Twitter
Advertisement

When radio, theatre, soapbox and community media does what mainstream fails at

The bad news is that mainstream media seems to have abdicated its responsibility of covering rural news. The good news is that it has paved the way for rural India to consume news through hyper-local radio, theatre, soapbox and a variety of community media platforms. Yogesh Pawar reports

Latest News
article-main
Rural India finds a way of getting news that the mainstream won’t give them. Clockwise from top: Sangham Radio of Telangana, Khabar Lehariya of Bundelkhand in UP, Video Volunteers, Goa and Digital Desh
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

It's past three in the afternoon. Thirty-four-year-old Bhil tribal Susribai Ninama is sifting millets in her hut, the only one atop a hillock in South Rajasthan's remote Surata village in Dungarpur district. A loud drum is heard from the hillock across where the phala (hamlet) has seven homes. Stepping out, she shields her eyes to look in the direction of the steady beat. "Meeting mein aao mahaaraaj!" goes a sharp cry followed by the beat again. Even without a sound system, the hilly terrain echoes the call. She tells her eldest child Sitla, busy playing with her younger brother, to sift the remaining millets, and pulling her pallu over her head, sets out downhill to where a crowd is slowly gathering.

Twenty minutes away, 32 women from surrounding hillocks have gathered. Fiddling with the hansiya (an ornament) in her neck, Ninama smiles at acquaintances and listens to the nurse from the local primary healthcare centre, which is an hour away. Dishaben Patel is here to speak of "a disease called Jheeka (Zika), a germ that mosquitoes can transmit to unborn babies inside a mother's womb". Disbelief changes to gasps of shock as a pamphlet is circulated with pictures of a baby born with microcephaly and many questions are asked over black tea. This is the only way of reaching critical information to the locals, says Patel. "Most are illiterate and even for those who aren't, the mainstream papers from Jaipur or Ahmedabad rarely cover hyper-local issues from these parts." Patel is not the only who thinks so.

Metro-centric revenue stream

About 670km away in Mumbai, Ramon Magsaysay awardee, journalist P Sainath, insists one does not need to be an expert media observer to see how the vacuum created by mainstream media is being filled by community initiatives. Much respected for his deep understanding of socio-economic inequality, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermath of globalisation in India, he speaks passionately about what he calls abdication of responsibility by the mainstream media. The founder-editor of the People's Archive of Rural India (PARI) was delivering the keynote address at a special conference on community media, 'We the Nation: Micro-narratives of Change' organised by Godrej India Culture Lab earlier this month.

"If mainstream editorials and panel circuses on television don't convey anything to you, it is because they don't have anything to convey," he said in his opening remark leading to thundering applause. Baffled at the extent of ignorance about realities being perpetuated, he put the ball in the mainstream media's court. "The media doesn't tell us anything since they aren't interested anymore. They feel, if it doesn't make us revenue, why cover it? In the last 20 years, we've reduced the media to nothing more than a revenue stream."

Citing an eight-year study of a prominent national daily, he said that 62 per cent of its front page originated from New Delhi. "That is their nation. It is not that Mumbai follows with 20-30 per cent (coverage), it has less than 8 per cent. Chennai has much less and Kolkata, almost nothing."

Lamenting how 32 cities with a population of over a million do not make it to the front page for upto five years at a stretch, he told the audience how this was also the fate of some states which don't find mention on inside pages. "If you look at the news, both on the front page and inside, from the source of origin point of view, rural and village issues account for 0.76 per cent. If we look at it from the subject or content point of view, this accounts for 0.18 per cent. This, in a country where 70 per cent of the population lives in rural India."

While underlining how agriculture received just 0.61 per cent coverage last year in the same paper, Sainath explained what it constituted. "Largely, it is about covering what the agricultural ministry does. Not the coverage of farms, farmers, mandis, produce and so on."

He admitted everything in rural India is not rosy. "The tyrannical, oppressive, regressive and brutal issues like untouchability, feudalism, bonded labour, extreme caste and gender oppression and exploitation, land grab and more must go. Tragedy is, the nature of the current transformation underway in rural India, more often, tends to bolster the regressive and the barbaric, while undermining the best and the diverse." He cites examples like the 700-plus languages written in 86 scripts by 833 million Indians, the largest number of schools and styles of weaving than any other nation and the dying traditional professions like toddy tappers (who cumulatively climb greater heights than New York's Empire State Building – every single day in peak season), metalsmiths and potters, for the latter.

