Need for public broadcaster: A Surya Prakash

The new chairman of Prasar Bharati, A Surya Prakash, is a journalist who brings to the job a professional’s aggressive determination to make Doordarshan News the best professional channel in the country, and to make Prasar Bharati fully autonomous in terms of finances and recruitment. He is also very clear in his mind about his politics. The memory of press censorship during the 1975-77 Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi is etched in his memory, and he does not want the Indian media to ever be in that situation again. He wants to do all he can to ensure that. At the same time he propounds what is on the face of it a strange thesis that at the moment there is a convergence between the State and the media, and that the decades of confrontation between media and government of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s is a thing of the past.

Prakash won his journalistic spurs in The Indian Express. He also worked with ETv, ZeeNews and The Pioneer. While at The Indian Express, he was one of the keenest reporters of Parliament, and he has authored two books on the functioning of Parliament, What Ails Indian Parliament (HarperCollins; 1995) and Public Money, Private Agenda The Use and Misuse of MPLADS (Rupa; 2013). The University of Tumkur has awarded him a doctorate.

In an interview with Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr, Prakash spoke about his assignment and his thoughts on the role of the public broadcaster in the spacious and spartan Prasar Bharati chairman’s office.
Excerpts from the interview:

dna: Prasar Bharati is intended to make Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) a public broadcaster, take them away from being a State broadcaster. Has Prasar Bharati fulfilled its role as a public broadcaster? Is there clarity about what a public broadcaster should be?
Surya Prakash: DD and AIR were but wings of the government. Prasar Bharati was legislated in 1990 by the National Front government. Its remit was to be autonomous and uphold the democratic values and traditions. Prasar Bharati is responsible to the people and Parliament. But it was not notified till 1997 — during the time of the United Front government when Jaipal Reddy was the information and broadcasting minister. The Congress government of Narasimha Rao did not want to let go the power over the State media. We have the period from 1997 to 2014 to see what has been achieved. DD and AIR have become autonomous, but not fully. Prasar Bharati is meant to be an autonomous corporation. But it is dependent on government for funds and manpower. Of the total budget of Rs4,010 crore for 2014-15, government has provided Rs1,950 crore, about 50 per cent of the expenditure. The manpower is from the central government’s information service. No corporation can be autonomous if it lives on borrowed money and borrowed staff. Prasar Bharati should have its own recruitment board. And it should increase its revenue earnings so that it does not depend any more  on government for funds. I think in the next 10 years, Prasar Bharati should move towards complete autonomy in terms of finances and manpower.

dna: What about Prasar Bharati’s autonomy with regard to its content, its programmes?
SP: The DD and the AIR are completely autonomous. It is not just now, but for the last 10 years. There is no interference. The media situation in the country has changed. There are about 700 TV channels and hundreds of private radio channels. There is an explosion of literacy. When I began journalism, about 65 per cent of the country was illiterate. Today, literacy rates are more than 90 per cent in northern states like Himachal Pradesh.
Today, there is convergence between the State and media. I can say this is so from May, 2014. I have listened to the two broadcasts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Man Ki Baat. As I heard him I could see that he was a natural radio talk-show host. More than 300 TV channels hosted the show because they knew that is what people would want to listen to. The PM praised the media at the party office about projecting the Swachh Bharat programme. The State, media and people are anxious about developmental programmes that were not implemented in the last 50 to 60 years. People are impatient and they want things to be done, and quickly too. The media, too, is of the same view. 

dna: Is this convergence troublesome, even dangerous? What about the adversarial relationship and the diversity of opinion that the media should maintain with the State for keeping a democracy vibrant, the distance needed to maintain objectivity?
SP: The decades of 1950s to 1980s were a period of confrontation. It is not necessary to quarrel for the sake of quarrelling. The nation is at a cusp when the State, people and media are agreed on developmental issues of poverty, illiteracy, education of the girl child. And I am saying that there is convergence at the moment. The private channels on their own are focusing on developmental agenda because they know that is what the people want.

dna: Why is there a need for a public broadcaster when there are hundreds of private channels?
SP: There is an absolute need for a public broadcaster in a developing country like India where there are still 300 million people below the poverty line, where about 500 million are just above the poverty line, and where nearly 300 million are still illiterate. Private channels would not touch with a barge pole many of the developmental issues. The public broadcaster has to take them up.
I have a job to do here. I want to make DD News the top most, professional news organisation. This is my first objective. I would want the viewers to move away from the noise produced by the private channels to DD News. 
I have been asked by many about my politics. The bedrock of my journalist career was built on the experience I had as a correspondent when an inspector general of police would whet my copy before it was published in the newspaper. I do not want that ever to happen again in India.