As All India radio (AIR) enters its platinum jubilee, it is worth reflecting on this national institution of inestimable worth that has fallen on bad times. In spite of the great changes in the Indian radio landscape, AIR remains a force to reckon with, given its 376 stations, its unrivalled coverage of more than 90% of the country, and broadcasts in 23 languages and 146 dialects.
Nonetheless, AIR remains a deeply paradoxical institution. On the one hand, its offers a truly national service that, to borrow from the old Heineken ad, reaches parts of the country other broadcasters don't. AIR's sound archives- consisting of both north and south Indian classical music and the spoken word- offer a unique memory of music traditions and styles and a repository of the political history of the nation, including recordings by Tagore, Subhash Chandra Bose, Gandhi, Jinnah and other national figures. The digitisation of these archives at a central level as well as in the regional centres is an ongoing project.
AIR has extensive experience of rural and farm broadcasting, with programmes on land and water conservation, sustainable agriculture, biotechnology, integrated pest management for crops, crop insurance schemes, environment protection and disaster management, which have benefited scores of farmers in the country. AIR has played a critical role during natural disasters, most recently during the floods of Uttarakhand. Both AIR's FM Rainbow and the station in Najibabad helped relay information that was vital to the rescue operations. It played a similar role during the cyclone in Odisha and tsunami that struck the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, both in 1999, as well as in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, and the Kosi floods in Bihar in 2008.
AIR's tryst with Indian Politics
Being a highly esteemed public institution, AIR, however, has constantly been a focus point of many political events and controversies. On the very same day that AIR releases the music CDs of Pt Mallikarjun Mansur, the President of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, announced the establishment of an AIR studio in rae Bareli, her parliamentary constituency. The relationship between electoral politics and broadcasting in India is, of course, not new, given that during the dark days of the Emergency, AIR became a propaganda mouthpiece for Indira Gandhi, earning the sobriquet "All India Radio", and a decade later, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, commanded the over-hasty expansion of broadcasting ahead of the 1989 elections. The late VC Shukla, who was the union minister during the Emergency, once banned Kishore Kumar songs from being played on AIR and Doordarshan because he had refused to sing at a Congress event in Mumbai. The fact that Rajiv Gandhi heard of the assassination of his mother from a report by the BBC correspondent Satish Jcob, a full five hours before it was announced on AIR, is a reflection of the fact that politics and political expediency have shaped the development of public broadcasting in the country.
The paradox that AIR currently is does it no favour. Although that it is no excuse to retire the service of starve it out of existence, it needs to become an independent and genuine public service broadcaster. To be sure, AIR does possess the capacity to broadcast content that counts and that is different from the hyper-commercialised music and talk shows that have become the norm for radio in the contemporary India. Surely, rather than letting it implode, we need to collectively reimagine AIR as an independent public service broadcaster suitable for 21st century India- and hope that our broadcasting mandarins understand that a relevant and responsive public service broadcaster ultimately makes for good politics.
Source: EPW
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