Gill apart, it’s all the same

Let us put things into perspective and not zero in on Gill, while making martyrs of the other Prasar Bharati members. Gill may not be the transparent democrat he thinks he is, but he is also not the ogre of BJP’s pronouncements. Sure, there is little that he has done which may now seem substantive. Decisions have often been taken with little consultation. Some offended private producers are still wondering why only United Television, Nimbus, Creative Eye and Stracon were allowed to form a cartel to bid for all sporting events on behalf of DD. There has been equally severe criticism of there having been no bidding before Election ’98 was handed to Living Media or the run-up shows were given to Pritish Nandy and Nalini Singh.

We’ve been crying ourselves hoarse about the cosy relationship between the print media and Star TV, but Gill has only continued a fine tradition of silencing media critics set by Rathikant Basu. Although he’s made two trips to Mumbai, Gill hasn’t been able to produce a singlecommissioned programme by all those “titans who had left DD”. That’s primarily because all prime-time slots are booked for the next one year, what with the backlog of the New Sponsored Serials Scheme still to be exhausted.

Gill has been wonderful for a media desperately seeking controversy but in real terms except for a revamped DD news and the abolition of pre-censorship of private news, the Prasar Bharati board has little to be proud of. Yet, the BJP has concentrated all its ire on one man, who, thanks to Inder Kumar Gujral’s hurry to please an old friend, has become a soft target.

By all means remove him if you have to, but also concentrate on more important issues. Sushma Swaraj looks headed in the right direction when she says there is a huge distinction between Government control and Parliamentary supervision. When the ordinance lapses, the 22 MP-committee will be reinstated. Not all see it in sinister terms. Private producers and viewers’ groups find politicians much more accessible thanbureaucrats.

So even if we don’t like the shade of BJP’s saffron, perhaps we should welcome the return of parliamentary accountability. In this time of politician-bashing, there are still those who prefer the neta to the babu. But we have also perhaps, like the BJP, become too obsessed with Prasar Bharati — and even in that only with news, which is precisely 10 per cent of all the broadcasting content. The minister should set her sights higher on regulating the entire software content, which is where cultural imperialism is at its most influential. She should extend that broad vision to the entire media. The BJP’s concern for Prasar Bharati, and particularly Gill, to the exclusion of the broadcasting industry is like regulating only Indian Airlines in the civil aviation industry.

What the country needs right now is a Broadcasting Act. Once that is in place, even Prasar Bharati will fall in line. We were afraid of Rupert Murdoch as a political player, which is a major reason why we bannedDirect-To-Home TV. But his 24-hour news channel is right here, despite there being no uplinking for foreign channels. Regardless of the BJP’s 20 percent equity cap on satellite networks, foreign channels are flourishing. Shouldn’t that engage Swaraj’s attention more than Gill’s superannuation?