Resistance through theatre

Manjul Bhardwaj's is one of the most well-known faces of resistance in theatre. Bhardwaj has been engaging with the masses with his Theatre of Relevance movement since the Babri demolition of December 6, 1992. Talking about exclusion, communalism and bigotry, he has raised issues through local media, theatre performances, street theatre, songs and folk theatre in India and globally through 16 theatrical productions. "Across the world, the diversity of our geo-, bio- and socio-cultural ecosystems are being threatened. And mainstream media has become an amplifier of this threat, which it bandies 24x7. People are seeking alternatives to reflect their real narratives in community media, narratives they can own."

Sorority speak

Masangari Narsamma of the Zahirabad region of Telangana state is a one-woman radio station. Known as General Narsamma, this braveheart runs Sangham Radio by the Deccan Development Society (DDS) with assistance from UNESCO from Machnoor village in the Jarasangham block of Sanghareddy district (earlier Medak in undivided Andhra Pradesh). The two-hour broadcast in the local tongue Zahirabadi (a mix of Urdu, Telugu and Kannada) reaches nearly two lakh people in 200 villages spread over a radius of 30km. "We cover a wide range of topics, including agriculture, health, our local knowledge systems, festivals, our languages, music and social/familial problems which we cover in the form of songs, discussions and phone-ins," says Narsamma, who scoffs when asked if they play film songs. "Are there films in Zahirabadi? We get local artistes to sing our songs, from our culture."

Disputes, domestic violence, alcoholism, rural credit, self-help groups, health are all addressed daily between 7-9pm — a convenient time slot when people use their mobile phones to listen to the radio. In the monsoons now, the show discusses infections and diseases that children and the elderly are susceptible to. "We will move onto the peculiar veterinary healthcare issues related to livestock and poultry in this season, since that is a big source of income for our listeners."

She says that women who hear gynaecologists and other healthcare professionals call in to discuss their problems are invited to the show the next day. "The doctors talk to the women and suggest dos and don'ts on air so that it helps other less vocal people with the same problems."

According to Narsamma, it has become a matter of pride for the local communities to hear their voice and narratives in their own language. The 37-year-old mother of two says her husband, Narasimhalu, who works as an LIC agent, is happy to look after the children when she keeps long hours. "I've been a tomboy since childhood. He knows I can take care of myself when in the field. He is very supportive of my work and understands how much it means to me."

Born to a Dalit family, Narsamma studied at a DDS school and has gone on to become a reporter, an editor and an anchor rolled into one. "Of course, I need the Rs 9,000 I get to support my family. But I find so much satisfaction in what I do, that I don't see it merely as a job. I don't mind spending from my own pocket for minor repairs to equipment and other small expenses since I know that for many women listeners, this all they have."

Credibility is crucial

Journalist, author, filmmaker and lyricist Neelesh Misra has been running India's biggest rural media platform, Gaon Connection (GC), in Uttar Pradesh since 2012. Presented as a newspaper, a website and an app, GC "seeks to dismantle the mainstream media's fondly-held stereotypes of Rural India".

"All you have here to stand on is your credibility," says Misra. "If you slip, it can mean a complete loss of face in the community, and regaining trust can be tough. With the profusion of fake news, it is important that we don't let our guard down."

GC trains young men and women from villages in the fundamentals of reporting and journalism and works closely with them on their reports. "That is the only way we can monitor and ensure we are buffered from fake news."

Little wonder then that despite a change in guard in the state since GC was inaugurated, the state's bureaucrats and politicians continue to take news on GC seriously. "We don't get into party politics. We are interested in grassroots bijli-sadak-paani issues," adds Misra. "We want impact with things like replacement of a power transformer in a village or the provision of equipment and medicines to a rural hospital. Those in power see that that's all we are chasing and go out of their way to attend to the issues we highlight."

Global ramifications

Chandigarh-based media historian Pallavi Dhar says the struggle to create relevant and accountable media systems for local communities is a global phenomenon. "Whether it is indigenous communities in North Canada or communities fighting for better civic amenities in Tunisia, the idea of community media resonates with disparate people and across different cultures and is driving considerable interest," says Dhar. "It is extraordinary how local populations create media texts, practices and institutions with their own resources to serve distinctive needs and interests. And guess what, technology is on their side."

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement