Radio & Television Journalism

2017-18

HISTORY OF COMMUNITY RADIO IN

INDIA

Sumbitted to: Submitted by:

Rajendra Chugh Sir Shashvat Jain
Course Coordinator, RTV
IIMC Delhi
 Community Radio: A reflection on the concept

The concept of Community Radio was the brainchild of Lewis Hill, co-
founder of KPFA, the first listener supported radio station in the United
States, and the Pacifica Radio network in 1949.
Community radio is a type of radio service that caters to the interests of a
specific area, broadcasting material that has relevance to a local audience. It is
a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition
to commercial and public broadcasting. It should be made clear that
Community Radio is not about doing something for the community, but for
the community to do something for itself, i.e., owing and controlling its own
means of communication.

India is a land of diversity on terms of language, social practices,

dialects and culture. A community radio can be a powerful tool to
revive cultures and languages that are dying.
They broadcast content that is popular and relevant to a local, specific
audience but is often overlooked by commercial or mass-media
broadcasters.
Community radio stations are operated, owned, and influenced by the
communities they serve. It can be described as a set up comprising of
90% of a communitys role, while the radio and its technicalities hold a
10% share of importance.
They are generally non-profit and provide a mechanism for enabling
individuals, groups and communities to tell their own stories, to share
experiences and, in a media-rich world, to become creators and
contributors of media.
They help in the overall development of a community and contribute
to the societys economic independence; can generate employment,
instrumental in reducing poverty and in increasing awareness about
health and educational policies.
Community Radio challenges the monopoly of the Public Service
Broadcaster as it participates in,

Dissemination of information from one source.

Decentralises the process
Democratizes the process
 Community Radio in India

The processes of liberalization, privatization, and globalization in the media industries

since the late twentieth century have intensified concerns about homogenization of
content, centralization of power and control, and increasing marginalization of the issues
affecting the lives of the poor and disenfranchised in mainstream media. The fight for
freeing of the radio spectrum has been concerned with providing an alternative to the
dominant media and a means of expression to a wide spectrum of social actors who have
been socially, culturally, geographically, economically, and politically excluded from
power. Taking into consideration the experiences and policy precedents from other
democratic countries, the community radio activists have appealed for broadcasting in
India to be based on principles of universal access, diversity, equitable resource
allocation, democratization of communication, and empowerment of historically
disadvantaged sections of society.

The paradoxes of multiplication of communication outlets and at the same

time diminishing plurality of information have eroded the diversity and
quality of information in the public sphere, rendering the civil society
increasingly ineffective.
The broadcasting laws in India, until November 2006, did not allow
community radio as conceptualized by media advocacy groups and NGOs
seeking democratisation of airwaves. Radio broadcasting shifted from being a
government monopoly to a highly commercialised broadcasting after the
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) announced the Phase I of
auctioning of licenses to set up 140 private FM stations across 40 cities in
November 1999. The Phase II of the private FM radio licensing policy
announced in July 2005 has made access to the airwaves a whole lot simpler
and feasible for the commercial players.
The turning point was a 1995 ruling of the Supreme Court in which the
honourable court said that the airwaves are public property and must be
used for the public good. The ruling added that though airwaves are limited,
they should be used with reasonable restrictions. The ruling also asserted that
the right to receive and impart information is enshrined in Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights which describes the fundamental
right to freedom of speech and expression.

This 1995 ruling was the foundation stone of community radio in India.
Immediately after the ruling came out, the civil society groups formulated
and adopted a Bangalore Declaration by the communication campaign group
VOICES, in which the need for a third tiers of broadcasting, i.e. Community
Radio was articulated. This was followed up by a Pastapur Declaration by a
UNESCO sponsored workshop in 2000 which reiterated the need for
community radio and also asserted that it ought to be non-profit making,
localized and community owned. These two declarations played an important
role in the development of Community Radio movement in India.

The campaign had to contend with the Government of Indias interpretation

of the Supreme Court judgment (reading public to mean private) when a
policy of demonopolization of the airwaves was set in motion in 1999
through the auctioning of FM radio frequencies to the highest corporate
bidders. Through an inexorable process, the government made access to the
airwaves a whole lot simpler and feasible for the commercial players across
Indias urban landscape. Radio entertainment in India witnessed a revival as
the airwaves broke free from government control. The social sector, however,
was left high and dry and no one seemed to have an ear for the voices from
the rural areas that were seeking a radio of our own. Initially, the long-
standing demands for a third tier of independent, not-for-profit broadcasting
in the country yielded only a confined campus avatar of community radio
in the first quarter of 2003. This allowed well-established educational
institutions to set up FM transmitters and run radio stations. The decision
somewhat diluted the hegemony of the state and market over radio. But to
open up the broadcasting sector for an urban, educated, elite in areas that are
already well-served by media violated the spirit of the community radio
campaign. The government for a long time resisted demands for opening up
this sector, under misplaced apprehensions that secessionists, militants or
subversive elements would misuse the medium. The Central government,
headed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), eventually
yielded to the demands for genuine community radio in the background of
pro-poor policies such as the Right to Information Act and the National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The Government Policies towards Community Radio in India
In December 2002, the NDA Government approved a policy for the
grant of licenses for setting up of Community Radio Stations ONLY
to well established educational institutions including IITs/IIMs. Thus,
eligibility to own and operate the community radio was restricted to
only the educational institutions.

