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Where's Prasar Bharati Going?

I was watching this rather acrimonious debate last weekend on Star News. There were three guests angrily fighting among each other while Rajdeep Sardesai was doing his usual good job of provoking it. Provoking them to go for each other's jugular.

The amusing part was that all three of them had actually agreed to be on the show together, knowing fully well that it would bring them in direct confrontation with each other. People agree to such debates at election time because that is the silly season for political one-upmanship. When every party wants to prove that it is cleverer, more aware of the real issues, more reasonable than the others. So each party fields its smoothest, smartest, wittiest, most pleasant-faced liar who can talk his or her way out of every political booby trap. Who will look decent even while articulating the most indecent proposition. Who will defend the most indefensible crime with a straight face.

In the process, we have created an entirely new breed of telegenic politicians who are not just amazingly savvy before the cameras at election time but have found a life of their own in the post election scenario, arguing out complex issues before audiences in darklit studios. They are so impressive that people remember them even when they are not defending their party lines so suavely.

This is what was happening on the show. There was former Information & Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy in one corner, defending what he saw as his brave new dream for an independent Prasar Bharati. A national broadcaster that would no longer look like a bumbling idiot always apologising for the Government in power. His arguments were cogent and convincing. But coming as they did from a man who has just switched sides in politics and joined the very party he has been abusing for years, I am not sure many among the viewers were ready to give them the kind of credence they possibly deserved. An unprincipled man, however well argued his case may be, is not exactly much respected in peace time and the many twists and turns that Reddy's political career has recently seen have left his public posturing looking very empty even though he may have won the Best Parliamentarian Award. That was, of course, just before he switched sides.

Pitched against him was the new Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley who claims credit for flushing out the Marxists from Prasar Bharati and making it look at least far more independent than it ever did under Reddy. Jaitley has now created yet another body, with three distinguished members, to recommend how Prasar Bharati should be restyled, reorganised and restructured to make it more effective in its role. But what is that role? Apparently the new body will also decide that. Jaitley sounds convincing in what he has set out to do, which is give Prasar Bharati a brand new look, but then Jaitley always sounds convincing. That is his business. After all, not for nothing is he one of India's highest paid and most successful lawyers.

The question is: Will Jaitley free Prasar Bharati? Will he replace the two recently retired members of its Governing Board, Rajendra Yadav and Romilla Thapar, who claim that they were sacked because they took independent positions and criticised what they describe as devious BJP moves to replace them with their own constabulary? In what specific ways will the Prasar Bharati under Jaitley be different from the Prasar Bharati under Reddy?

No one attempted to actually answer these simple questions. Instead, we had a third person up there on stage. The first Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati who was lustily kicked out by the BJP Government the moment they came to power. S S Gill. Crusty old Gill spent all his time before the camera defending his actions as CEO and bitterly complaining about how the BJP did him in. Of course they did. But then he had only himself to blame. He had crawled out of the woodwork to seek his brief, shining moment of glory by sucking up to the United Front Government and pretending that he was the answer to all their hopes and dreams and would redesign (on their behalf) the huge Doordarshan and All India Radio networks in a way that would keep them in power for ever and ever more. Amen.

Gill fought shoulder to shoulder with Reddy, almost to the latter's consternation, attacking the BJP and blaming the Parivar for trying to pack Prasar Bharati with their own men. He gave examples from other bodies, other institutions that he claimed the BJP had subverted by changing their independent-minded administrators and chief executives. No one doubted Gill's sincerity. At the same time, no one seemed much inclined to listen to a 66 year old man (however plucky he may be) who had inveigled himself to another Government and managed to get the Prasar Bharati age rules revised from 62 to 66 so that he could become eligible for the CEO's post.

Reddy's claim that the job had no takers from among younger people was a total lie. Some of the country's top media professionals, far better qualified for the job than Gill, had pitched for it but were not even considered because their loyalties to the UF Government were in doubt. Gill was chosen because he had nowhere to go. He was too old and forgotten by the world at large. So, the argument went in UF circles, that here was a man who had no option but to dance to their tune. Otherwise, he would have no alternative but to return to his bleak world of retirement if the Front sacked him. That is why he was chosen to sit in Doordarshan Bhavan as the Prasar Bharati chief with the sword of Damocles poised tantalisingly over his head to keep him in line, as they say in political parlance.

The sad part of the show was that, when it concluded, it left us with some understanding of the issues involved but absolutely no insight into the future of Prasar Bharati. The current CEO Rajeeva Ratna Shah was conspicuous by his absence. Giving fresh life to rumours that he is only a short term incumbent ready to return to Government service the moment he is promoted to Secretary rank. So where does that leave us? Where does that leave the all powerful national broadcaster? Where does that leave independent news in the age of satellite broadcasting and neighbourhood cable?

The answer is obvious. But no one wants to admit it. Private broadcasters with their own political agenda will undoubtedly seize the opportunity. Some of them will do so for themselves. Others will do so at the behest of foreign broadcasters to fund the growth of television in India and the huge commercial opportunities it offers.

Doordarshan has already lost out on the opportunity. Its revenues are declining. Its profits are on a tailspin. Its programming is largely rubbish and it does not even know what to do. Chase the chimera of short term profit and achieve self sufficiency, driving its content to an all time low in terms of quality? Or risk increasing losses but become a strong, serious and full fledged public broadcaster and use its amazing reach to inform, teach, entertain people all over India and prepare for the age of convergence?

Someone has to take that all-important decision. Someone has to make that choice. And then find people who can implement it effectively. It is no use complaining about staff and technology and increasing competition. All these can be easily resolved once we know what we really want. A Prasar Bharati like the BBC: strong, fiercely independent, quality led. Internationally respected. An organisation that knows where it's going. Or a PTV clone that thinks that India wants only mindless soaps and doctored news.

Pritish Nandy

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