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Discussion

We will get what we deserve

The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, defined the airwaves as public property. As an extension, it implies that the public, i.e. the citizens of india, have a right to the airwaves, and as a further extension, media like television and radio, who use the airwaves have to first be accessible to citizens as well as represent and reflect public spirit, concern, priorities and issues.

Debates around the issue of public access, public service broadcast and broadcast as a whole has, by and large, revolved around the issue of autonomy. It has been perceived that the broadcast is controlled by the state and so, there is a need to remove government controls from broad- cast. And hence the demand for autonomy.

However, merely looking at the issue from the position of autonomy has problems. This position does not take into account the problems and gaps in representation. That the broadcast media has been limited in its representation is then brushed aside. Then Pramod Mahajan’s position does not seem to be so ridiculous: as the satellite channels are providing ‘diversity’ what’s wrong if the national broadcaster is used for government propaganda?

Broadcast in the public domain has to be representative of a diverse range of priorities and aspirations, while continuously ensuring that the weakest and the vulnerable are not left by the way side. The question that then arises is: whose responsibility is it to provide that? Will the state provide for this, or will the market provide it, or does the answer lie somewhere else?

”The process of communication,” Prof. Cees Hamelink had said ”is too important to leave either to the princes or to the merchants.” He had also said that citizens must become involved in creating a communication environment that responds to their diverse needs and aspirations. Those who don’t, he warned, will get only what they deserve.

Few years ago, while the National Front government was attempting to introduce the Broadcast Bill, we tried to initiate a debate around it within the social sector. We were quite dismayed by the lack of response to the issue. Most people did not know of the Bill and did not seem to care. That even till today our broadcast is by and large governed by a policy conceived by the British in 1885 (India Telegraph Act, 1885) does not seem to create the concern that it perhaps should.

Meanwhile, the satellite channels continue to dish out ‘variety’ in a form that is becoming monotonously familiar across the board. There seems to be so little to choose between them, whether in the realm of ‘entertainment’, current affairs or news. The national broadcaster, unfortunately, is reacting .to the invasion by becoming more like them . Join them if you can’t win, seems to be the motto.

The recent television programme, Kaun Banega Karorpati (KBK ), has raised some interesting issues. KBK has kindled public interest in a manner rarely seen before. It has dislodged the news (and some others) from the Star Plus channel. Across the country, in the bus stations and trains, in the tea shops and dramas, everyone seems to be discussing the programme and how to get onto it and make money. Star Plus claims that they received 8 million phone calls from people wanting to participate.

What does this serious public interest prove? Does it reflect public concern? That at least 8 million Indian citizens want to become billionaires overnight is true. But what does that reflect on our priorities and aspirations? That we are a nation of wanna-be billionaires? That as long as we get our moolah, we don’t really care where it originates from?

About a decade ago this position was true for the black-marketeers and speculators. Today we as a nation seem to be adopting the same ideology. A purely consumerism ideology. And the role of the broadcast media to extend this ideology, to touch all it viewers with it and transform them forever, cannot be over stated. And it stands to reason that the market in control of the media will want a nation of wanna-be millionaires.

So is KBK what we, the citizen’s of india, deserve? And where does that leave Justice Sawant and the Supreme Court judgment that airwaves are a public property? If the public wants to be wanna-be millionaires, so be it? Or is there a need for intervention by concerned citizens in the realm of broadcast? And who will work towards creating the same? Citizens yes, but which citizens and how?

These are some of the questions that face all of us today. There is an attempted the Public Service Broadcasting Trust to evolve one kind of mechanism (report on page 14). But that effort, welcome though it is, is too small, too new, to challenge the massive onslaught of commercial TV. What it can do, and hopefully will do (provided it secures support,sustenance and survives), is to create space within the realm of broadcast for public service.

At the same time, today, it is crucially important that media practitioners AND those working for social change in India work towards developing alternatives in the realm of broadcast, and evolve a conceptual framework for creating a different kind of TV in India.

Feedback

Readers responses to “Charkha – Wheels within wheels” by Deepti Priya Mehrotra (April 2000 issue)

This refers to your article on ”Charkha – Wheel Within Wheels” by Deepti Priya Mehrotra carried in your April 2000 issue.

We are shocked by this venomous and vindictive piece. ”What happens if an NGO gets ‘captured’ by such persons – opportunistic, money minded, and hopelessly inefficient?” With one sweeping statement, she has implied that the entire Charkha team and Board are self-seekers. But the facts are quite the contrary.

To be corrupt and to siphon off funds presupposes that Charkha is flush with funds. Ms. Mehrotra knows very well the true picture. Sometimes, even during her tenure as chief coordinator, salaries were not paid for months on end due to lack of resources. The real fact is the crisis of leadership. She was unable to carry the team with her.

Ms. Mehrotra says she worked voluntarily for Charkha, which means she was not being paid for what she was doing. The fact is that in spite of meagre resources, she drew a salary of Rs. 7000 from Charkha for ostensibly a half day of work. She was also paid a rent of Rs. 4000 a month initially for a dingy space in her garage which was later reduced to Rs. 2500. Whenever the issue of transferring the office to a more congenial place was mooted, she used to lose her temper. She used to say if Charkha’s office was shifted from her place, then it would break into pieces. She made out as if she were indispensable. But since Charkha moved from her place the organization continues to survive!

The reason for Ms. Mehrotra’s leaving was because she had been offered the MacArthur Fellowship and the Board felt (rightly) that since that needed her full time involvement, she would not be able to devote even the little time she gave Charkha. More so because while working for Charkha, she was also working for Matrika, an NGO from where she also drew salary.

Charkha has not collapsed because Ms. Mehrotra is no longer the coordinator. After she quit Charkha, apart from publishing features in the newspapers, Charkha has been able to place features on websites such as ETH.net , footforward.com and forindia.com. On 15th January 2000, full-fledged feature service in English and Hindi was launched. Regular features are being sent every fortnight to 43 English and 120 Hindi newspapers. Since 1st August 1999, workshops were organised in Hoshangabad in collaboration with Disha Samvad and in Sonbhadra in collaboration with Vanvasi Sewa Ashram, cane workshop in Alwar was held in collaboration with the Press Institute of india, two workshops in Neemrana block, district Alwar in collaboration with Sohard.

Both Tarun Bose and Aman Namra are committed team members whose objective is to see that Charkha becomes like other counterparts in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. They need support and admiration, not wilds irresponsible allegations. There is transparency in working and everyone is welcome to come and see this in operation, including Ms. Mehrotra.

The strangest thing in this murky episode is that Ms. Mehrotra is herself a Board Member. If she felt so strongly about the way things are going at Charkha, at least she should have resigned from Charkha Board before writing this ridiculous and baseless article.

- Alok Mukhopadhyay
President, Charkha

Deepti Priya replies …

I believe that sharing our efforts and problems within the wider community is essential for good health. When we keep our issues locked behind closed doors, they fester. Indeed, many activists and mediapersons over the years have supported and participated in Charkha in innumerable ways, so it has a very wide circle of ‘insiders’. At the very least, we are accountable to this community.

Whatever I said in the article, I have earlier said within Charkha. The issues were ignored: the President never deigned even to reply. Is ‘reputation’ more important, then, than reality?

Far from harbouring illusions of indispensability, I was in any case planning to leave Charkha, in order to have time for other serious interests. I’d spent a lot of energy on Charkha, keeping it alive through thick and thin, and was satisfied that in the near future we would find an able Coordinator to whom I could hand over. Last June, I offered to continue to coordinate the organization on a part-time and purely voluntary basis. From experience of the nitty- gritty of each aspect of Charkha, I could well have continued to oversee it. The offer was dismissed, the President claiming it as ‘unethical’ for one person to do two pieces of work.

As many persons are aware, Charkha ran with visually no funds for long stretches of time. During one phase -April to September 1996 – I took Rs 1 ,000, and paid the peon, Raju, Rs 1,500! Was it then run “unethically” for years? – I consistently worked elsewhere to earn a basic livelihood, while giving Charkha three hours of daily time. Interested Board members. i.e. Shri Sanjoy Ghose, P. V. Rajagopalji and Ms. Pramada Menon would frequently meet with me to figure out how to carry on the organization.Interestingly enough, during that phase nobody charged me with harbouring illusions of indispensability or ego – driven motivation!

After many shocks, by 1998 I realized that for Charkha to survive, I would have to move out of my cosy auditorial’ and ‘activist’ roles, and raise material resources.

Rs 9 lakhs (grants I’d worked to and somehow raised for the English and Hindi feature services, workshops and several publications, for one year) was not a small amount for us. It may be peanuts for many people, and many organizations. But for Charkha it provided an opportunity to revitalize and stabilize. It was a critical year – a do-or-die sort of year.

In April this year when we aII met at the VHAI office after a period of 9 months, Charkha’s English Editor reported that a total of 1 3 articles have been published over these months (1 0 in Pioneer and 3 in Hindu Business Line), and 4-5 articles online. Many of these are recycled older pieces. On the publications front, just one bulletin in 9 months – that too sub-standard (850 out of 1000 copies, published in November 1999, lying unsold in April 2000). The Hindi output during these 9 months was significantly better. But the funds were already running dry, too much having been spent on items like exorbitant rent – a luxury Charkha could ill afford.

Maybe our standards differ, maybe the dreams are different. Competence I believe has to be proved, and show itself in quality of output.

This links up to the ‘leadership crisis mentioned by Mr. Mukhopadhyaya. The deliberate distortions in Mr. Mukhopadhaya’s letter are reminiscent of the crude and graceless manner in which a senior Charkha team member launched a slander campaign last year. Substantial mental energies were diverted into the campaign, which may explain the shoddy output in terms of English-language features and bulletins!

There is a near parallel in what happened with several women pradhans in UP and Rajasthan. In one case after the other, the up-pradhan set up a slander campaign, to humiliate and oust her. Her stint in office may have set the village on an unprecedented path of development. No matter. Some men can still not tolerate a woman in authority, and indulge in behind-the-back machinations, for which she has neither time nor aptitude.

In early 1999, Rajagopalji had written to the Charkha Board charging that ”high-level manipulation is going on in Charkha.” I had not understood then what he meant. Today, I am wiser.

If a process of degeneration sets in, the only sufferer finally is the organization. I’m still interested in stemming the rot. Had I thought there were no hope, I wouldn’t be spending any more energy on it.

In any case the issues go beyond the boundaries of any one organization. The dream will live on expressed through diverse individuals, and diverse structures.

- Deepti P Mehrotra

As a person who has from the sides seen the concept and activity of Charkha take shape, one can only say that it is an idea that needs to live. Its impact, not only on the media, but (as a consequence) on the lives of people it is committed to reflect and project, can be significant. As a well-wisher, one would like to see it grow and flourish.

However,it may be worthwhile to mention here that some of the points raised by Deepti could apply to more organizations, rather than one. Criticism can often hurt, but it can also steer our action in a positive direction. NGOs and voluntary organizations often act as watchdogs of the society, but in our self righteousness we may forget to look inwards – at our own functioning. It may do well for many organizations to do some soul searching and inner reflection. Before a hostile finger points out to us it may be in our own interest to clean up our house ourselves. And this refers not to Charkha alone, but to the wheels that are there in all wheels.

