Very costly experiment

The government should simply jettison the pretence. The information and broadcasting ministry may be far better off,and so would Doordarshan’s millions of viewers be,if it issued a full disclosure and clarified that the public broadcaster is outright the publicity arm of the government. It would save the exchequer significant funds that keep Prasar Bharati afloat on the good,but insincerely kept,promise of wringing autonomy for this country’s public service broadcaster. It would also save ministers and officials the embarrassment of getting egg on their faces,as they have yet again right now,when their periodic exertions to package censored content as independent news bulletins just by virtue of positioning fresh talent as anchors and editors hollow out. Autonomy requires more than enhanced budgets and good-looking programmes. It needs a certain liberal temperament,one that is acutely lacking in the bureaucratic behemoth that Doordarshan has been found out to be.

Less than two months after a splashy advertisement campaign championing Doordarshan’s new-look daily prime-time news bulletin,Ajai Shukla,the anchor/editor of its English-language segment,has put in his papers. The resignation follows recent circulars ordering that the content and guests for each bulletin be first run past Doordarshan officials,as clear a declaration of censorial intent as there can be. This unwillingness to walk even the first baby steps in allowing controlled autonomy to the national channel — in freeing it of daily interference — simply reinforces the popular distrust of any claim by Doordarsan to be neutral and free. The I&B ministry has a sport of choice,to keep inquiring into ways in which viewers can be attracted to Doordarshan,but its experiments will keep coming to naught till it reckons with the bottomline. It is this: when viewers fail to flock to the channel,it is not veracity of the news put out by the channel that is in question. It is their scepticism that the news is in any way whole,that what is being presented is the full picture.

Whichever way the government may spin the current controversy from here,that scepticism has been shown to be proper caution. What an ironic end to an exercise intended to prove the very opposite.