He clambers barefoot out of the entrance to his Kaka Nagar home in Delhi and greets you as you enter. At 84, Nikhil Chakravartty does show the wear and tear of a recent cataract operation. But now, at the ``fag end of his career'', as he says, he appears completely oblivious to the controversy raging around him. As Prasar Bharati chairman, he has been the target of often vituperative attack, both for being too old as well for being somewhat disengaged.But unlike his younger compatriot, Prasar Bharati CEO Surrindar Singh Gill, Chakravartty seems to have decided to take the path of least resistance. Though apparently strongly committed to a Leftist ideology, he sees no contradiction in heading an organisation which will end up being controlled in some way or the other by the BJP.``This Government is not clear about what they should do. Yet, you must give them credit for not having destroyed the Prasar Bharati,'' he says. These may sound like strange words for the founder of Maintsream,but Chakravartty does not think so. In fact, he seems all keyed up to begin a new phase of work. ``We didn't have much time to take decisions with the abnormal thing called elections. Now we hope to do more substantial things.''Excerpts from an interview with Kaveree Bamzai conducted as he awaited the arrival of P.S. Deodhar, the man tipped to replace Gill as CEO.What do you think the Prasar Bharati has achieved in the past four months?Well, a large number of people had wanted radio and television to be autonomous for a long time. In India, we cannot necessarily follow the British Broadcasting Corporation model because the situation here is quite complicated. First we have to demolish a lot of the existent ills - like corruption. To a certain extent, Gill has succeeded in doing that. But because of the elections we had to cut out and couldn't achieve whatever we wanted. But if the Congress, BJP and the Left are not happy with our work, it does not disturb us.Will theboard members be able to work with the BJP, given their ideological persuasions?Why not? After all, this government has not destroyed the Prasar Bharati. But the BJP may not fully trust us. They may put in people along with us in whom they will have more confidence. But then it's the government's prerogative to do that. A lot of the board members would like a certain amount of give and take. They would like everything to be done in a certain way. And as far as ideological conflicts are concerned, whe-ther it is Professor U.R. Rao's portfolio of science and technology or Romila Thapar's of education, there's really little politics involved in it.What about Mr Gill? What is the board's reaction to his imminent dismissal?Well, the government appointed him. It is within its rights to remove him. Technically, after all, he is overage. Then he also has certain views which the BJP does not agree with. But what he will do only he knows. The ball is entirely in Gill's court now. Yet there is noindication that he will resist his departure.Were you and the board satisfied with Gill's functioning?Well, a lot of people on the board do not like him. A lot of people outside the board don't like him either. But one thing you have to say for him, he is certainly above corruption.If he were to go, would you like the new CEO to do anything differently?We would certainly like the decision-making process to be more consultative. The new CEO should interact more with the members. But even if we had tiffs with him when he was information and broadcasting secretary, we still worked well with him. Now let's see whether the government backs him or not.How do you react personally to the criticism that you are too old to be Chairman?Well, I may be overage but I'm not senile or inactive. If they can find someone more active than I am I will be happy to step down. The members have also been hurt by all this criticism and I have had to restrain them from making any comments. Ifsuggestions from younger people are rejected by the board, then we can be accused of being too old. But we haven't done that.What about criticism from the current minister Sushma Swaraj?I have been in politics. I know that whatever people say during elections is motivated. Once they are handling the issue, they have to adopt a much more serious approach. Since the government is being so watchful, we will have to be more guarded. We haven't really been challenged by the BJP. We have to take this into account. We also have to consider that BJP has become part of the mainstream just as the Congress or the Left.So, what will the board do now?See, the government knows fully well that it can achieve many things by trying to control the Prasar Bharati. That is a reality that cannot be escaped.Is it also the reality of the government ultimately being the financier for DD and AIR?No, why should DD have to depend entirely on the government? For instance, this education channelthat Romila is working on could easily be financed through NGOs. We didn't have the time to develop all these ideas but now we can explore all these possibilities. Deodhar is a man of great ideas. He should be brought in.More important than all this, I personally feel DD may be more glamorous but radio has much more impact. There's a different type of education you can impart through radio. You can completely change the outlook of people through it. We would also like to take new initiatives in regional languages. Every region has its own specific needs. We'd like to address those.