-Tripurari Sharma
New Delhi

It was sad to read the unfortunate story about Charkha that Deepti has narrated. It once again affirms the deep crisis of NGOs that sensitive souls who work in the ‘voluntary’ sector have recognised for long. It is clear that NGOs mirror nearly all the ills of wider society and are not, by design, democratic structures. Where a particular group is able to function democratically, despite this, it is an occasion for celebration.

The ‘learnings and questions’ that Deepti lists are indeed relevant, but where do we go from there? ‘The questions, I believe, can only be answered by each one of us through our own actions. Personal is political. We have to be sure in our own choices and deci sions. If, despite this, an NGO or team effort falters, I think it is best to move on and seek, in the larger community, the more genuine, caring and principled individuals and efforts.

- Rakesh Kapoor
New Delhi

I wanted to share Deepti’s pain at being thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bath water. It takes an enormous amount of hard work, and creative energy to set up an organization like Charkha. I don’t know the details but from what she wrote it seems that after pulling through the crisis one fine day she was no longer wanted. Her rage and anger is understandable but maybe of little use in today’s world, or even in the NGO world. I have a curious feeling though that this wouldn’t have happened say 15 years ago. I cannot help feeling pessimistic that the age of grace, feelings, principled actions, of open discussion, admission of mistakes etc., has passed, at least in Delhi. I also feel that Deepti should have been aware and wary of the wheels within wheels, before taking on something like this as she herself is aware that funding is never innocent and also that money can bring ”new converts” to the cause. Years ago I passed through a humiliating crisis with a film brief with an NGO (again one of those big ones) and I poured all my sorrow over the phone to Sanjoy Ghose. It was about the same time when Charkha was being launched. To my question, ”why should this happen to me when I have put in my most beautiful creative and innovative energies into the film.” Sanjay said ”this is the real world. They don’t want innovation and beauty. Welcome to the world.”

- Sehjo Singh
New Delhi

Media News

Information Technology Bill passed

The Information Technology Bill was passed in the last session of the Parliament this year. india is the 13th country to enact the cyber law following the model law on electronic commerce in 1996 adopted by the United Nations Council for International Trade Law. The Bill was introduced in the Parliament in December’99 and was under the consideration of various committees, including the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology. The Bill is noted for the intersection of modern technology with the legal codes,as it ensures legal validity for electronic transactions and commerce, check cyber crimes etc. As soon as the Bill is enacted it is expected to give a new impetus to on-line business due to its legal acceptance of digital signatures.

The Bill has far reaching legal implications. The four Acts amended for the Bill are the Reserve Bank of india Act of 1891, Banker’s Book Evidence Act of 1891, Indian Evidence Act of 1872 and Indian Penal Code. The Bill insists on stringent regulations and punishments for caber crimes. It also insists that any official above the rank of a DSP can arrest any person in the wake of a cyber crime without serving an arrest warrant. The actions taken by the government or government servants regarding Information Technology cannot be challenged in court as the right of adjudication rests with the Cyber Appellate Tribunal. It is viewed that the Bill set a few legal precedents as in the case of internet service providers, where there is a provision in the Bill that if somebody involves with a cyber crime using rented facilities,it is the responsibility of the provider to prove himself innocent. Thus, the Bill has set a rule of proving innocence before being implicated.

The critics of the Bill express their apprehensions on its potential misuse.Even before the enactment of the Bill, on May 10 in the Indraprastha Estate Police Station in Delhi, the Economic Offence Wing of the Crime Branch of Delhi Police registered a case against www.indiatimes.com under the sections of IPC 292 /34 for display and circulation of pornographic material. Section 1PC 292 says, ”any book, pamphlet, paper writing, drawing, painting, representation,fixture or any other object shall be deemed to be obscene if it is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest.” However, the apprehension is that even a fabricated charge can lead to imprisonment without a legal hearing.

Prevention of Terrorism Bill

The Law Commission has prepared a draft on the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Bill to replace the lapsed Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). The draft which has been circulated to the state governments by the union home ministry proposes to make it a compulsory obligation on media persons to inform the police at the earliest about any terrorist activities they come across while dispensing their profession.

It proposes imprisonment of up to one year if one fails to report to the police. The draft further entitles the police to demand from journalists, any information that falls under their perception of being terrorist activities. If proper information is not given or an attempt is made to misinform the police, the implicated journalist will be summarily tried. Any such charge can lead to an imprisonment of up to three years.

Many media persons have severely criticised the draft as being an extension of TADA, with similar potentials of misuse. When questions were raised that the proposals of the draft work against freedom of the Press, the Commission stated that the apex court had held in many occasions that the rights and the privileges of the Press are not greater than those of the other citizens.

Amnesty award for Sainath

P. Sainath was awarded the first Global Award for Human Rights Journalism instituted by the Amnesty International for his piece, A Dalit Goes To Court published in The Hindu . Though the award is in reference with a story, the award-winning piece is a part of his accounts of a series on caste discrimination across india. Presenting the award, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Mr. Pierre Sane saids ”P. Sainath’ s achievement is to bring to the world attention a basic denial of rights to 160 million people that has been ignored in india for too long.”

Mr Sainath is known for his commitment to the underprivileged sections of the society through his writings and advocacy. His book Everybody Loves A Good Drought won critical acclaim as well as popularity due to the issues raised, and the manner they were dealt with.

The second New Delhi Video Festival

The National Institute of Social Communications Research and Training (NISCORT) plans to organism the second New Delhi Video Festival between February 23 to 25, 2001. The stated objective of the festival is to provide a forum for the exhibition, study and analysis of videos produced on socio-developmental issues in the country, especially by the NGOs and thus help them raise the standard of their productions.

The categories of videos will be Less than 40 minutes, More than 40 minutes, Strictly educational videos and Student videos. A certificate with a citation of the reasons for excellence, a plaque and cash prizes would be awarded to winning entries in all the four categories. Cash awards would be Rs. 25,000 for the first prize and Rs. 15,000 for second. Besides, a1l entries will receive a certificate of participation. The last date of accepting videos for selection will be November 24, 2000.

Prasar Bharati Reviewed

The committee set up by the Information and Broadcasting ministry for a comprehensive review of Prasar Bharati has submitted its report. Headed by management guru Mn Shunu Sen, the other members of the committee were Mr. N. R. Narayanamurthy, Mn Kiran Karnik, Mr. R. C. Mishra and Mn R. R. Shah.

With regard to the overall aspect of public service broadcasting, the Committee suggested that public-service broadcasting is essential in india, and must be seen as a right of all citizens. It must provide a platform for free discourse and debate, while its content must empower people. In the present context, it is essential to have Prasar Bharati in the role of a public service broadcaster in India. It says that the Prasar Bharati, and its constituents – Doordarshan and All India Radio – must be autonomous and completely free to make their own operational and tactical decisions. It also suggests that the Prasar Bharati must function in cooperation and in collaboration with the Government in crucial areas such as education, health, environment and rural development. An important step by which Prasar Bharati can reinforce its independence would be through financial independence. In the Committee’s view, Prasar Bharati must aim to become self-sufficient within 5 years and not depend on Government financing in the longer term. The committee considers accountability to the public as being a principal aim for any public service broadcaster. To ensure that, the committee recommends an annual review.

Recommendations

* Public Service broadcasting is essential in India, and must be seen as a right for all citizens.

* As it is essential to have a public service broadcaster in India Prasar Bharati, with its constituents – Doordarshan and All India Radio-must function effectively and efficiently to serve the citizens.

* The role and function of Prasar Bharati should be autonomous. It should be accountable to Parliament for its policy and strategy direction while the organization would be responsible for its own operational and tactical decisions.

* The relationship between the government and Prasar Bharati should be of partnership and cooperation; particularly in areas of national interest.

* As a public broadcaster, advertising revenue should not be the only yardstick for judging the performance of Prasar Bharati. Alternative indices – related to audience size and share, programme content and impact, channel reach and loyalty – are more meaningful and must be used. Revenue maximization should be an important goal once the vision and framework of Prasar Bharati are clearly defined.

* The mission of Prasar Bharati is to empower and enlighten the citizens, and audiences outside the country, through original and relevant programmes which informs educate and entertain whilst ensuring a sizable audience and reach.

* Until Prasar Bharati becomes independent of Government financing, budgetary support would be necessary. However, it is recommended that Prasar Bharati target to be financially self sufficient within 5 years.

* Constitution of a Management Council.

* There is need for autonomy, decentralization and devolution of power within Prasar Bharati. There should be a council of operating managers responsible for the business; specifically for content, marketing, commercial operations and, most importantly, the regional networks.

* It is essential to define the television and radio channels, within Prasar Bharati in terms of their positioning in order to ensure the desired content for each audience.

* As a part of decentralization and devolution, it is essential that both AIR and Doordarshan do far more by way of regional and local broadcasting. It would make the regional and local broadcasting more effective in terms of relevance and impact, and enable it to compete with privately owned regional TV channels and local FM stations.

* A thorough look at systems and procedures is essential, not only to reduce bureaucracy but, also, to increase efficiency, innovation, and creativity. It also recommend to make the operating procedures and internal processes to be transparent.

* The committee finds content to be one of the most important asset of a broadcasting organization. It recommends that Prasar Bharati must own the majority (if not all) of its content.

* Marketing has been neglected, in the recent past and needs a major thrust.
Marketing must help to understand the audience for the Prasar Bharati programmes.

* Prasar Bharati needs to move quickly to take full advantage of the full potential and the many possibilities of the New Media such as, the Net, Interactive TV, DTH, digital terrestrial broadcasting and the whole area of media convergence. In order to take advantage of New Media technology and marketing, Prasar Bharati needs to create a New Media division.

* A major change is required to be made in the structure of Prasar Bharati in connection with the transmission of both television and radio signals. The committee recommends that Transmission (infra-structure development, operation and maintenance) must be separated as a profit centre within Prasar Bharati. The transmission business can then, market its considerable capabilities to Prasar Bharati and to private radio and television channels.

* Remuneration of key personnel needs to be urgently re-examined. It has to come out with competitive packages and performance-linked payments that benefit both the individual and the organisation.

Thinking through the Documentary

The present-day documentary is noted with the authorized subjectivity, political content and dramatization of difference, says eminent film theorist and historian, Dr Ravi Vasudevan. He was speaking at the Research and Education Programme of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) in New Delhi on 28th April. While delivering the first in the series of public lectures – Questions, Encounters and Dialogues; Thinking through the Documentary – he felt that the debate on citizenship, state and documentary has changed considerably over the decades, from the formative years of documentary in the 1930′s to the present.

Though the historical relationship between democracy and the documentary dates back to the 30′s, the last 20 years embrace the evolving concerns of the democracy as documentaries began to reflect the rights awareness, citizendom and democratic ethos. Consequently, he argued, the mainstream current after the 70′s, known for its social and political collectedness, often tends to be partisan and uni-polar. It lacks the objective documentation as the facts are presented as the subordinate arguments. And often the spectator is drawn out from a documentary as the movements and problems are interpretive. Hence the nature of the form has the intrinsic element of argument, which Vasudevan criticises for being confined to only those who identify with the treatment of the very conception of the subject.

