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This village is gaga over the radio: The Indian Express
Boodikote, Karnataka, Sept 22: After three years of drought, the villagers lost patience when the public water pipes dried up last June. For eight days, there was no water. There were murmurs of protest everywhere. Women came out of their homes with empty pots demanding that old pipes be fixed and new wells dug. Men stood at street corners and debated angrily. The village chief made promises, but nothing happened.
Boodikote, Karnataka, Sept 22: After three years of drought, the villagers lost patience when the public water pipes dried up last June. For eight days, there was no water. There were murmurs of protest everywhere. Women came out of their homes with empty pots demanding that old pipes be fixed and new wells dug. Men stood at street corners and debated angrily. The village chief made promises, but nothing happened.
Then, a young man ran over to the village radio station and picked up a recorder. ‘‘Women complained and shouted into the mike and vented their anger at the village chief’s indifference. There was chaos everywhere. But I recorded everything,’’ says Nagaraj Govindappa, 22, a jobless villager. He played the tape that evening on the small community radio station called Namma Dhwani or Our Voices.
The embarrassed village chief ordered the pipes repaired. Within days, water was gushing again. India’s first independent, community radio initiative is in this millet-and-tomato growing village in Karnataka. It is a cable radio service because the Government forbids communities from using airwaves. A media advocacy group, with the help of UN funds, laid cables, sold subsidised radios with cable jacks to villagers and trained young people to run the station.
‘‘The power of community radio as a tool of social change is enormous in a country that is poor, illiterate and has a daunting diversity of languages and cultures,’’ says Ashish Sen, director of Voices, the advocacy group.
Emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling in 1995 declaring airwaves to be public property, citizens’ groups and activists have been pushing for a legislation that would free airwaves from government control. Two years ago, the Government auctioned its FM stations to private businesses. And late last year, some elite colleges were allowed to set up and run campus radios. But the airwaves are still kept restricted.
Radiophony, a lobby group for community radio, claims villagers can set up a low-power, do-it-yourself radio station with a 0.5-watt transmitter, a microphone, antenna and a cassette player for approximately Rs 1,250. The group says the station can reach more than 500 metres and cover a small village.
Last year, the group supplied a low-wattage transmitter to a World Bank-supported women’s group in Oravakal, a village in Andhra Pradesh. Mana Radio, or Our Radio, ran for five months before officials from the Communications Ministry seized the equipment and shut down the broadcast last February.
‘‘We have to tread very cautiously when it comes to community radio,’’ says Pavan Chopra, Secretary, Information and Broadcasting Ministry. ‘‘As of today we don’t think that villagers are equipped to run radio stations. People are unprepared, and it could become a platform to air provocative, political content that doesn’t serve any purpose except to divide people. It is fraught with danger.’’
Chopra says communities could buy time from All India Radio service and run their programmes under state supervision. Since 1999, two groups of villagers, one in Gujarat and the other in Jharkhand, have been using time slots on AIR to run programmes in their local dialects. But activists say the central principle of community radio is to own and run a radio station freely. ‘‘Community radio in India is not about playing alternative rock music,’’ says Seema Nair, who helps the villagers run the station at Boodikote. ‘‘It is a new source of strength for poor people because it addresses their most basic development need.’’
Since it began broadcasting in March, Our Voices community radio has crackled with the sounds of schoolchildren singing songs and giggling to jokes; of young girls talking fearlessly about the evils of dowry and admonishing boys for teasing them at school; of women giving out recipes and teaching others how to open a bank account; and, of farmers debating the vagaries of weather and fluctuating crop prices.
‘‘This radio station is ours because it speaks about us — in our language and in our accent. When I turn it on, I hear the voices of people I know,’’ says Triveni Narayanswamy, 28, as she twirls the dial of her tiny transistor.
Narayanswamy used to sell milk until her only cow died three months ago. ‘‘But when I went to claim insurance money for my cow, the agent tried to cheat me. He said he owed me no money,’’ she says. ‘‘I went up and down his office at least a dozen times in vain. Then I spoke about my problem on Namma Dhwani radio. The next day, the agent gave me the insurance amount.’’ She says it was about Rs 12,000.
Then, a young man ran over to the village radio station and picked up a recorder. ‘‘Women complained and shouted into the mike and vented their anger at the village chief’s indifference. There was chaos everywhere. But I recorded everything,’’ says Nagaraj Govindappa, 22, a jobless villager. He played the tape that evening on the small community radio station called Namma Dhwani or Our Voices.
The embarrassed village chief ordered the pipes repaired. Within days, water was gushing again. India’s first independent, community radio initiative is in this millet-and-tomato growing village in Karnataka. It is a cable radio service because the Government forbids communities from using airwaves. A media advocacy group, with the help of UN funds, laid cables, sold subsidised radios with cable jacks to villagers and trained young people to run the station.
‘‘The power of community radio as a tool of social change is enormous in a country that is poor, illiterate and has a daunting diversity of languages and cultures,’’ says Ashish Sen, director of Voices, the advocacy group.
Emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling in 1995 declaring airwaves to be public property, citizens’ groups and activists have been pushing for a legislation that would free airwaves from government control. Two years ago, the Government auctioned its FM stations to private businesses. And late last year, some elite colleges were allowed to set up and run campus radios. But the airwaves are still kept restricted.
Radiophony, a lobby group for community radio, claims villagers can set up a low-power, do-it-yourself radio station with a 0.5-watt transmitter, a microphone, antenna and a cassette player for approximately Rs 1,250. The group says the station can reach more than 500 metres and cover a small village.
Last year, the group supplied a low-wattage transmitter to a World Bank-supported women’s group in Oravakal, a village in Andhra Pradesh. Mana Radio, or Our Radio, ran for five months before officials from the Communications Ministry seized the equipment and shut down the broadcast last February.
‘‘We have to tread very cautiously when it comes to community radio,’’ says Pavan Chopra, Secretary, Information and Broadcasting Ministry. ‘‘As of today we don’t think that villagers are equipped to run radio stations. People are unprepared, and it could become a platform to air provocative, political content that doesn’t serve any purpose except to divide people. It is fraught with danger.’’
Chopra says communities could buy time from All India Radio service and run their programmes under state supervision. Since 1999, two groups of villagers, one in Gujarat and the other in Jharkhand, have been using time slots on AIR to run programmes in their local dialects. But activists say the central principle of community radio is to own and run a radio station freely. ‘‘Community radio in India is not about playing alternative rock music,’’ says Seema Nair, who helps the villagers run the station at Boodikote. ‘‘It is a new source of strength for poor people because it addresses their most basic development need.’’
Since it began broadcasting in March, Our Voices community radio has crackled with the sounds of schoolchildren singing songs and giggling to jokes; of young girls talking fearlessly about the evils of dowry and admonishing boys for teasing them at school; of women giving out recipes and teaching others how to open a bank account; and, of farmers debating the vagaries of weather and fluctuating crop prices.
‘‘This radio station is ours because it speaks about us — in our language and in our accent. When I turn it on, I hear the voices of people I know,’’ says Triveni Narayanswamy, 28, as she twirls the dial of her tiny transistor.
Narayanswamy used to sell milk until her only cow died three months ago. ‘‘But when I went to claim insurance money for my cow, the agent tried to cheat me. He said he owed me no money,’’ she says. ‘‘I went up and down his office at least a dozen times in vain. Then I spoke about my problem on Namma Dhwani radio. The next day, the agent gave me the insurance amount.’’ She says it was about Rs 12,000.