Origins

  Enthusiasts in India's big cities pioneered radio by organizing amateur radio clubs in the early 1920s. Their efforts, and the successful growth of radio in Europe and the United States, gave impetus to a group of Indian entrepreneurs who established the Indian Broadcasting Company on 23 July 1927. Nevertheless, by 1930 their pioneering effort to launch privately owned radio ran into trouble because of lack of revenues. Broadcasting from their two stations, located in Bombay and Calcutta, they catered to the small European community and Westernized Indians while ignoring the masses. The colonial government was faced with the rising tide of anti-imperial­ist sentiment in the country; being interested in the propaganda potential of broadcasting, it bought the assets of the Indian Broadcasting Company and renamed it the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS).

     In 1935 the colonial government took another decisive step by inviting the BBC to help develop radio; one of the BBC's senior producers, Lionel Fielden, was sent. Fielden is credited with having the name of the organization changed to All India Radio and for laying the foundations for public service broadcasting with the goal of providing information and education. He returned to England in 1940. By 1947, the year of India's independence, the AIR network had grown to Ir stations with 248,000 radio licenses.

AIR Today

     AIR's growth and reach have been phenomenal in the last 50 years. There are 333 transmitters today, including 146 medium wave, 54 shortwave, and 133 FM. Some 210 radio stations cover 90 percent of India and reach 98 percent of the population. AIR claims a listenership of approximately 284 million who tune in on 111 million radio sets. Although controlled by the central government, AIR introduced advertising in 1967 and earns 808 million rupees a year (US$1 = 48 rupees). The government makes up any deficit in its operating expenses.

     AIR broadcasts in 24 languages and 146 dialects for domestic audiences and in 24 languages for international audiences. Approximately 303 news bulletins are aired daily, of which 93 are intended for national listeners, whereas regional stations originate r 35 news bulletins daily. In addition, there are special bulletins on sports, youth, and other major events, such as the annual Haj to Mecca by Muslims or the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad. More than 80 stations in the AIR network broadcast radio dramas in various languages. Forty percent of the broadcast time, however, is set aside for classical, light, folk, and film music. The External Service, set up to act as a cultural ambassador, airs 65 news bulletins in 16 foreign and eight Indian languages. In addition, magazine programs on sports and literature; talk shows on socio-political-economic issues; and classical, folk, and modern Indian music from different regions of the country are broadcast.

     AIR employs well over 16,000 persons. Approximately 13,000 are regular government servants; the rest are contract employees. They are transferable every three years, and so these employees seldom come to know the community in which they work. Such a huge organization cannot escape a hierarchical structure and the formal nature of appointments, promotions, retirements, and codes of conduct. Instead of demanding commitment to listeners, the organization requires its employees to adhere to the rules and procedures of a large government department. Because the employees have very little functional freedom, creativity and innovation are sacrificed. Lethargy, apathy, and favoritism unfortunately permeate the organization.

Regulation and Autonomy

      Broadcasting is a regulated monopoly of the central government. The Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 was later amended to vest the exclusive right to "establish, maintain and work" wireless apparatus in the Government of India. Consequently, AIR has functioned as an arm of the central government ever since its inception. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is the policy-making body for the entire broadcasting system. Generalist officers drawn from the civil service manage the ministry. The director general heads the AIR and executes policy. The government has held that any member of the elite Indian Administrative Services can function as head of AIR with equal disinterest. Hence the director general is a bureaucrat who may or may not be interested or qualified in radio.

     National television grew under the umbrella of AIR and in 1976 was given a separate structure called Doordarshan, literally meaning viewing from a distance. As one would view a deity in a temple, TV audiences regularly gain a glimpse of the political establishment via Doordarshan's newscasts. With a mandate similar to radio's, television has also seen remarkable expansion and reach in the country in the last three decades. With the rise of privately controlled satellite delivery services, India now has a mixed system of public and private enterprises in television, whereas radio has clearly remained a government monopoly.