Citing Anand Patwardhan’s films as the one’s which amply represent the new movement started in ’70s, he substantiates the point where the form synchronizes with the content, which he observes to be the salient feature of the language of the documentaries these days. Vasudevan points out the more recent films like Amar Kanwar’s A Season Outside and Four friends by Rahul Roy as the films keeping in pace with the new understanding in its range of subjectivity and interpretation. Ruchir Joshi’s film on the Bauls is also denoted to be an experiment with the form and the presentation of the text.

Thus the present documentary shoulders the variety of interpretation, subjective confinement and partisan political content which changed the very schematic of the visual communication. But at the same time,it should be stated that the documentaries have developed into a phase where it can accommodate more political and social discourses as a medium of interaction. And precisely where Mr. Ravi Vasudevan’s articulations go handicapped by ignoring the political potential of the powerful medium. The said genre of films have to be placed in a more broader spectrum where it also defines a role of its own in the discourses of the civil society .

The occasion also marked the release of the book, Double Take: Looking at the Documentary edited by the Raqs Media Collective. Chairing the function, one among the Raqs trio, Suddabrata Sen Gupta described the circumstances which eventually turned out to be the first-ever collection of essays which brings together the thoughts and reflections of well known filmmakers, technicians, critics and enthusiasts, to engender a second look at the place and practice of the documentary film in contemporary india. A book with immense of information and fond memoirs, the editors Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula together with Suddabrata could field a galaxy of writers to compile the generally scattered ideas and experiences about film making. (For AMT’S Review of the book, please refer to our April 2000 issue).

While releasing the book the Prasar Bharati Corporation CEO Mr. Shaw spoke about the potential of documentaries and was hopeful of a channel exclusively for documentaries in the future. He also announced the new package for the regional channels of DD to have serials from the vernacular literature, as five fictional works of 10 prominent writers from each language would be serialized for screening in the regional networks. Speaking on the occasion Mr Kiran Karnik, CEO), Discovery, deliberated about the proposed activities of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust as it is modelled to mould the new broadcasting culture in both documentary film making and radio programming. It has many projects in progress which comprises of the planning, production and dissemination of public service broadcasting. It was stated that the Public Service Broadcasting Initiative, a project under PSBT would commission and telecast new half-hour documentary films every week in Prasar Bharati channels. The commissioning of radio programmes are scheduled to begin in the second year.

There are many new initiatives in the field of documentary film making and alternate communication which are in the pipeline. After the period of prolonged isolation and failed mis- sions it seems that the alternative communication networks and independent initiatives are marching towards the limelight by facilitating a new culture in mass communication. Only a democratic and committed communication

system can enhance the democratic experience. The failure of official media in spearheading the liberation of the marginalised masses make an ample space for alternative initiatives to intervene. If like minded people can forge a platform to work together and resist the commercially dictated media interests, such efforts would have a larger impact in popular culture.

A meeting with Arun Jaitley on public service broadcasting

Credibility is the yardstick and challenge for the public broadcasting service, opined Mr. Arun Jaitley, the minister for Information and Broadcasting. While speaking on the occasion of a meeting conducted under the aegis of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust at New Delhi on July 9, he said that public service broadcasting has an additional social service purpose unlike most of the private commercial broadcasters who are market driven in their programming. He is of the opinion that the identity of the public broadcaster has not been defined properly in the matter of market feasibility and feels that it has to proceed in a middle path where commercial and non-commercial Programmes co-exist. Of the 70 million television viewers, he said, the private broadcasters cater only 30 million and the rest is taken care of Doordarshan, and hence, the public broadcaster cannot ignore the right of the majority to have entertainment. The essential revenue is also generated from the commercials only, he continued.

Mr Jaitley criticised the manner in which the debates were held in 1997 as ‘the real advantages were not discussed and the political process landed up in controversy. He said that the three important aspects of public broadcasting are the credibility of the programmes, a strong national perspective, and the space for cultural aspirations of regional identities.

The public broadcaster has limited options between being funded by the government and to be driven by the market. So, to survive in the thin line of management, citing the recommendations of the Prasar Bharati Review committee headed by Mr. Shunu Sen, Mr. Jaitley said that there are three suggestions in the air. The options are; the increase in the revenue earning potential of the entertainment programmes, the institution of a license fee and to facilitate the shortages through governmental grants.

Speaking on the issue of autonomy the two important aspects he observed were of the governance and accountability of the public broadcaster. Considering the various options practiced abroad, the minister said that, the institutions can bring out periodic public reports on the grievances or can have programmes where the executives can be queried directly. He vaguely added to the much debated issue’ that the ‘accountability can also be to Parliament’.

The minister finds optimistic that the regional and FM transmissions of the radio would de-centralism the communication. He said that the radio has a vital social role to fulfill as it reaches the majority of the people in the remotest of the areas, where no other system of communication reach effectively. But later, when he was asked about the possibility of permitting the much acclaimed Community Radio, he said that the government has no plans to introduce it.

Since the debates on the autonomy of public broadcasting were petered out with the BJP assuming power, it was held important that the minister for Information and Broadcasting is available to discuss the matters of public broadcasting with an enthused body of people who are related to the issue one way or other. But the event turned out to be less insightful as the minister had very little to offer, other than his willingness to address the matter. The major controversies remain unanswered. Especially, when there are no institutional mechanisms to monitor the routine functioning. If the business component is as or more important than the quality of the programme as he says, what is the safeguard of the public service which he is vocally advocating? Whether the public media would remain as the government media with a competitive marketism.

Where is the very idea of autonomy which initiated the debates of Prasar Bharati? The minister seemed to be aware of the deeper issues confronting the institution, but kept contentious matters aside by saying that the ‘attitudes’ and ‘precedents’ make the institution grow. At this point one can only hope that the attitudes and precedents are set in the correct direction.

Books/Publications

Two Publications of CCCA

Towards Alternative Media

By Sanjiv Sarkar – Rs. 15/=

Glimpses of Eastern Himalayan Culture

Papers by eminent scholars – Rs. 60/=

CCCA
49E Palm Avenue,
Calcutta-700019

Double Take: Looking at the Documentary

Edited by Raqs Media Collective, New Delhi

Published by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)in collaboration with Foundation for Universal Responsibility of HH the Dalai Lama
134 pages, paperback
Price:Rs. 250 (India), USD 10 (International)

Double Take is a first-ever collection of essays, which brings together the thoughts and reflections of well-known film makers technicians, critics and enthusiasts to engender a second look at the place and practice of the documentary film in contemporary India. It contains useful information that every documentary film maker should have access to.

for copies, contact
Public Service Broadcasting Trust
A 86 Nizamuddin East, New Delhi 110013
Website: www.psbt.org

The River and Life

Sanjay Sangvai

At the threshold of the new millennium, a number of people’s movements have been challenging the present, inherently destructive modes of ‘development’. Theirs is a non-violent mass struggle based on conscientious civil resistance. One such major, popular movement in post-independence India – the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) – has brought into focus serious issues regarding the paradigm and planning of ‘development projects’.

This book, by Sanjay Sangvai, a full-time activist of the Andolan since 1989, attempts to provide an outline of the historical background, core issues and formative processes of this multi-pronged and tenacious people’s movement in the Third World. It is an empathetic and honest portrayal of the efforts of a movement in a complex context, depicting the larger canvas in which it has been operating.

The book is expected to be out by mid-July, 2000 and priced at Rs 150 (within lndia) and US$12 (outside India).

For details, contact:
Earthcare Books/classic Books.
10 Middleton Street, Calcutta 700 071
e-mail: earthcarebooks @ vsnl.com

or Sanjay Sangvai: sanjay@narmada.org

History As It Happened

Selected articles from MONTHLY REVIEW, 1949-1998
Compiled by Bobby S. Ortiz & Tilak D. Gupta
Contributors: * Albert Einstein @ Leo Huberman * Paul M. Sweezy * Che Guevara * Noam Chomsky * Harry Braverman * Harry Magdoff * Dirk J. Struik * Samir Amin * John Bellamy Foster * Margaret Benston * Kathleen Gough * Paul A. Baran * John Saul & Others.

[Pages: 300, Rs. 150 (Paper Back), Rs. 200 (Hard Bound)]

Capitalism at the End of the Milennium

A Global Survey
MONTHLY REVIEW JUL-AUG, 1999 SPECIAL ISSUE

Contents: * Unhappy Families’. Global Capitalism in a world of Nation States by Ellen Meiksins Wood * Sub-saharan Africa in Global Capitalism by John S. Saul & Colin Leys * Latin America at the end of the Millennium by James Petras & Henry Veltmeyer * Capitalism in Asia at the end of the Millenium by Prabhat Patnaik * The End of the Japanese Postwar System by William Tabb * Russian Capitalism Today by Stanislav Menshikov * European Capitalism Today’: Between the Euro and the Third Way by Greg Aibo & Alan Zuege * Booming, Borrowing and Consuming’:The US Economy in 1999 by Doug Henwood * The Present as History:Thoughts on Capitalism at the Millennium by David McNally
(Pages:160., Rs. 70)

The Vulnerable Planet

A Short Economic History of the Environment
John Bellamy Foster

The Ecological Crisis * Ecological Conditions Before the Industrial Revolution @ The Environment at the time of the Industrial Revolution * Expansion and Conservation * Imperialism and Ecology * The Vulnerable Planet * The Socialization of Nature (Pages 160, Rs. 90)

Hungry for Profit

MONTHLY REVIEW JUL-AUG, 1998 Special Issue on Agriculture, Food and Ecology

Contents: * Introduction by Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and J Frederick H. Buttel * The Agrarian Origins of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood * Liebig, Marx and the Depletion of Soil Fertility: Relevance for Today’s Agriculture by John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff * Agriculture and Monopoly Capital by William D. Heffernan * Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming by Miguel A. Altieri * The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian by R. C. Lewontin * New Agricultural Biotechnologies: The Struggle for Democratic Choice by Gerad Middendorf, Mike Skladany, Elizabeth Ransom and Lawrence Busch * Global Food Politics by Phillip McMichael * Rebuilding Local Food Systems from the Grassroots Up by Elizabeth Henderson * Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger to Inequality by Janet Poppendieck * Alternative Agricultural Works: The Case of Cuba by Peter M. Rosset * The Importance of Land Reform in the Reconstruction of China by William Hinton
(Pages 160., Rs. 70)

Post Revolution Society

Essays by Paul M. Sweezy
[Pages 160., Rs. 100 (Hard Bound)]

Postage Free for all Orders

Annual Subscription to MONTHLY REVIEW:
Rs. 265 (Individual), Rs. 465 (Library)
All payments by MO/DD only, payable to CORNER STONE PUBLICATIONS, PO:Hijli co-operative, Kharagpur – 721306,WB

Giving voice to the unheard

2000-01 National Foundation Media Fellowships

FOR CONCERNED YOUNG JOURNALISTS AND PHOTOJOURNALISTS

The National Foundation for India (NFI), has a programme for young (up to 40 Years), mid-career (5-7 years experience) and sensitive journalists to enable them to take time off from their routine occupation, to research and publish articles/photo-essays on issues of importance to ordinary Indians, their battle for a better life and covering diverse aspects of development-related issues. NFI encourages proposals with focus on Gender Equity & Justice.

