NEWS ANALYSIS

BEYOND THE PRASAR BHARATI CONTROVERSY

The issue of autonomy keeps returning to haunt the Prasar Bharati board like Banquo's ghost. And like the Bard's characterisation, the `ghost' has claimed its victim(s), if one may say so. One is not aware whether the information and broadcasting minister, Arun Jaitley, is attempting to direct one of Shakespeare's plays, but the plot that he is unraveling will certainly make the two retired members of the Prasar Bharati Board, specially Dr. Rajendra Yadav, say, "Et tu Jaitley."

When Pramod Mahajan was not allotted the I&B ministry this time round a collective sigh of relief must have gone up in the Prasar Bhararti. But Jaitley, the seasoned lawyer that he is, has done what many in the government would have liked to do and that too without much fuss. If they think (the retired board members) otherwise, they can approach the court, a supremely confident Jaitley had retorted after Yadav described his removal from the Prasar Bharati board as a "political vendetta."

Does the retirement (read removal) of two board members --- historian Romila Thapar being the other --- justify such hue and cry ? On the face of it, supporters of an autonomous Prasar Bharati, managing the affairs of DD and AIR, would say such issues should be debated in Parliament, but, legally speaking, one cannot the fault the government. After all, as former I&B minister Jaipal Reddy had said the Prasar Bharati is modeled on the lines of BBC.

After the Prasar Bharati Act was restored to its original form, ipso facto, during Sushma Swaraj's tenure at the I&B ministry last year, nobody was in doubt that the government would exercise its powers and retire some board members after the completion of two years, as laid down in the Act.

The method that should have been adopted to do this is debatable. Though Yadav is within his right to say that the government should have resorted to the "lottery system" to decide which of the board members to retire, Jaitley is also within his right to retort that such suggestions smack of flippancy which the government cannot be a party to. Point taken, Mr. Minister!

But that this drama couldn't have been more interesting is buttressed by the fact that both Yadav and Jaitley have been indulging in a verbal duel through the columns of newspapers and elsewhere too. When Yadav, saying he's echoing the sentiments of other board members too, wrote that Prasar Bharati should be free from the government clutches, Jaitley hit back by stating that then Prasar Bharati should be free from all political ideologies. Jaitley's refrain from day one had been: autonomy, yes, but with accountability. And the Act says that one-third of the members are to retire after two years.

And Jaitley hit the high note recently at a seminar on media organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries when he stated that with an asset of Rs 55,000 crore (though not formally transferred yet by the government) and budgetary support of over Rs 1000 crore, DD has managed to log revenues of just about Rs. 400 crore. To rub in his argument, Jaitley added, "During elections DD, with its massive reach, had got more television rating points for its election releated programmes, but it was Zee TV, with a lesser number of viewers and TRPs compared to DD, generated more revenue. The example speaks for itself for the need to have professionals in Prasar Bharati running DD."

However, one bright spot in the whole autonomy-with-accountability controversy is that a three-member committee has been set up to bring about some professionalism in Prasar Bharati. The committee, comprising Infosys chief Narayanmurthy, Discovery Channel country head, Kiran Karnik and marketing guru, Shunu Sen, should be able to put together a package for DD which can pave the way for DD's resurgence. But the million rupee question is: will the suggestion of the committee implemented? Sen had been commissioned by the governemnt to do a study on marketing of DD. The report was submitted a couple of years back to the then I&B minister Jaipal Reddy. Since then it has been gathering dust in the I&B ministry. Will Jaitley, please, have a look at that report?

Does India need an autonomous DD and AIR ? There will be many who will say in a multi-channel scenario there is no such need (mostly from the government). But then there are many who would argue otherwise. Critics of Prasar Bharati point out that the Falklands war was fought through BBC and the autonomous organisation could do little to resist the pressure exerted by the then Thatcher government. Turning this logic on its head, one can say even an autonomous DD and AIR would do the same if a war breaks out between India and one of its neighbours, a media analyst said. In fact an indicator of this is the stance that private television channels such as Zee News and Star News took during the Kargil conflict with Pakistan. They acted as simple mouthpieces of the government and did little to cut through the briefings that were narrated to them every day by army spokespersons.

This soap opera is far from over.