Autonomy needs a decent burial

Where else would you find newspersons changed at will, at public expense — with close to Rs 150 crore spent — without any visible results? Where questions about its performance are raised only in Parliament and answers provided thereof to elected members of the public?

Since the United Front (UF) government hit upon the idea of making both Doordarshan and All India Radio autonomous in 1997, not a single decision takes place in the spirit of autonomy enshrined in the legislation. It is not an uncommon sight to see senior Prasar Bharati officials making a beeline to Shastri Bhavan where officials of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (a relic of colonial times) take decisions on whom to appoint and who to ease out, where reporters get their directions from “highly placed unnamed senior officials in the GOI”.

To be fair to the UF, they did not foresee a news channel highlighting its achievements, when they declared both Doordarshan and All India Radio autonomous. The government fell and was replaced with the BJP-led NDA which made it clear that the government needed a news channel to announce its achievements — autonomy could take a walk.

A news channel was a must for a party that had come to power after a long, long time and Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan went about his job in right earnest. He set about distributing chunks of air-time slots to his pals who went about disseminating news which was music to the minister’s ears. This cosy arrangement did not last for long and Mahajan was replaced by Sushma Swaraj, but not before nearly Rs 100 crore was spent and middle-aged anchors went back rich by a couple of lakhs. In came Swaraj, determined to remove all vestiges of Mahajan from the News channel. News continued to be the prerogative of the government and was manipulated at will.

DD’s News channel, for instance, was the only channel that did not mention the Tehelka scam in detail, dismissing the entire episode in one line, sparing the BJP, the party in power, the embarrassment of watching its president accept cash on camera. Before she was eased out, Swaraj took another decision of scrapping the News channel and changing it into a cultural channel — Bharati channel.

By the time she left and a new incumbent came in, it was time for the general elections and time to launch the news channel yet again. And so it was, that yet another news channel was born and people were handpicked for their proximity to the BJP.

But now, the old order has given way to the new and a new government is in place. A new line-up is in place. And obviously, the baton has been passed. Decisions are still being taken at the highest levels of government on who who gets maximum prime time. Viewership does not really matter here as long as the people in power are happy.

As the corporation gets a new tinge, presumably in secular shades, a decision to recast the channel has been taken yet again.

Why not just make DD News a mouthpiece of the government and restore government control on paper? At least its employees will no longer live in fear of being evicted from their spacious government homes. Autonomy too deserves a decent burial, after all.