The Foundation offers five fellowships of Rs. 1,00,000/- each. One Fellowship will be awarded to a photojournalist. The last date for receipt of applications is 25th August,2000. Results will be announced in November 2000.

For details contact:
Programme Officer – Media Fellowships Programme
National Foundation for India, Zone IVA, Upper
Ground Floor, india Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New
Delhi 110003. Fax: +91 11 464 1867,
e-mail: kala@nfi.ren.nic.in

Travelling Film South Asia

From 15 to 18 May, the Travelling Film South Asia showed in Delhi at the India International Centre. Fifteen films, selected from the entries at the Film South Asia, were shown. Kanak Mani Dixit’ the editor of Himal magazine, introduced the event.

In his introduction Kanak Dixit elaborated that the reasons for the Travelling Film SouthAsia (TFSA) was to extend the Film South Asia festival, which is a biannual event held at Kathmandu, beyond its geographic location. The medium of the documentary,he said, was extremely suitable for exchange Of news, views and concerns amongst citizens of South Asia, who are close to each other geographically and culturally and yet political environment inhibits dialogue. To make his point he asked the Delhi audience whether they knew that the famous Pakistani Sufi singer, Pathane Khan, had recently died?

Five documentaries from this list had won awards and special mention from the Jury at the FSA. But the travelling festival provided much more than the awards winners. In their entirety, the package of documentaries represented nearly totally the entire gamut of documentary genres, forms and types. We spoke to Kanak Mani Dixit, the man behind the FSA.

Why does a magazine organize a film festival?

Himal magazine has been publishing since 1987 as what I call a serious journal, which means that we try to go into issues in depth. We take a cover story and try to look at all aspects of it, unlike news magazine journalism, which to begin with, starts off reacting to some news event, and then packages it for a mass based audience. We are not an academic journal, because academic journals by discipline also go across the entire spectrum of topics in one issue. I feel our kind of journalism is closest to documentary. So, the documentary is a sibling discipline for serious journals.

That is why, while we were still a Himalayan magazine, in 1994 we thought about a documentary film festival on the Himalayan region. It was fun to do, but very unsatisfying – it became more of a clinical analysis of how the Himalaya is depicted by documentary film makers making films exclusively for the West. You saw holes in the presentation which the Western audience would never see. Films that bombed in our festival were the one’s that got awards in the West. It was a good exercise, but we did not want to do that kind of festival again.

When Himal magazine converted into a South Asian magazine in 1996, the urge again came to do a documentary festival because the pool was so much wider. We were sure to find documentary films made for South Asian audience, which meant we could appreciate them and see what is lacking in the entire discipline. That’s how in 1997 September we did the first FSA in Kathmandu. Then, with some amount of pleasantness, we realized that it was the first ever festival of South Asian documentaries which brought together film makers from all over. That’s how it began.

Why did you take the decision to make it travel?

Oh! Its simple. We felt that now that the technology is so simple to export a film festival beyond its parent festival, why limit it to a Kathmandu audience? It seemed an obvious choice to ask other regions to carry it. But you can’t take fifty odd films – the logistics of organizing a full-fledged festival everywhere becomes horrendous. In the end, to the extent that one would displease some of the film makers who were not chosen, we selected fifteen films to travel. The first time, I think we went to 36 venues in South Asia, all over North America and parts of western Europe. So, it was simple a choice: it was wanting to share the films with a larger audience than the festival audience in Kathmandu. And also to be able to give them something more distilled.

When you send these films out, do you go with them?

It’s not possible and that’s the beauty of it. Like the other day somebody asked me,”where are the film makers?” I said, ”this is not that type of a festival. This is a very ‘light on it’s feet’ festival,where it is content more than form; see the film and forget whether the film maker is here or not. Look at the film, do you like it? Do you not? it’s meant for you to see.” I would hope for festivals where no film maker attends – that’s actually what it is meant to be – documentary films shown to an audience that is meant to appreciate that film for what it is.

These films are available and can go anywhere they are demanded. We have evolved a formula. Because documentary films do have an audience in the West, with the agreement of the film makers we said films can go free to any South Asian venue as long as you take the responsibility and convince us that you have the ability to draw an audiences that you can do the publicity required to draw that audience, and you’ve got proper exhibition facilities. After that, with the magnanimity of the film makers themselves, who’ve agreed, we send the films for free. We subsidize our activities in doing this because whenever we go to a Western venue we are charging $600.00 per venue. It makes it feasible for them also, it makes it feasible for college departments to get it. Because frankly, we are not into it for the money. As long as that subsidizes us here – that’s all we need.

Are you saying that all the venues you’ve gone to now in India, or in South Asia, there were people who asked you for the films?

That’s the beauty of it. They ask us for it. We take full advantage of the fact that internet and e-mail make it possible now to communicate easier. So, we announce at the festival. lf anybody wants it just let us know and we’ll despatch it to them. It’s as simple as that. All we need is the intimation that you have the ability.

I think the satisfaction in it is that in this large subcontinent, there are too many people who are not accessing information, although the technology is becoming easier to handle. This gap between the increasing ease, and lowering cost of technology has to be matched by the response from those who are engaged in films, including in the exhibition of films, to be more sharp on the uptake.

Approaching the Documentary

A report on the first PSBT Film Appreciation Workshop

The 1st PSBT Film Appreciation Workshop: ‘Approaching the Documentary’ was held recently as a part of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust’s ‘Screen Culture’ Programme. 26 participants from diverse backgrounds attended the workshop for 6 intensive days. There were 10 tutors from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad drawn from all areas of film making (research, direction, camera, sound, editing, production and distribution). The tutors also presented 6 evenings of iterated screenings. The workshop was co-ordinated by the Raqs Media Collective, New Delhi.

The participants were a mixed group of varying degrees of technical skill, different interests and a diversity of aesthetic approaches created a rich and stimulating context for discussions and Interactions. The screenings that were worked into the sessions, as well as in the evenings ranged from the objective, activist, to the self-reflexive and personal films.

The workshop began with an introduction to PSBT and it’s vision of Public Service Broadcasting by Rajiv Mehrotra, (Secretary, PSBT). Then Jeebesh Bagchi (Raqs) outlined the de sign and aims of the workshop and briefly introduced the various areas to be covered, which was followed by a presentation on research for the documentary by Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs). The presentation initiated a discussion on issues pertaining to the pro- filmic and conceptual frameworks necessary for documentary film making. The merits of scripted versus non- scripted documentaries were debated; the motivations behind documentary film making, as well as the differences and similarities between documentary film, news and investigative reportage were examined.

Pramod Mathur (film maker, Delhi) while making a presentation on international production standards outlined his vision of the need for ‘objectivity’ in film making with examples from his own films. The discussion that followed the session focused on the debate between ‘objectivity’ and the need for ‘subjective expression’ and issues connected to the film maker’s presence in the film. Rahul Roy, who presented later, focussed on interacting with the subjects in a film. Rahul also showed excerpts from his recent work, leading to a lively discussion of the relationships of trust that need to develop between film makers and subjects. He also spoke about how evolving perspectives led to the search for different formal approaches.

The second day began with a presentation by Shabnam Virmani (Drishti Media Collective, Ahmedabad) on her approach to activist film making. She spoke of how she has had to search for way of presenting pressing social concerns and highlighting activism through film without turning her subjects into ‘victims’ or ‘heroines’. She also discussed the place of ‘re-enactment’ within the documentary film. This led to an animated discussion on the truth claims of the documentary, poetic versus expository modes, the ethics of re-enactment and representation, and the complex matrix of social realities and motivations that the film maker involved in activism has to encounter. It was followed with Ranjani Mazumdar, film scholar and film maker (Mediastorm Collective) making a presentation on formal strategies for the documentary film. She traced the history of documentary films with excerpts form various periods and genres. She also situated the practices of documentary film making within the framework of the archival and mythological impulses of modernity. She offered a framework of looking at film making in terms of ‘expository’, ‘objective’, and personal/self-reflexive’ forms. She talked of the difficulties and formal problems faced by a film maker when working towards a self-reflexive form, with examples and instances from her own work. The presentation initiated a discussion on issues related to self-reflexivity, ethical dilemmas faced by film makers, and the politics of representation itself.

The third day started with a practical orientation to different technical aspects of Documentary film making. A day devoted to sound, the veteran documentary sound-recordist and sound-designer Uma Shankar took the sessions. Focusing on thinking about the role played by sound in the perception and representation of reality, he gave a great deal of attention to elucidating the differences between hearing and the other senses. He also demonstrated the different properties of different microphones and the conditions in which they are best used, and talked of the distinctive human qualities of attentiveness and patience that the documentary sound recordist must learn to develop. Uma Shankar showed examples of his own work and asked the participants to pay particular attention to the way in which the paucity of resources for recording had led to the working out of ingenious and improvised recording solutions. In the afternoon the participants were made to record their voices, and Uma Shankar demonstrated how the human voice and sound in general could be filtered and treated. This led him to discuss in depth the ethical dilemmas of reconstructing soundtracks through digital manipulation.

The next day marked Paresh Kamdar’s (film maker and editor, Mumbai) a day-long session on editing. The participants were shown many excerpts from films, and told about different approaches to selection and juxtaposition of the materials of the film and about the relationship between the editor and the director. Parish also talked about how editing tends to reflect and echo natural and physiological rhythm that we are accustomed to. He laid particular emphasis on the editor’s creative contribution in playing with the anticipations and expectations of the audience. He also elaborated on the possibility of arriving at different sets of meanings and emotional responses, just by editing the same shots in different patterns. Then the participants did an exercise of looking at the opening section of a documentary with its sound turned off. They were asked to imagine a soundtrack for the film. The wide variety of responses, led to a stimulating discussion on the relation between the aural and the visual materials in a film and the editor’s contribution at arriving at a convincing aesthetic balance between the different elements in a film. In the afternoon, the participants

were shown fragments of raw footage and asked to construct paper edits on their own. This was a very interesting exercise as it gave rise to a large number of possible combinations of the same material, which also led to an interesting discussion on the diversity of forms available to the film maker.

On the fifth day, R. V. Ramani, an innovative cinematographer and film maker from Chennai, took the sessions on camera work. Ramani began his sessions by demonstrating the different possibilities of shots and camera movements. He briefly outlined the different camera and tape/film formats and the different contexts in which they are used. He then invited each of the participants to take turns at taking shots and handling the camera. This led to a lively interaction between the participants and Ramani about the various visual and cinematic connotations of different kinds of camera movements. He then made the participants to think about the various ways in which the camera frames the field of vision. He also asked them to think of three different shots (with the same focal length) and work on a structure linking them together, from the ambience available to them in the workshop space. This led to an interesting exploration of different possibilities of shot construction and juxtaposition by the participants. The shots and image ideas that the participants came up with were discussed threadbare, and by doing this participants were sensitized to the crucial role that framing plays in constructing sequences in film. With examples from his own work, Ramani also pointed out how the cinematographer’s vision is able to play with the unpredictability of the realities unfolding before the lens. Finally, the participants together with Ramani improvised and shot a short film that came as a very fitting end to a long and stimulating day.

