our intentions to do good, we make things worse than they already are. Watch out for some good music, and some good vocals by Sonu Nigam.
The rest of the cast pretty much hams it throughout the film. 6/10

Radio Days

I don't know if too many people have been watching the media closely, but it appears to me that radio is making a comeback. Not enough to kill the video star, but definitely on a comeback trail.
Now those of us living in major cities like Bangalore or Mumbai, know how popular FM has become, with all the radio stations belting out the latest hits day in and day out.
So how did this happen? Why only now? Where has radio been all these years? Just what is the inside story? Ladies and Gentlemen, the facts to the best of my knowledge:
Ever since 1924, when the Madras Radio Club was formed, radio hasn't looked back. Ever since then All India Radio has been pretty much the face of radio in India as we know it.
But things changed drastically in 1994. Private companies were allowed to broadcast commercial radio programmes on FM. Firstly, the question, why FM? Unlike AM, FM does not need expensive transmission towers, enables a great degree of localization and helps bring interactivity and local flavor to the programming.
This paradigm shift really took off when the Government started auctioning off frequencies in 1999., for 32 Indian cities. Although many players perished in this game, an equally large number of private companies have been able to consolidate their media empire by owning these stations. Today revenues from Mumbai alone are in excess of 50 crore rupees for the Government. Consequently, only media conglomerates with really deep pockets, and the ability to absorb losses over a period of time, have kept their stations going, i.e. groups like Reliance, Times Group, Tata etc
Now a really tiny group of people were also making a few noises around the same time. They said, radio is cheap to produce and to listen to, allows illiterate people to participate, and as a medium has a long history of listenership in India (remember 1924!). So why should only AIR and private companies be allowed to start FM stations? FM radio would be perfect for rural people who can use the medium to express their views and address issues which have been hidden under the surface, unscratched, waiting to explode, i.e. things like marginalization of women, Dalit's struggles, senior citizens' issues, HIV/AIDS, etc and God knows, the list runs a mile.
The truth is radio and in fact all broadcast media is governed by the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, an Act which was put in place by the Raj, when Marconi was a mere 11 years old, and years away from pioneering radio or as it was called in those days- "telegraphy without wires"!
Finally, the Indian government relented and in November 2006, a policy for what is now called "Community Radio" was drafted. However, this policy also allows only NGO's, educational campuses or Krishi Vigyan Kendras to apply for a community radio license. They are only eligible for 100 Watts ERP. NGOs have to be registered for a minimum of three years- these are only some of the restrictive conditions.

Today, in 2007, there exist three levels of radio in India (FM Radio)- AIR, i.e. Public Radio; Private Radio and Community Radio.
However, we are still a far cry away from realizing the huge potential of this medium to really make a difference in our lives, be it through entertainment, or bringing out hidden , suppressed information and participation from the masses. Whether our sleepy Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will wake up one day to this reality is yet unknown.