Draconian laws. Communal authoritarian regime. Bankruptcy. Muslims. These were some of the words and phrases that All India Radio and Doordarshan, the two arms of India’s state-owned public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, replaced from speeches in English of Opposition leaders, CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and All India Forward Bloc’s G Devarajan, aired on May 16. Ostensibly in keeping with the “conduct rules” of the Election Commission, the replacements, an official told this paper, were not out of the ordinary: Speeches of leaders, including of chief ministers, have been reworded after passing through its internal scanners. The guidelines prohibit criticism of other countries, religious or communal attacks, incitement to violence or contempt of court, aspersions on the integrity of the President and judiciary, criticism by name of any person, anything affecting the unity, sovereignty and integrity of the nation, obscenity or defamation. Neither Yechury’s nor Devarajan’s speech fell in these categories. It, therefore, raises the question: How out of joint must Prasar Bharati be to fail to recognise that an electoral pitch is necessarily adversarial? That it is embedded in the very process of polls that parties call each other out on their shortcomings?
For a broadcasting service as extensive as Prasar Bharati, learning to read the pulse of the audience, one would imagine, would be a matter of practice, if not habit, especially given the competition from private media conglomerates. Unfortunately, it has remained out of step with the changing nature, expectations and aspirations of its audiences, clinging to the role that many centrally-funded autonomous institutions feel obliged to perform — of proclaiming allegiance to the government even when it is not called upon to do so. Its triteness has only made it sink deeper into irrelevance.
Section 12(2)(b) of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990, states that one of its duties is to safeguard “the citizen’s right to be informed freely, truthfully and objectively on all matters of public interest, national or international, and presenting a fair and balanced flow of information including contrasting views without advocating any opinion or ideology of its own”. In a parliamentary democracy, that would mean protecting the oppositional space and allowing it a voice of its own. As the election moves towards its final phase, polarisation, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or electoral bonds are all poll issues legitimately up for debate. To nitpick on the choice of words or issues is not just a mark of disrespect to the process but also to the intelligence of the electorate.