On the morning session of the last day Sanjay Kak, (film maker, Delhi) spoke about how the documentary film maker has often to work in cultural and social contexts that are alien to him/her. This led to an interesting discussion on the ‘insider/outsider’ status of the documentary film maker vis-à-vis his subjects. Many of the participants were able to discuss the film at length with the help of concepts and ideas that they had been exposed to during the course of the last few days. They also analysed the rhetoric and formal structure of the film in great detail. Following a recap in the afternoon session, the participants had a discussion and question and answer session with Gargi Sen, film maker and editor of Alternative Media Times. The discussion ranged from the problems which are faced by documentary film makers, the institutional support and pressures, to the role of the social sector and public broadcasters.

In conclusion,one of the participants said, ‘I have been to other film appreciation workshops before, but after I finished those, I would think that the distance between me and cinema has actually increased. At the end of these workshop interactions, I feel that film making is something I can touch, something I can think about and something that is not distant from my own life today.” It precisely sums up how the workshop fared.

- Suddhabrata Sengupta

Women in Journalism: Making News, a book by Ammu Joseph

The last decade of the millennium has been an eventful one for the media in india. The spurt in the number and visibility of indian media women is but one of several significant developments here during this period. However, it is an interesting and complex phenomenon which deserves closer scrutiny than it has received so far.

Women in Journalism: Making News by Ammu Joseph provides an overview of the situations experiences and perspectives of women working as journalists in different parts of the country, in the English as well as Indian language press, at various levels in the editorial hierarchy, and in different branches of journalism.

Based on the responses of more than 200 women to a wide range of questions, the book explores the world of journalism in india through the eyes of women situated at different vantage points in the profession. It examines where female media professionals are currently placed in the print media, what they are and are not doing, why they think this is the case, what they feel about the situation, and how they view the profession as a whole as well as their own role in it.

The Author is a freelance journalist and media researcher and analyst, now based in Bangalore. ”The book is not meant to be a who’s who of Indian women in journalism but, rather, an exploration of the world of Indian journalism through the eyes of women situated at different vantage points in the profession” says Ammu Joseph.

Published under the auspices of The Media Foundation, Delhi, by Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd., the book will be of interest and use to a wide range of readers, including journalists, media owners and managers, students and teachers of journalism, media studies and gender studies, as well as the general public in the role of media consumers or watchers.

The Friday Balcao

The Goa DESC, an activist group based in Mapusa, Goa, believes that information is power and it must be shared equitably; that as a concerned citizen of Goa there is a need to be aware of the issues affecting Goa and its people in order to be informed of the reality, what is reported in the media and what can be done to bring about a change so that Goa, the country and the globe become less oppressive, more environmentally friendly and developmentally sustainable.

With this in mind, the Goa DESC organists the Friday Balcao, every fortnight in order to create the space for concerned citizens, volunteers, sympathizers and activists to know more and to network better. Usually a guest speaker is invited to present a talk on a certain issue, after which the proceedings are opened to the floor. According to the organizers, ”the Friday Balcao is a space to listen, discuses chat,agree to disagree, but most of all to get our act together.”

For more information, contact: Goa DESC Resource
Centre, 11 Liberty Apts. , Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403507,
e–mail: elinks @goa1.dot.net.in

Global Media

Report on the State of Journalists in Pakistan

”It is a pity that Pakistani journalists are facing financial problems that affect their ability to serve the country and its 130 million people. They must break free from their own economic shackles before they make any attempt to rid their countrymen of oppression, corruption and injustice. They need to co-ordinate with one another before taking on the forces of oppressors,” says a new report on working conditions of Pakistani journalists from the Journalists Resource Center (JRC), a Lahore, Pakistan-based organization.

The survey report samples about 4,500 Pakistani journalists. It has been prepared by Tahir Malik,who is a reporter with daily Nawa-i-Waqt, Lahore. The report reveals many startling facts about the state of journalism in Pakistan. For example, all rural journalists (district correspondents), except only three in whole of Pakistan, provide coverage to 70% population of the country and work on a voluntary basis. About 66% journalists, covering the 30% urban population, work without the umbrella of the Wage Award and proper salary structures. In gender terms, about 94% of the urban journalists are men. Though all international journalistic standards emphasize that there can be no press freedom if journalists exist in conditions of corruption, poverty, or fear, only about 44% of the salaried journalists earn between 5,000 and 8,000 rupees per month in Pakistan, while 15% earn over 8,000rupees. The survey of Pakistani communicators still ironically reveals that only 3% of the urban journalists have facilities of E-Mail, that too mostly on their own initiative rather than their employers.

The report recommends that the government,newspaper owners and journalists should sit together to form a new Wage Award which should be implemented in letter and spirit. It calls for establishing a service structure devised for both urban as well as rural journalists; mandatory recruitment policy; integrating the government advertisements to the effective implementation of the Wage Award; fixation of a reasonable minimum salary limit; insurance of health; and sanctioning of soft-term loans to journalists. It also states that the journalists should organize themselves and form forums on a self-help basis to ensure professional training and legal advisory service to newspersons. The survey report is the first of its kind with quantifiable data on the working conditions of journalists in Pakistan. It was released on 13 May, 2000, the national Press Freedom Day in Pakistan.

For Information, contact:
Hussain Sajjad, Program Coordinator, Journalists Resource Centre (JRC),
Suite 15, 5th Floor Davis Hytes, Sir Agha Khan Road, Lahore Pakistan.
e-mail: jrc@syberwurx.com,
Website: syberwurx.com/jrc

- Source: South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch (SACW)

Major Press censorship in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan government has made press censorship stringent after the civil war between the Sri Lankan go element and the LTTE intensified in an unprecedented manner. It is widely said that the LTTE advances in the war front of northern peninsula provoked the government to impose the draconian regulations to press freedom. Though the President reiterated that the government has no intention to suppress the people of the country than to protect them ”during a period of national crisis,” the prevailing state of affairs explains nothing but an internal emergency.

Local journalists were subjected to censorship from 1998 June, while the international media could perform its functions without any legal impediments. But as per the special ordinance on May 4th, under the provision of the Public Security Act, all the international news agencies and the foreign correspondents in Sri Lanka has to submit their reports to the censor. Moreover, the ordinance provide the provision to enforce the regulations in a stringent manner that it empowers the government to arrest the journalists, confiscate their property, block the printing and the distribution of the newspapers etc.

The decision to impose the censorship drawn protests from various sections include editors, publishers, human rights activists across the world. On a representation made to the Sri Lankan President Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunge they urged the government to withdraw the censorship. ”Every time the war has taken a turn for the worse, the president has imposed censorship, but this seems to be the most draconian attempt to suppress news of the conflict,” Kavita Menon of the Committee to Protect Journalists said to the Washington Post in New York.

Meanwhile, on June 5th the Sri Lankan government had lifted the censorship on the foreign media. But the censorship on the local media continued as it used to be. The PTl reported that the decision to ease the regulations comes after the army halted the LTTE offensive. It was also attributed to the mounting international pressure from media organizations and other pressure groups. Again, on 4th of July the government has come out with a new set of restrictions and the Competent Authority – the government censor instructed the media to undergo self restrain in publishing the war reports in the larger interests of the nation.

The SEU Times on the Net

The SEU Times – the Monthly Newsletter of the Socio-Ecological Union – appears with ”News from the Russian Environment” in The Online Gadfly.

It is perhaps the only English language version of The SEU Times available on the internet and an important source of news and opinion from the community of environmental activists in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

The Socio-Ecological Union is a federation of 300 environmental NGOs from nineteen countries, with most member organizations from within the former Soviet Union.

To log on,visit
www.igc.org/gadfly

Death of Narrative – The 46th Oberhausen

Oberhausen, a small town in the north western border of Germany. A tiny but prosperous town with around dozen taxis, tram routes, a large shopping mall and thirteen churches. Not a motorist spot, no monument worth mentioning. But any film enthusiast across the world will respond to the name Oberhausen. This town has been holding one of the oldest and prestigious international short film festivals.

The festival held from 4 – 10th May this year was in its 46th year. And one found a full house audience on a weekday afternoon or a Saturday evening purchasing tickets for short films made in all possible languages. The dedication and persuasion of holding a non- commercial/non-feature film festival in the same venue for 46 years has finally brought out this bonanza. Has anybody said that non-feature film has no audience?

The international competition section had 68 films: 10 from USA, 10 from UK, 5 from Asia, 2 from Africa and the rest from different parts of Europe. Should we call this an evidence of Euro-centricism! No film from Iran, China and only one each from Japan, Israel and India. Maybe it is accidental… the Oberhausen festival team deserves a benefit of doubt.

Oberhausen, most probably, is the only festival in which films of any form, format and duration compete with each other under one single category. The only criteria is that the duration should not exceed 40 minutes. Hence a 35mm fiction will be pitted back to back with a 45 seconds video spot. One of the many Avant garde elements in the half century old festival of Oberhausen.

This basic characteristic makes the festival very attractive to young filmmakers. A good percentage of the films screened are students’ work and works of debutante filmmakers. Lots of energy, radical experimentation, sensational attempts to break the barrier of classical images. The computer layering of images, the restlessness against convention of story telling, has brought a sea change on screen – full of unpredictability, and hence, possibility and energy. But alas! More the images are getting layered and complex – more is the narrative reducing to simple one-liner. A death of narrative – is that the signal to derive? Or maybe we are yet to realign our thinking in order to respond to the celebrated young art. Well, I am game.

The festival itself is precise, well orchestrated and highly motivated to film making. It is yet a dream for film- makers in india to be able to speak at length about his/her work/motivation after the screening in a dialogue with audience. There are not only well attended, well organised such meetings after each screening, the meetings are co-ordinated by film journalists and scholars equipped with extensive home work. Each post-screening discussion is co-ordinated by people who have watched each film multiple no. of times in order to facilitate such discussion. Besides providing ample time and opportunity to filmmakers, language assistance is given to each foreign filmmaker. Film festival belongs to filmmakers and not to organisers/ bureaucrats: a simple fact which is completely ignored in our context.

As one was getting duly impressed by the festival and getting depressed over our non-existent stature back home, came Sunday, 7th May, screening of ‘Sundari : An Actor Pre- pares’. A film I made last year based on a play directed by Anuradha Kapur. Jayashankar Sundari, the legendary female impersonator of Gujarati theatre in the early 20th century had left an autobiography. As a text, an autobiography of a female impersonator is not only rare in world literature but also poses several challenges. This text caught the attention of noted theatre director Anuradha Kapur who mounted a contemporary play around it in 1998. The play probes into the making of a performing body in the general context of theatre and gender discourse.