On 1 February 2004, Anna FM was launched as Indias first campus

community radio station by the students of the Anna University
pioneered by Dr. R Sreedher. However, by that time, the marginalized
and voiceless communities remained outside of the community radios.

The civil society kept working towards convincing the government to

expand the mandate of the community radio sector to include
communities living in rural, remote and hilly areas of the country.

In 2006, the government released a new community radio policy which

allowed the agricultural universities, educational institutions and civil
society institutions such as NGOs to apply for a community radio
broadcasting license under the FM band 88108 MHz.

By 2008, some 40 Community Radio Stations started in India owned

either by the educational institutions or by the NGOs. First NGO
operated community Radio was the Sangham Radio, licensed to
Deccan Development Society, in Pastapur village, Medak district,
Andhra Pradesh.

Since 2006, the new expanded policy permits NGOs with a track
record of community development work to set up radio stations. With
an ownership and management structure that is reflective of the
community, the policy mandates that at least 50 per cent of content
must be generated in the local language with the participation of the
community. The new policy, in its present structure, still does not
permit community radio stations to broadcast news and current
affairs.
The application procedure for organizations other than government-
recognized educational institutions is quite cumbersome and requires
clearances from several ministries before a community radio station can be
made operational. It is partly for these reasons that after more than four years
since the announcement of the policy, only a third of more than one hundred
community radio stations in India are run by grassroots organizations, with
the rest being campus radio stations. Groups such as the Community Radio
Forum of India, representing the interests of this emerging sector, continue to
campaign for more liberalized licensing procedures as well as for the lifting of
the ban on news and politics. Most recently, this group has been working
with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to set in motion a process
for the creation of public funding through a Community Radio Support
Fund to address one of the key inhibiting factors in the development of this
vibrant sector of broadcasting.
It is for this reason that while India currently has 191 operational
Community Radio Stations in contrast to the promised 4000 stations by the
government in 2007, Nepal has 260 stations. Possible reasons could be more
liberal policies of the government regarding the setting up of stations,
commercial use of the set ups and the permission to hire professionals for
community station set ups. 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.

The government will facilitate the growth of community radio in the

country to effectively convey its messages to the poor and rural areas, the
then Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday (29
March, 2016).
 Some prominent examples of Community Radio in India
The roots of Henvalvani Community Radio, Chamba, were laid in September 2001
when a group of young rural youth came together in an attempt to find a distinct voice
of their own. The Himalaya Trust, an NGO based in Dehradun conducted a radio
training with the group, teaching them basics of recordings, specially focused on
highlighting the needs of their local communities. For the groups members, making
topical programs and airing them back in the hill villages in their vicinity was a first step
towards an information revolution, and they have never looked back since.

Namma Dhwani CRS (ND CRS) is integrated into a federation of Self Help Group
of women and men, which has come to be known as Community Managed Resource
Centre (CMRCs) promoted by MYRADA in Budikote Village, Karnataka. This
CMRC is run and managed by the local community and they operate from their own
building.

With the aim to bring together the local community across 20 villages close to Supi
village in the valley of Kumaon, TERI (The Energy Resources Institute) launched its
first Community Radio Station- Kumaon Vani in March 2010. It was established to
use radio as a tool to promote sustainable development among the local farming
community. Riding the airwaves at 90.4 MHz (FM), the station covers the radius of 20
kms reaching out to almost 2,00,000 people in and around Mukhteshwar. The radio
station is attached to TERI's knowledge centre TRISHA (TERI's Research Initiative in
Supi for Himalayan Advancement) that works closely with the local farming community
with the objective of improving their livelihoods through sustainable agricultural
practices.

Mandakini Ki Awaaz or MKA 90.8 is a local community radio station serving about
200 villages in Uttarakhand. The radio was started in 2014 Manvendra Negi. This was
the first radio station in Rudraprayag. The radio got approval from local authority in
2013 and it officially started broadcasting on 21 September 2014 by Manvendra
Negi.It was joint venture of a non-governmental organization named Mandakini Ki
Awaaz Kalyan Sewa Samiti and Bangalore-based public trust called People's Power
Collective. This was also the first radio station in Rudraprayag.
A village tucked deep in the heart of Mewat, one of the countrys most backward regions
and home to the ethnic Meo-Muslim community is the headquarters of Alfaz-e-
Mewat (Voices of Mewat), FM 107.8, one of the countrys most famous community
radios, known for its bottom-up, community-oriented and community-produced
content on issues relating to health, sanitation, land, and agriculture.
The community radio station Kalanjiam Vaanoli in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu was
started in 2009 with the support of the DHAN Foundation in the small village of
Vilunthamavadi in the Keelaiyur block of the Nagapattinam district, about two
kilometers from where the 2004 Tsunami had wreaked havoc. The radio station had
started broadcasting Tsunami alerts at 5:00 a.m. and was instrumental in updating
people and providing information about the rescue operations.