Features & Articles

Pechuwail Man Ker Swar
(Voices of the Marginalised) Community Radio in Jharkhand
Article written by Pratibha Jyoti

The villagers of the Angada Block in the Ranchi district, had for long been asking for the basic facility of a school an appeal that had been expressed, till now, through letters and invitations to the local administration and the government. What finally drew the attention of Savra Lakra, the MLA of the Khijli Vidhan Sabha, was a play performed by the villagers on the dire need of schools in the village, a programme aired by the community radio, on the day of its inauguration on 31st October 2004. It forced him to come all the way and promise them that they will soon open schools in the village.

As the villagers had hoped, the government should look into the matter of the lack of schools in the villages of the Angada Block, Ranchi, due to which the children were unable to complete their education. As Etwa Bedia, the local co-coordinator of the Community Radio initiative, enthuses, The villagers have been given a new life with this initiative. The Community Radio has become a weapon, through which the villagers can now make their voices heard to the policy makers of the region. We believe that we can now coerce the local administration and the government to work for the development of our region.

With the aim to encourage the proactive interest of the marginalized communities into the field of mainstream development and to enable them to play a decisive role in community activities, the Community Radio programme was initiated by Delhi-based NGO Charkha Development Communication Network with the help of a local organization, Manthan Yuva Sansthan. As part of the programme, a group of villagers were given, in the last week of August 2004, the technical know-how of the radio and the very essential skill to use folk art as a medium of communication. In order to prepare the programme, a group of ten reporters goes to different villages and stays there for a week to prepare a rough framework of the show. The residents of these 17 villages are not only the listeners, but also the directors of and performers in this half-hour programme.

The popularity of the show is evident by the fact that every Sunday at 6:30 pm the villagers are glued to their respective radio sets and small transistors. Expressed through issue-based plays, folk songs, development news and discussions, the initiative has made the residents not only socially aware but has also made them confident enough to take their local issues and challenges to the concerned officials. The final script is narrated in the voices of Rita and Ramdhan Bedia. Despite not being well educated, the skills of these villagers are hard to believe. As Mohammad Shakeel says, it is the villagers themselves who choose the issues to be aired in a programme.

Now it is through radio that news on various government schemes, Panchayati Raj and rural development, is being aired in the local dialect of Panch parganiya. The villagers now even know the number of houses built under the Indira Awas Yogana and the quantity of grain being distributed among shopkeepers under the public distribution system. Radio is a medium that is cheap and has an excellent reach. Most villagers already have or have now bought a radio set. It is our forum where we can reflect on our every need and problem, says Malya Bedia, a resident of the Bedia community.

Rita, one of the narrators, begins her day by practicing her script, for which she has to travel a whole 3 kms to come to the Mungadih village. Since the day community radio has entered the village, the great inequality between the men and women of this village has lessened. When Manthan approached me with the suggestion to present the programme, my husband and mother-in-law were totally against it. But I had made my decision and quietly came for the recording of the programme. Now my husband says how proud he is that I, who had studied only till class 5, am working in radio.

As Rita explains, once the women of the village were hesitant to discuss their problems. But the community radio has become an important platform and an open forum for these women to discuss issues of family planning, women-related heath problems, vaccination of the children and pregnancy-related issues. This has made them confident enough to discuss their problems openly and find solutions on their own. Community Radio is such a democratic medium, through which every individual has the open forum to speak, listen and air programmes.

But why Angada block? Sudhir Pal, Chairperson of the Manthan Yuva Sansthan explains, Despite the formation of the new state, none of the villages have witnessed much positive change. But Angada is such a Block, where none of the development work has yet reached. Here people do not have even the basic facilities of roads, electricity, education and medicines. The community radio initiative is a platform for these voices of the marginalized, which will help the community to fulfill their needs and aspirations.

Statistics show that this Block is one of the poorest and the most backward regions of Jharkhand. Here, of a total population of 1 lakh people, 45pc are scheduled castes, 15pc are scheduled tribes and 40 pc are the others. Sustaining themselves on forest and farming, the residents, with difficulty, grow crops of wheat and Marua, for there is just one source of irrigation, which is the hand pump. Although many hand pumps have been built in the region, only one or two actually have a water connection. Under such circumstances, rainwater becomes the more viable option for the farmers. There is one rationing shop that opens only rarely and that too only for few hours. For the past 20 years, one can see electricity poles, but till today the villagers are yet to witness the electricity connection.

In such a situation, the community radio that is an important social, cultural and political tool, has become an important instrument for the development of the marginalized communities. Because of the involvement of the villagers themselves, this form of communication is shielded from the influences of profit, advocacy, power, politics and mainstream media. The impact of the community radio shall be more effective when the government gives organizations and communities the access and the freedom to own radio stations. One cannot hope for much social change until community radio enjoys the same freedom as does the television, newspapers and other magazines, comments Charkha Chairperson, Shankar Ghose.

As he explains, there are many obstacles to the growth of the radio. In 1995, P.B. Savant, the noted Supreme Court Judge had claimed that the public had full right over the radio. Despite this, the Prasar Bharti still has control over the free airwaves. Accordingly one needs to have a license for the community radio and the process to acquire this is so complex that one needs to gain permission from at least four Ministeries (Home, Defence, Human Resource Development and Foreign).

Community Radio, used in the Kolar district of Karnataka, Bhuj district in Gujarat and Palamu district in Jharkhand, has brought a new wave of social awareness in these regions. It is the Broadcasting Review Bill, which has not been cleared for the past four years, that can bring new hope to more initiatives, such as these, in every district of every state, in and through which, the villagers may voice their own issues in their own dialect.

Meanwhile, one may only hope that the sounds of silence are broken for good by these voices from the marginalized.



CHARKHA FEATURE

The writer is the Associate Editor, Charkha Development Communication Network. She may be contacted at pratibha@charkha.org.