The project brought eminent painters like Bhupen Khakkar and Nilima Sheikh to an active collaboration with the theatre world. As the play progressed in preparation through Jayshankar’s text to Anuradha’s actors to the painters’ brushes, the project developed into a major exploration of gender construction through multiple disciplines. It was too tempting to resist and the cameraman Mukul Kishore and I reached the rehearsal room with a small DV camera. It was not easy. Theatre actors and painters are extremely sensitive to the sanctity of their space. The camera had to be unobtrusive, a presence but almost invisible. Record the vulnerability but not the insecurity. Will theatre loose its immediacy while presented on screen? Isn’t acting style, required for an intimate video camera different from that of a large proscenium theatre? What is documentation? At which point can we intervene as a film unit?

Well, after two years when the film was presented to a predominantly European audience in Oberhausen all these concerns seemed obscure. A large number of the audience has never seen a drape called saree. Will they respond to the scene of saree being draped around a macho male body? Is gender discourse really that universal? Will they get all the nuances involved with the word ‘Sundari’, an adjective, at times a pronoun, sometimes a counter point and, a take off in yet another? Have we actually managed to communicate all these complexities through the subtitles? Will Germans really be able to follow the English subtitles? Also, with the increasing prominence of the category of gay films evolved within Western ethos, where will Sundari… be placed? Will all the nuances be ignored in order to slot it within a category?

Sitting in Oberhausen it looks like a completely different film. Who says only the text of live performing arts change with the context of the audience! Cinema is not beyond it too.

- Madhushree Dutta

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A festival to celebrate a language – The Medias Nord-Sud

Festival Medias Nord-Sud (North-South Media Festival) is a film festival dedicated to developing an interaction between media practitioners from the northern countries with those from the south, by looking at emerging issues from the South that impact the general understanding of the South in the North, especially in northern media. It showcases films that deal with issues that concern such understanding. Co-ordinated by Swiss Television, TSR (Television Swiss Romande), Nord-Sud is an annual event held in Geneva, Switzerland, and brings together film makers from many different countries and continents.

The festival has two main areas of competition – television and independent productions, with a few modest prizes in each. In addition, the festival also holds daily seminars, workshops and events around issues of development that effect the North and the ‘ South.

Each year the festival earmarks some funds to enable film makers from the South, whose films have been selected for competition, to participate in the festival. The participants are selected from both television and independent sectors.

This year the festival was held between 10-15 April. Immediately preceding the film festival was a journalists seminar in the same venue, that addressed the issue of representation of issues, especially southern ones in northern media. Nearly 45 films in each category, i.e. television and independent, were selected for the awards.

One word of caution, the entire festival was in French, starting from the welcome speeches to the seminars and workshops. While most people could speak English, there was no effort to provide translation for people from the South who did not speak French. In fact, the Festival is so energetically French that there is a special award, from the OIF (Organisation Internationals de la Francophonie – lnternational Organization of French speakers) to the best French language programme from an OIF member country!

The festival was very well organised and showed some wonderful documentaries in both the categories. However, a large number of the documentaries were in French without English sub-titles. (Participants from former French and Belgian colonies in Africa were present in large numbers and some were kind enough to translate some details of what was happening for a hopeless Anglophone.)

The over-arching need to boost the French language became clearer with the awards. Other than a co-prize (in the Independent category the runners up prize was shared between 3 films) in the runners up, all awards went to French films.

While the hostility between Frnachophones and Anglophobes have historical roots, and while one has general sympathies for the marginalisation of the French language, especially after the emergence of the US as a superpower, it is quite unfortunate to get caught up in this war from a southern country. Maybe the time has come to push our languages into the international scenario. Perhaps, the demand now should be to include languages like Tamil, Bengali, Hindi in the United Nations and the international arena!

Publications

Working for Life: Source book on Occupational Health for Women

by Melody Kemp
8.5 x 11 inches, bookpaper, spiral binding,
319 pages,
Price (Asian countries: USD 27.00
Published by Isis International

Working for Life provides an Introduction to some of the complexities of the issue of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). Some of the topics discussed in the book include OHS regulations, occupational issues of specific interest to women, industry based hazards and personal protection and hygiene at work.

To place orders, contact
Isis International – Manila
Marunong St., Bgy. Central, 1 100 Quezon City,
Philippines
e-mail:isis @isiswomen.org
fax.. (632) 924 1065

Festivals

Religion Today – ”The Cinematic View”

A film festival Religion Today – The Cinematic View” will take place between 8- 15 October 2000. The awards will be decided from an international competition held in Navenna, Jerusalem, Bologna and Trento.

For regulations and entry-form for the competition look for information on the following web-sites: www.unimondo.org/ religiontoday or http://space.tin.it/io/liagi
Religion Today – The Cinematic View,
BIANCONERO, via Grazioli 63,
38100 Trento, Italia
e-mail: religiontoday@hotmail.com

Amnesty International Film Festival – Change of dates

Due to organizational reasons the dates for the fourth edition of the Amnesty International Film have been changed. The Festival will now run from March 28, through April 1 , 2001 . The venue remains the same: theatre De Balie and Paths City Theatre, right in the heart of Amsterdam.

A core theme in the coming festival is the ‘Ban on Torture’. This connects with Amnesty International’s worldwide campaign against torture, which sets off on October 18, 2000.

For more information. and entry forms visit website:

http://www.amnesty.nl/filmfestival

Chingari Video Fest

South Asian Video Festival

October 13 – 14, 2000

Chingari Forum announces the Fourth Annual Chingari South Asian Video Festival at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Chingari VideoFest 2000 coincides with the Annual Conference on South Asia organized by UW- Madison Center for South Asia. The VideoFest provides an opportunity for independent filmmakers to showcase their work during this international conference.

Documentary works related to South Asia and its diaspora are invited. Chingari seeks politically progressive projects that deal with such issues as labor movements’, social justice movements ; religious fundamentalism ; economic globalization and market

fundamentalism and its impact on the poor’, patriarchy and gender politics’, the location and construction of social identities’, lesbian, gay, and bisexual struggles’, racism’, political and economic human rights’ and environmental degradation.

Deadline:September 15, 2000

Center for South Asia
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Attn.. Brendan LaRocque
203 Ingraham Hall. 1 155 Observatory Drive,
Madison. Wisconsin 53706, USA
e-mail: chingari@mail.studentorg.wisc.edu

Initiatives

The PSBT initiative

A consistent demand, repeated over the years, has been for a creation of public service in the realm of broadcast, i.e broadcast that services the public domain. That some kind of public access and public service is necessary cannot be denied especially today when media is increasingly shaping the way we dream,what and how much we know, and what we think.

While the national broadcaster has taken on the task of public broadcast, it has not quite provided public service. store often than not it has been used as a propaganda ma chine of the party in power. Nevertheless, if public service broadcast has to be conceptualized, designed and created, the national broadcaster has a role. Not only because it uses public money, but because it has a national reach.

Similarly, citizen’s fora have to be involved in planning, designing and creating public service broadcasting. Not only because they are effected by the process of communication and broadcast, but because, along with rights, they also have a responsibility to ensure that the realm of broadcast includes public service.

One step towards that direction is the initiative visualized by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT). PSBT is a confluence of a few concerned film makers and enthusiasts. Headed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the PSBT has Mrinal Sen, Sharmila Tagore, Aruna Vasudev, Kiran Karnik and Rajiv Meherotra on its board. The chief executive, Prasar Bharati Corporation, is a special invitee to the board. The initiative, acronymed PSBI, is a project of the PSBT.

The initiative provides a platform for the Prasar Bharati and concerned citizens, mostly film makers, to work together to develop a public service broadcast process, method and culture. The initiative envisages an equal partnership with the national broadcaster. Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the chairman of the board, introduces the initiative with the following lines ”it is the realization of a bold and imaginative promise to the people of india; a promise from the community of image makers to the people of this country to cremate a body of images, that reflects the wealth of experiences, traditions and cultures that we are heir to.” The Prasar Bharati, too, seems equally responsive and enthusiastic. Says the CE, Rajiv Ratan Shah ”We at Prasar Bharati, in keeping with our commitment to bring to the indian people, a public broadcasting culture of the highest standards, are delighted to collaborate with the PSBT in bringing this programme to fruition.”

In practical terms,there is a commitment from the Prasar Bharati to telecast 52 half hour documentaries on prime time each year for three years, The Prasar Bharati will provide 50% of the funding and the PSBT will match it with 50% raised from private sources. The PSBI has already located matching funding for the first phase of 52 half hours. From this second year PSBI will also include Radio programmes.

Simultaneously the PSBT is evolving a set of guide-lines, structures and ‘good practice’ norms, so that the partnership can evolve, function in a manner that is transparent and reflect, as well as give expression to community agendas. Their mandate is as follows-

PSBI is committed to the principles of:

AUTONOMY – commitment to free expression, and safe guarding against direct political or commercial interests dictating terms of reference.

PLURALITY – commitment to the expression of diverse and contending ideas, values and opinion, both in style and content.

ACCESS – to the concerns and agendas of the community with a commitment to the expansion of the production base of the PSBI and resolutely guarding against monopolization.

TRANSPARENCY – commitment to making available in the public domain all decisions, accounts and financial processes of the PSBI, as well as to creating procedures that are objective, simple and transparent.

Transparency

To begin with, the PSBT has created a website (www.psbt.org). Under PSBI current information is available for public access. It is also committed to provide periodic financial accounting on the website. In addition, the website will articulate the system, meaning thereby that decisions regarding commissions, status of proposals, etc., will be available. The PSBT has created an ‘information book’ (right now available on the web) that spells out details of commissioning, norms for viewing rough cuts, contracts, etc.

Film makers short listed by an independent group of experts will be able to track the position of their proposal on the website. Simultaneously, it will also, naturally, be open to public scrutiny. For, accountability has to work at both ends.

Commissioning

Initially the PSBI will commission and telecast new half- hour documentary films every week. It expects to begin commissioning radio programmes in their second year. The call for proposals will go out in July 2000. It expects to begin commissioning from September 2000 and go on air from January 2001.

To begin with, the PSBI is inviting all the film maker participants of the Mumbai International Film Festival, members of the Indian Documentary Producer’s Association, and NGOs who are producing audio-visual material to submit proposals. Still, PSBI expects that many more film makers outside this particular loop will access the platform.

The PSBI is committed to ensuring that professional film makers and producers themselves make programmes rather than middlemen or commercially driven production companies. To promote fresh talent, at least two films in each cycle will be a first film of a film maker. Each commissioning announcement will be accompanied by a position paper outlining themes and ideas for the current cycle.

The PSBI, in an attempt to create a transparent public system, commit that no individual associated with the initiative or any relative or organization associated with him/ her will be eligible for funds/contracts or support from it.

Programming

The PSBI looks upon its audience as ensembles of continuously transforming priorities/desires/needs and identities. By doing this it will do justice to the complexity of audiences and to the multiplicity of their social and cultural experiences. It will empower a diversity of voices and concerns, and refuse to construct a hierarchy of target audiences and subject matters.

The PSBI, in its website and the information booklet has spelt out in detail their editorial premises and commissioning briefs. In essence, its attempt is to represent the complexities and pluralities of indian life and priorities of the communities through innovative and new documentaries.

