Rethinking community radio policy for self-reliant India

A study

Abstract

The emancipation of rural India from the clutches of ‘information-gap’ (Tichenor et al. 1970) is an unending debate since decades. The unequitable distribution of information is due to media commercialization. The profit motive drives corporate media to treat large audiences as potential consumers than citizens. To sell audiences   to advertisers, they tend to make people believe that the pursuit of happiness depends on mass consumption. They divert mass attention from bare minimum to deep consumer culture for better living by promoting conspicuous consumption. It may be by making spurious promises but cannot be the panacea for organic development. This qualitative exploratory research article attempts to unravel the policies formulated for community radio so far and their lacunae and offer solutions for sustainable development. The need for self-reliant India is realized both in the backdrop of corporate media structure and in the wake of recent pandemic. The dream may come true only when the voiceless people liberate themselves from the shackles of voice poverty. Further, the article analyzes the communication policy with regard to community radio which reveals that the policies are Orwellian in nature, not giving complete autonomy to the community radio holders by barring news and current affairs from their ambit. Moreover, the licensing procedure is very lengthy, strenuous and takes time to get approval from the Ministry. The current critique of the communication policy is an effort to counter corporate media influence and call for an independent radical media which should put forward the interests of local rural poor, giving absolute means of control into their hands, invite them to participate in the process of message production–dissemination cycle and then only sustainable community radio will emerge, the goal of self-reliant India.