     The credibility of AIR news has always been in question, however, not only because it is a government department but also because of well-reported instances of interference by the prime minister's office, irrespective of who is in power. There has been considerable pressure from private and public institutions as well as from intellectuals in the country to create an arms-length relationship between the government and the broadcast institutions ever since the National Emergency in 197 5. Suspending certain articles of the constitution, the prime minister unleashed a reign of terror, which lasted almost 19 months. To silence dissent, the government engaged in mass arrests of prominent political leaders, trade unionists, human rights activists, communists, and students. There were wide­ spread reports of torture and sterilization, especially of the poor. While the judiciary was not abolished, the ruling party in the Parliament passed certain amendments to the constitution to put the prime minister and her party loyalists above the nation's laws. The privately controlled press and cinema were subjected to intense censorship, and journalists at AIR were instructed to abandon even the pretense of journalistic fairness and balance in their coverage of events. Prominent journalists went underground to avoid arrest. The government restructured the news agencies in the country to "clean out" anyone who was not favorable to the prime minister and denied advertising in newspapers that would not change the tone of coverage of the regime. A dark moment in the history of the nation, the national emergency exemplified the extent to which the executive branch of the government could misuse its power over the media.

     The debate on autonomy for broadcasting has finally resulted in Parliament passing the Prasar Bharati Act of 1990, which seeks to free radio and television from the direct control of the government and place it in the hands of an autonomous corporation that would be managed by a board. That board would be required under the law to be accountable to a broadcasting council and in turn to a statutory parliamentary committee with various powers reserved to the government. The act has not been implemented, however.

Promises Versus Reality

     AIR's heavily bureaucratic ways have been the major impediment to innovation and creativity. In a highly pluralistic society with incredible linguistic, caste, and class differences, AIR has attempted not to offend any group. Controversial social and community welfare issues take a back seat while popular film music dominates. Regional language radio stations beam programs to the whole state in a formal dialect, which renders it stiff and official. As a consequence, most people find AIR boring. Radio, as a mass medium, is particularly suited to communicate in the local dialect and idiom, thereby establishing a personal connection between the broadcaster and the listener. That has not, however, been achieved in India because of the bureaucratic stranglehold on radio.

     The model of a centralized national radio service with many regional and local stations intended to achieve the vision of unifying the nation was well intentioned but expensive and difficult to deliver. For development purposes, more localized micro radio operations based in community and educational institutions would have been more cost efficient and credible with audiences. The distance between the program creators and listeners would have been reduced, which in turn would have enhanced radio's credibility with the rural masses. Perhaps radio might then have met local needs better. Until recently, the government has guarded the frequencies as though they were its property and has only reluctantly allowed private program producers some space on the government­ controlled stations. This may lead to licensing of private FM stations that will, in all likelihood, be urban-centered. All India Radio's local outlets around the country often are criticized for their low levels of involvement on the part of local groups. Partly in response, the Indian government began to license private radio stations in 2000, and the first of them came on air in July 2001. As of 2002 a few community radio stations had begun to appear.

     AIR's long-held policy of broadcasting classical music meant that it should have developed an extensive collection of recordings by some of India's greatest performers. Lacking resources and vision, many station directors simply did not save such precious recordings. For a few rupees more, the artists would have let AIR keep the recordings and later release them in the burgeoning cassette market. Recently, AIR seems to have realized its folly, and cassette tapes of speeches by leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru are being released to the public. Competition to radio has grown steadily from film and television. Doordarshan, with its national reach and through its regional stations, and the privately controlled satellite TV channels have stolen radio audiences. They offer similar programs of music, talk, and other shows with the power of visuals. The enormously popular film music from India's own gigantic film industry became widely available on cassettes by the mid 1970s and even penetrated rural areas in the following decade. Satellite audio services and on-line radio, operated by private companies, will be the next frontier on which AIR will have to compete.

     AIR needs bold new directions in this age of the internet and FM broadcasting. What seems to be in store is an added layer of bureaucracy in the name of autonomy and higher pressure on AIR to earn more revenues and become self-sufficient. Those signs do not offer much hope for an institution with the national purpose of employing the power of the medium for social change.