Community Radio: Eliminating Voice Poverty

"Free speech and freedom of expression are the raison d'être of CR anywhere in the world and they are going well beyond their mandates to do so in India, but it is imperative they are given a boost..."

This article explores the state of - and strategies developed by - community radio (CR) in India in the years since the Government of India (GOI) passed an updated, inclusive CR policy on November 16 2006. According to author Kanchan K. Malik, these CR reporters share "an abiding faith that their 'own' radio will give them and their community a 'voice' that matters most in the struggle for a better life." In addition, they have a number of things in common: They belong to rural areas or the suburbs; none of them have gone to journalism schools; many have scarcely completed their secondary education; they had negligible exposure to media production before getting involved with radio; and they are members of a disadvantaged cluster (be it on basis of caste, class, or gender).

According to Malik, since the CR policy's implementation, these CR reporters "already have several success stories of local level civic engagement to their credit." They not only endeavour to be effective tools of community development, but also increasingly trying to alleviate "voice poverty", which is defined here as "the denial of access to opportunities, agency and means of self-expression and political participation (advocacy) for groups who have negligible access to the mass media." Malik explains that one factor in this problem is the globalisation and commercialisation of the media and communication sector, through which there is "control over the terms of public debate and discourse by a few multi-sector conglomerates and power-wielding personalities....[I]t indicates an unhealthy national mediascape where freedom of speech and expression by way of access to media is confined to elites. Ordinary citizens are treated as passive consumers of media content which is unabashedly driven by profit-oriented agenda."

"In India..., if we go around the country trying to discover what the limited numbers of operational CR stations are endeavouring to accomplish, we understand that this versatile medium is going much beyond its predictable mandates of social change and disaster management. CR is functioning as a cultural broadcast mechanism that adapts perfectly to reflect the interests and needs of the community it serves, and offers people of the marginalized sectors a platform to express themselves socially, politically and culturally."

As reported here, "[s]ome of the CR stations in India are exclusively run and managed by rural women's collectives. The women in these organizations use CR to talk about their issues and concerns and to augment their own developmental activities. CR helps to build the capacities of discursive interaction of women for collective action, and also their media competencies. Equipped with the confidence that their voices and lived experiences would not be disregarded, more and more women are participating in producing programmes that are locally relevant and gender sensitive."

The author concludes that: "The need of the hour for the Indian government, fixated as it is on drawing the 12th plan estimates, is to give a boost to the CR in the country with a view to foster freedom of speech and expression among the underprivileged, and thereby strengthen its claims towards participatory democracy."