India
today is a nation resounding with unbridled aruments about everything. After
years it is as if the dams are bursting and stormy, powerful ubiquitous
torrents of words are flooding over everything. The private media is in its
element –endless, indefatigable, fierce , frantic. And in the social media questions have been repeatedly
flowing in about the
steady decline of India’s
public broadcaster . What’s it exactly that over the years has reduced the Prasar
Bharati, India’s
prime public broadcaster, to a sad and confused hybrid, deemed to have a permanent bi polar problem ? Is it really autonomous as various governments and I and B ministers have been claining each time a controversy hits it ?
First the bare facts.
The Prasar Bharati Broadcastin Corporation was created in
1997, when the then Janata Dal Government chose to hive off both Akashvani and
Doordarshan from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and put them
under an autonomous corporation that would help them,.. “function as a
genuinely autonomous body..in a democratic manner..”. Scores of governments
have come and gone since then , and all have been proclaiming publically and in
the Parliament, that the Prasar Bharati remains a totally autonomous
organization with which their government maintains an arm’s length. However, over the past
27 years, an almost Stalinist Brezhnevian system continues to run the Prasar Bharati from the
back seat . And the result is that bodies that were once capable of producing
quality programmes are being forced today to use a hugely atrophied staff and
whatever raw material it has, for manufacturing and disseminating grey,
monotonous and clichéd programming .
Strangely, irrespective of their
ideologies, all governments have maintained a Ministry for Information and
Broadcasting and a common belief, that not the professionals within AIR and
Doordarshan with long institutional memories , but its ever changing Secretaries
and Ministers shall be the ultimate arbiters of the needs of public
broadcasting in India
. But why blame individuals or specific governments ? If, as Hamlet said human
Fate lies in our stars, in case of Prasar Bharati its horoscope was spelt out
way back in 1990 by a hastily crafted ( The Prasar Bharati Broadcasting
Corporation) Act . Instead of creating an autonomous body for public
broadcasting, the Act seven years later created a malnourished creature with a
severe bipolar disorder .
The intentions, as always, were noble . The introduction to
the Act talks of the entrusting the functioning of the AIR and DD to the Prasar
Bharati Corporation and declares that “..the proposed Corporation would
function as a genuinely autonomous body, innovative, dynamic and flexible with
a degree of credibility.” The Act then handed the task of superintendence,
direction and management of the affairs of the Corporation to the Prasar
Bharati Board consisting of a (part time) Chairman, six other Part time
members, one (Full time) Executive Member (CEO) and two other (full time)
Members for Finance and Personnel , the Directors General of DD and AIR and one
representative of the Ministry of I and B and two representatives of the employees
of the Corporation . The CEO, according to section 5 of the Act, is to be the executive arm of the Board,
required to perform functions and exercise powers, for which the Board have
vested the requisite authority in him. So far so good .
But the real contradictions lying at the very heart of the
Act which while conferring autonomy upon the Prasar Bharati Corporation did not
care to spell out a time frame for transferring the cadres and assets of Akashvani
and Doordarshan to the parent body. Instead, a notification was slipped in a section (4 :32) to ensure that until such time as the assets belonging
to the two organizations were formally handed over and a Recruitment Board created, the sole
authority for controlling their cadres and for issuing notifications and
creating rules , would remain with the Central Government . Since then Prasar Bharati has been deprived of a legal access to its own varied assets ( transmission Kendras, studios and its priceless archives) . Its regular officials from the Information and Broadcast Services, still report
not to the Board, but the Central Government . Section 4 guarantees that the authority for practically
everything, from fixing the salaries and allowances and laying down conditions
of service (including pension, PF) for the cadres and the three whole time members of the Board, (i.e.
the CEO , and Members Personnel and Finance), six Part time Members( including
the Chairman ) and all the employees of AIR and DD, remains with the Ministry.
Unfortunately, the first Chairman, the veteran journalist Nikhil
Chakraborty, who would have doubtless, spotted the anomaly, passed away soon
after assuming charge . Then the Janata Dal government too faded away . For years the Board remained headless and soon enough a plethora of notifications began emerging from
the Shastri Bhawan that laid down the ground rules for everything. It climaxed in
an order of 2002 that relied on the anomalies in the Act to conclude that a
‘nationally owned autonomous broadcasting organization’ must also be, ‘under
the Centre legislatively’ and that this was ‘ logical and desirable’ given that
the footprint of the new Corporation would also be touching sensitive areas like
external broadcast and frequency allocations, the Post and Telegraph Act and Space (spectrum) support. Unless the Parliament amends the Act of 1990s and lifts the 2000 notification , the Prasar
Bharati will be guided perennially by the Central government and seek
prior permission from the Ministry and/or various other nodal Ministries and the TRAI, before it can consider stepping into new areas.