Finally

While the PSBI is a small step to respond to the huge needs of the public service broadcast in India, it is indeed a very important first step. This initiative requires dedicated support for survival and expansion. For the first time a partnership has been evolved to work towards carving out space for public broadcast. Mechanisms are being evolved to make its functioning transparent, rational and accessible to the public.

The onus of its survival then, has to be also a public responsibility. So film makers committed to producing quality work, citizen’s groups interested to develop a vibrant public culture, NCOs and organizations working for social change, have to be involved with the initiative to support it and ensure its survival and expansion.

Concern

Media in a strong state…

Many an incidents in the recent past has started to reflect the nature of the state in transition. At one level the state is withdrawing its responsibilities from imparting the basic amenities to its population. The long cherished ideals of welfare state is giving its way to the glamour of liberalization. At the same time another significant Development is the political glorification of the strong state. The practical impetus to the ideology become significant when the proponents of the glorification could form the government. Most of the political decisions of the present government reiterate their long avowed stand on a strong state. It is to be placed in a context where the political aspirations are unleashed by subduing and suppressing the dissents. It is a juncture where the state withdraw itself to a rigid military Institution, where the fundamental rights are annihilated. The interventionalistic role of the Fourth Estate is curtailed in isolated cases to institutional safeguards. As the incidents like the witch hunt of Mr R.R. Srinivasan who took the film ‘Death of a River’ by the Tamil Nadu Government and the state police represent the first category where as the forthcoming anti-terrorist bill restricting the journalists to have the professional secrecy constitute the ones among the latter. It raises certain questions about the basic tenets of the fundamental rights when the state upholds a partisan opinion and attempts the stringent implementation of the opinion as the custodians of institutional violence.

In the case of the film, ‘Death of a River’, there are a number of incidents where the essential rights are violated. The film deals with the death of 17 striking Dalits who were drowned due to the police excesses. The film, which had nothing other than the live footage, press photographs, and interview with the injured and the witnesses, was subjected to the wrath of the government and the state police. It set a new precedent in the state, as Mr. Srinivasan says, ”because this is the first film against the state, against the police, against the government, before this there were no documentary films in Tamil Nadu on human rights.” So it signifies the government’s attitude towards the issues of human rights and boundaries of expression. While screening the film for the first time the film maker and his aide was interrogated by the police and subsequently the latter was arrested and remanded for fifteen days. The owner and the manager of the screening house were also in the FIR. The film maker could escape physical torture of the police by absconding from the scene – ”But if they had arrested me things would have been different, 1 would have been tortured.” Only with the street smartness he could keep the cassette safely as ”they wanted to capture the master cassette and to erase everything and we were prepared even before screening as we knew that they will do something. The master cassette was with some other person, they searched and they could not get,” Srinivasan says. Even the professional fraternity could not lend their support for the film maker against the stark intervention in the freedom of expression and artistic freedom since ” everybody is commercial and pro-government.” Moreover ”Nobody is ready to antagonize the government and wanted to talk about Karunanidhi. The stupid thing is that every body is favourable to Karunanidhi.” Having undergone a prolonged physical and mental strain in doing a film on the incident which he felt in his bones, he is also ‘sacked’ from the guest lecture post which he was assuming in the Communication department of Tirunelveli’s Manonmanium Sunderanar University.

The implication of the incidents are much more than the overt action. Because it goes asymmetrical to the legal and social aspirations of the democratic functioning of the state. The incident in itself is police atrocity against Dalits. The state institutions tried to conceal and distort the facts about the incident. When a document came out to foil the official version, the instruments otherwise instituted for the preservation of the same rights acted contradictorily to their functions. It also relocates an individual’s right to document and communicate a certain happening which is not in terms with the state’s view. Hence at many grounds the gross human rights violation committed by the state goes with an immunity attached to the will of the government, which is partisan and arbitrary.

Media Violence and Children

Vinod Ganatra

Two decades before in our country, very few children had ever seen images of someone being shot, knifed, blown up or raped in front of their bare eyes. Today most children see such violence on the screen every day, often in gruesome details. It has been estimated that an average Indian child now reaching the age of eighteen has witnessed about7500 simulated murders on television.

The impact of this mass consumption of violent images is still a matter of controversy. There have been individual cases of violent crime apparently inspired by particular films. However, no consensus has been established as to the broader and more precise influence of media violence on child viewers; research findings so far have been contradictory.

This should come as no surprise. Research on this topic is genuinely complicated. It has to incorporate broader social and cultural factors; including the role of parents or other guardians. The response to the media violence in the community at large also affects the child. The existence of alternative activities and their character is another important aspect. Needless to say, further research is called for on these topics, including on the indirect and long range impact on a generation growing up in a society affected by this type of ever present media culture. Studies of this kind are the more important as, no doubt, there are powerful economic interests at play in this discussion.

In this context the implication is that the guardians have a direct responsibility in protecting the child against harmful media influences and should be supported in this task.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly expressed concern about the possible negative impact of media violence. To encourage meaningful appropriate guidelines the authorities need to develop a body of knowledge on patterns of viewing, listening and reading; on what is transmitted; on possible impact on various receivers, in various situations and of various materials; on means of effectively restricting injurious transmissions. In other words: the Committee recommends a comprehensive policy as a basis for the development of guidelines.

The CIFEJ, an International NGO founded under the auspices of UNESCO and UNICEF dedicated to the promotion of excellence in the audio and visual media for children, has made some progress to enrich the media environment for children.

The exploding market of videos for sale or rental have created new problems in making a distinction between child and adult consumption. Classified descriptions of the content on the package, which offer a kind of violence rating, can be of some help to parents but probably do not protect all children in real life. Computer games of a violent nature also raise similar problems.

UNESCO has been very active on the subject of media violence and children. On 5th December, 1998 UNESCO, organized a public hearing on Television violence and its impact on children in New Delhi. The whole day session of discussions between TV. programme Directors, Media personnels and representatives of NGOs working on this issue was real eye opener.

Voluntary agreements were reached in the United States in early 1996 about installing V-chips in TV sets which would block certain violent programmes. Measures such as these should be welcome as a possible first step towards helping parents to regulate their children’s consumption. The technique requires a system of rating programmes, similar to the one developed on the public cinema market. The agreement demonstrated that major television networks cannot totally ignore pressure from politicians and the general public.

A technically even more difficult problem is how to prevent harmful violence and sex including advertising of child prostitution to be supplied through Internet. The problem, however, is put on the agenda.

A recent study mentions that in most Asian countries children under the age of 15 comprise around 40 percent of the population. The proportion is even higher in poorer countries such as India or Bangladesh. However, only a small proportion of TV or radio programmes, cinema, books, periodicals and newspapers are made for children.

However, there are innumerable studies on films on children, viz. children and their rights, abuse of children, child labour, children and violence etc. But no constructive and positive ways and means are found and enforced to protect the uninhibited minds of children.

When a child is born today he is given a number of innoculations of vaccines to protect the physical well being. What are we going to do to provide a protective armour to his innocent mind against the bombardment of all sorts of malignant menagerie by the visual media in our country? lf we do not wake up today, it would be too late as we are sitting on the most dangerous time bomb that may nip the young buds before they are allowed to blossom.

Opinion

An Interview with Gaddar

Gaddar, the revolutionary bard of Telugu poetry is more than the General Secretary of All India League for Revolutionary Culture. A legendary practitioner of alternate culture, who works hand in hand with the tolling masses and revolutionary activists, has faced fatal attacks from the police. Still, with an unremoved bullet near his spinal column, he continues to fight the oppressive system. People from the nooks and crannies of Andhra Pradesh flock by on bullock-carts to attend Gaddar’s performances.

At a visit to New Delhi recently to submit a memorandum to the NHRC along with his comrade and writer Vara Vara Rao, Gaddar spoke to Anup Sam Ninan at length about the ideology and the work he is involved with. The interview not only reveals the relentless struggle of revolutionary political activists, but also competes us to introspect on the confines of freedom of expression, right to dissent and political intervention.

How were you initiated into revolutionary activities? Were you very young?

When I was in 6th or 7^th standard, I used to participate in songs, fancy dress and music. But I did not have a clear objective of being an artist. I used to sing and perform on stage, a folk form called ‘Burrakatha’. Then I joined the Art Lover’s Association, an artist’s organization inspired by the Srikakulam-Naxalbari movement. There we had a debate: ‘What is art and literature for ?’ Art is not for the art’s sake, but for the people’s sake. So, with this slogan, in 1971, we started an organization called ‘Jana Natya Mandali’, a cultural troupe, Mt.I’t a clear aim of writing and performing songs, dance and revolutionizing everything in order to propagate the new democratic revolutionary movement in the countryside. We began composing songs by taking elements from people’s own folk forms. The first song I wrote in a folk tune was on the Rickshaw (Sings):

O! Rickshaw, Stop!
I am also coming along with you!

It is a beautiful song. And it was the beginning.

How was the initial response of people to ‘Jana Natya Mandali’?

We used to sing in Radio stations, Ravindra Kala Mandali and such places. But once we took the decision to go to the masses, the first experience itself was wonderful and inspiring. Our entire concept of the cultural performance changed. We went to remote villages with our own mike and equipment. We would start by shouting some slogans with drumbeats, then start singing. The people were astonished with our dress and colour. The people, they were extremely poor, but they happily gave us one or two rupees when we asked for contribution. We were convinced that if we sincerely work for the people, they would definitely receive us and respond.

What exactly are the activities of ‘Jane Natya Mandali’?

We work and experiment with all performing art forms. Songs are a powerful weapon and easy to perform. Then we work with ‘Katha’ – a story-telling form. It is like a three- man cultural group, one tells a story and two accompany hint with music. We work with dance forms also – conversations between wife and husband in a dance form. We perform solo plays, we do extempore drama, where we dramatise and discuss village matters on the spot; this form has no script, it is totally spontaneous. We have also done some ballets and dramas.

Do you concentrate more on folk forms than modern preforms?

All our village communities have their own art forms, that are extremely powerful. Unfortunately, all these forms are exploited by the landlords or the cinema industry. What we did was to take the same forms, the same tunes, melodies, mix two folk forms together and create something new and powerful. On that, we put our content, that we again take from the people. Say, a song like,…

Jab roadu ham banana
Tab caru unki chaltee,
Jab chabi ham banaya
Tijoree unkee khultee…
Chalo re o chalk sab…

(We have made the roads
But their cars run on them,
We have made the keys
But they open their safes ..-

… Lets come together … )

See, there is no music, no dance, nothing, but when I am singing you are inspired by the simple tune. We have taken both form and content from the people and revolutionized it. This, along with our dress, the kunthru, the small turban, the dance … they can immediately identify with it.

Did you feel any impediment in rebelling the people as many of these forms are historically appropriated by the ruling classes and now transformed into devotional or mythical in nature ?

See, people never expected their forms to be changed like this. So, when our cultural group entered the village with their own form but new content, with issues that belong to them, they were happy. The content was also very powerful questioning the state; its authoritarian rule, misappropriations and misgovernance. We represented their own expressions. It helped them to question their own silence. We said, ”we, your children, have come all the way to sing for you, we have come not for money, but to tell you the truth. You are the creators of the universe, who is the bloody landlord to rule you? You create food but you don’t have food. So it is you who have to change the system. To do that form a Sangathan, fight with the system. You will definitely succeed.” But just telling them will not help. For that there is a revolutionary party and its programme. When literary force is combined with the organizational structure, it becomes a force. It is no more a song, it is a weapon.