In 2002 the NDA government repeatedly said it wanted to make Prasar Bharati truly autonomous and commissioned the Shunu Sen Committee to study the Act and advise on how it may be done. While it was still being written the then Prasar Bharati Board received a notification that gave the Ministry total control over deciding and notifying almost all matters
pertaining to Prasar Bharati staff and the Board . This was accepted . Later the brilliantly written and meticulously researched Shunu Sen Committee Report recommended that the Human Resources and assets ( vast tracts
in all major cities with heavily under utilized state of the art studios and
recording facilities) owned by Prasar Bharati must, without delay, be
transferred formally to the Corporation by the Ministry . The report also
suggested a proper delegation of power in all areas, and until such time that the Recruitment
Board was created, a compulsory involvement of the CEO and a selected member of
Prasar Bharati Management council in selection and recruitment of all Prasar
Bharati employees and their transfer thereafter .
But for two years every one
functioned along the notification from the Ministry, the Shunu Sen Committee
Report was forgotten . When the NDA Government made way for the UPA in 2004 , and the Parliament was approached to set matters right . At the behest of the GoM, a few
cosmetic amendments were made (in 2008) to the choking provisions of the (2002)
notification. But these did not remove the original corset of tight
governmental controls . In January 2013, an(other) Expert Committee headed by
Sam Pitroda, was set up to review the functioning of the Prasar Bharati, under
the aegis of the I and B Ministry. The Committee undertook extensive
consultations and co opted a wide range of domain experts and submitted its fairly
graphic report with 26 recommendations covering all critical areas early this
year . In its letter to the Minister Manish Tiwari prefacing the Report, the
Expert Committee like the Shunu Sen
Committee, also noted that drastic changes must be brought about in three areas
: the environment the Prasar Bharati functions in, its internal structuring and resources and
last but not the least, a refocus on its primary task : providing valuable
content to citizens.
Once again the government changed in 2014 and NDA is now firmly in saddle . But both Sen Committee and Pitroda Committee reports gather dust. The inception of a Recruitment Board is still being examined and processed
by various agencies, and the superannuation of old staff is creating huge
gaps everywhere, including the secretariat at Prasar Bharati which has no
regular hands available to handle vital and complex issues such as legal cases,
public relations, revenue monitoring, framing proper recruitment regulations or
planning for a proper entry in the new media. The government, notwithstanding
the wishes of the Parliament, still
remains the cadre controlling authority .
Is all lost then ?
The answer is, no. A long and close association such
as this blogger has had with Akashvani and Doordarshan, may still reveal
occasionally how old institutions have a rich institutional memory that feeds
the parched sense of dignity and professional pride life within . It is this
memory that guarantees that despite a stiff, rigorous corset of governmental
rules and regulations, when need be ( such as globally transmitting the famous
Zubin Mehta Philharmonic Concert held in Srinagar or the live transmission of
the Modi led government taking charge ) all old and local stations will rise to
the occasion . Stubborn followers of Akashvani and Doordarshan channels would
also bear out how one may still routinely be pleasantly be surprised by some
rare old visuals and voices from AIR and DD archives surfacing late in the
night or early in the morning, ofcourse, without any prior announcement . It is
like coming across a priceless faded old carpet that has retained a few rare
colours and an eye catching array of original art forms and motifs .
When one puts these impressions against the terrible waste
of talent and the frustrations suffered by these once magnificent institutions,
an over riding sense of shame hits the soul . Both AIR and DD, when they worked
on the principle of love and loyalty for the Institution, managed to attract
pan –Indian talent . The coming together of some of the best minds and
technical hands then produced programming that was enjoyed for generations. Sustained
frustration is unproductive and despite causing immense suffering and losses,
it evaporates like noxious fumes into thin air, leaving no trace . What if the
collective energy generated by all past and present professionals of AIR and DD
could once again be given a platform and transformed into the autonomous power
of creation ? True, governments must publicise their achievements and issue
vital information to the public from time to time . But if the mission is deemed
to be only advocacy and messaging, can we expect journalistic objectivity and artistic
freedoms ?
Governments must accept the ground realities first.
In the past,
broadcasting used to be simple . Today’s consumers are young and mobile. They expect
not just their radios and TV sets, but also their smart phones, computer tablets
and laptops, to receive programmes, but also to be capable of serving them
wherever they are located. The strength of the public broadcaster lies in its
ability to deliver powerful content live all over the country. In the age of
Jasmine revolutions and AAP, belief in the mystical nature of power and
authority is fast eroding . So India’s
public broadcasters must meet the challenge of attracting and retaining the
attention of a young public that will reject both aristocracy or a rural
culture frozen in time .