Do you think that alternate cultural activities can withstand the bourgeois culture that is promoted so widely through the mass media?

See, the impact is getting increasingly powerful as it is a continuous process. The bourgeois culture has hundreds of instruments,but the content is weak. To tell lies as the truth they require a lot of instruments and big industries like cinema. They can misguide the people for some time, but not forever. So, what we have to do is to start from the base by turning people into revolutionary cultural artists. It has happened in history, say during the Bhakti movement So, there are two programmes. First we have to rely on the masseur make them revolutionary artists; it is their problem, they have to compose and sing. Secondly, you have to make a broad united front of democrats and skilled cultural artists, in order to make them realise that the bourgeois landlords and capitalists don’t have any cultural group but make use of our people, our instruments, by just paying money.

But the cultural revivalism inside the country and the cultural invasion from outside is getting increasingly deeper, the challenge ahead is……

Absolutely … the challenge ahead is intense! When the Americans are spending 40% of their budget on global propaganda, just a cultural front cannot challenge it. It is not alertly cultural invasion. There are cultural, military, economic and political invasions on the country at the same time. In order to combat these, we have to form a front. At the moment the cultural front has to play a secondary role, only to place weapons like the drama or songs in the hands of the fighting people.

What is the role of the mainstream media in propagating the ideology of the state, its repression etc.?

The industrial capitalists own the mainstream media, whether it is print or visual. Naturally these support their propaganda. Chandrababu Naidu has spent 500 crores exclusively to boost his image as the CEO of Andhra! Definitely the media is supporting the State. But we can also make use of the same media at times. When the time comes, we will have our own media. See what is happening in other countries…like the LTTE publishes books and magazines, they have their own audio, video systems.

Do you find only positive gestures from the government?

The government, after promising the assembly to hold talks with us on 3rd March, has submitted a big report to the Centre on 4th recommending the ban on the People’s War party throughout the country. The CM has also demanded more money for an additional police force. Since then, in these 15 days, there have been thirty fake-encounters where thirty comrades were shot dead. On one side he is inviting people for discussion, on the other he is killing the people in the streets.

How do you overcome the ban or the restriction on your performance ?

Ban is there. I am unable to perform anywhere in AP, except in the Press Club of Hyderabad. These days, when we go to collect the dead bodies of the martyrs killed in ‘encounters’ – we take their bodies to the villages. When people assemble around the dead bodies, we start singing. Once we start singing everybody, even the constables, join us. When people are so seriously involved in the cultural front and start questioning the State, even section 144 doesn’t work. Yes, there is a bam but the ban don’t work. People are completely indifferent to a11 those things. They are with us, they allow us to perform as we do. That is why the Andhra Pradesh DGP says, ”I can face a thousand guns at a time but I cannot face Gadder.” It is like the voice of liberation among the masses. So when the Jana Natya Mandali is performing in the rural areas, people attend in lakhs. That is why they don’t allow us to sing anywhere.

They have arrested us several times and put us in the jail. But, as it happened recently, even in the jail we started singing. Even the police constables joined us. You cannot destroy the voice, the voice cannot be shattered, the voice cannot be put into the jail.

Do you mean that in Telengana the restriction is more as compared to Hyderabad? ls it because your mode of expression is more appealing to rural Telengana?

Even in Hyderabad now….they allow us to perform only in a small place like Press Club, where not more than three hundred can assemble. Recently, we had to go to the High Court to get permission for a meeting at the Nizam Palace ground. There is so much of police repression. But in all parts of Andhra Pradesh, both in rural and urban areas, the response from the university students, youth, peasants and workers are equal. Because they see the sincerity of the artists and poets. Even after being pumped with bullets we are singing for the last thirty years.

How do you see the cultural consequences of the trio – the Naidu rule, ETV and Gemini TV? Mass entertainment programmes promoting consumerism at one end coupled with populist programmes like Janmabhoomi etc.

The middle class – who are the victims of the system and those who have to fight it – and the upper middle class are easily duped by these programmes. Channels like ETV or Gemini are also promoting programmes like Janmabhoomi to misguide people. Though it is difficult, we will have to expose these programmes. In one or two years they will have to pay for the mindless consumerism. Naidu has brought some 32,000 chores from the IMF and World Bank, but he has not spent a single paisa for irrigation and industry. But each kilometer of road he has built costs 2.5 crores. And he advocates Information Technology to remove poverty.But it can’t. The media, which is projecting Chandrababu Naidu as the saviour of india, will definitely cite the other side when the problems remain unsolved. Kal wohi unko loath marega (The same media will kick them out tomorrow).

Tell us all about the All India League for Revolutionary Culture…

It is an all-India body having 22 constituents outside Andhra Pradesh, almost in a11 states. There are associations of writers, peasants, workers, timbals, soldiers and the like, who themselves compose songs and drama and perform them. We have a good impact in various parts of lndia because the life, art, literature, struggle and the movement are al1 related to each other. Through our programmes we are now trying to expose theAmerican imperialism, the Vajpayee government and hindutva. The era of revolution is very much there ahead, and we are moving towards it.

But there is a spurt in communalism, along with liberalization, globalisation and privatisation……

When there is a stringent law, when there is repression, revolutionary politics is bound grow. It is important that we make a revolutionary party that can take over all the responsibilities. lf a party is there, we can do everything. Of course, the crises deepen with liberalization, prevarication or globalization. As the crisis deepens, there is more and more repression. But there lies the energy for revolution. If there is revolution, it will consolidate the movement. It is like when you put a lens under the sunlight. It will focus all the rays to a single point, with which you can burn everything.

Do you think that by banning the dissent voices a state can sustain for long?

In the initial stages, the dissent voices from media, art and literature can be ignored or suppressed. As the party is underground and just taking birth, it is the media – the writers and the journalists – who have to propagate the ideology and politics to the broader masses. Why there is a ban on freedom of expression at a1l in a democratic country? lf anything is to be banned it should be the IMF, World Bank and the entry of Clinton – they are the enemies of this country who have to be banned. But they ban us because they realise that the revolutionaries are throwing light on the real problems of the country, that there is some truth and potentiality in this movement. Why, for example, is this movement sustaining for the last 30 years despite so much of repression, thousands being thrown into jails, thousands being killed in so called ‘encounters’? So, the ban is first of all to curtail the dissent and the freedom of expression. Even an ordinary constable is given the power to exercise this authority. That is why, we democrats, the students, the journalists – we all have to oppose it.

So, it is a restricted freedom of speech permitted in the level in which one can subscribe to the ideology of the state…..

Absolutely. See, when George Fernandez was in another party, he was abusing the BJP, but nobody banned him. Now he is with the BJP. Nobody has any problem. Each and every party is accusing each other. None is banned. In fact, by banning revolutionary organizations, or for that matter anytime, they are behaving like fascists.

How does your school for performing arts work?

It is not a school in a formal sense. In villages we look for people who can do drama, song or dance. We organise camps for two weeks or so, train them, give them practice in tunes and patterns. Then t hey perform in the villages carrying the revolutionary ideology.

Suddenly I recall Kathru Sommayya….

This fellow is a bewakoof (fool). He killed three of our comrades with police support. He infiltrated into our organization and now (came) with the Grey Hounds (special forces of the police for combing the Naxalite areas). Its very, convenient for the police. They stay in the background, in plain clothes, and make the betrayers of the party do everything. And the other day he was commenting that if he had been in the team of a recent operation targetting me, Gaddar would not have been alive. I said that it was not really his voice, it was Chandrababu Naidu’s, or the DGP’s voice. They are the ones who planned the attack on me. There are many people who are like Kathru Sommayyaz thousands of people are there with the support of police and as many guns. But let him go to the village on his own – at least let him go to his own native village in Karimnagar district – the people will teach him a lesson, not the Naxalites or the revolutionary parties.

Personally how do you withstand the tensions, threats and problems at one end, and bear the torch of revolution at the other?

See, first of all, I have full faith in the revolutionary ideology. My strong conviction in the ideology makes me sure that what I do is right and meaningful. I am not doing any injustice or exploitation.I am not killing anybody. I am just a singer, a poet, a writer and a composer. Just t by hearing my voice the police and the government feel threatened. So I feel I am working for the people. Whatever it is, let us work for the people. I want to live a meaningful life and a meaningful death. That keeps me alive.I am happy that being a writer and poet, I can represent the people’s cause, unlike many other singers, or cinema actors who are representing the exploiting class. You come to Andhra Pradesh and see what it is. When I sing, you have to see how lakes of people come to hear me. The chief ministers, police officers, state officials, all have witnessed it and they know it. That gives me the strength to carry on.

Resources
New Films

Hamare Goan mein Hamara Saj

(Our Rule in Our Village)
60 minutes, Hindi, 1999

Tribal society has a rich heritage of collective democracy that it wants to protect and translate into collective rights, through which it wants to address issues concerning land,water,forests and property. While much is said about the Panchayati Raj there is a lack of action about tribal self rule even though the President has signed on the bill in 1996 as part of the 73rd Amendment of the constitution. While some states has acknowledged the Issue and adopted the necessary laws, many are yet to act on it. The film explores the various debates and concerns surrounding tribal self rule.

Film by: Biju Toppo
Source: Akhra,
Shastri Nagar, Kanke Road, Banchi 834008
VHS Price: Individuals Rs. 500, organizations Rs.1000

Scribbles on Akka

English 2000

A film on the 12th century bhakti poet Mahadevi Akka. Structured as a contemporary musical, the film makes a journey with Akka through the cityscapes of Bombay, canvas of painters, words of poets and tales in popular culture. A celebration of rebellion, feminity and legacy down nine hundred years.

Film by: Madhushree Dutta
Source: Majlis,
Block A/2, Building no. 4 Golden Valley Kalina-Kurla Road, Kalina, Mumbai 400098

Nihang Singh Ji – A film on Sikh Samurais

Punjabi/English/Hindi, 30/60/90 min

The Nihangs carry around them an unmistakable aura of knights-errant of medieval times. The shocking defiance of their appearance bespeaks a mocking disregard of the world without-its-likes, its fads,its fashions. Shining steel weapons – the quoits, the swords,the lance,the dagger that they adorn, stand out in striking contrast to their deep blue robes and waving ‘Dumalas’ of their high turbans.

This unique order of the sikhs traces its ancestors back to the times of Guru Gobind. In describing one of the engagements between Durga and her adversaries in shanti Di Var, Guru Gobind Singh has referred to the active combatants as Nihangs with dual significance of alligator and warrior. The Nihangs may well appear today to be anachronistic but there is no denying the fact that they are survivors of a great tradition and in and through them the highest achievements of that remarkable tradition become available to us today in a living form.

Film by: G. S. Chani
Source: Community Communications,
2176, Sector 35-C, Chandigarh 160036,
Fax 01 72 549181
e-mail: gschani@usa.net
VHs Price.. Rs. 500

Shaane-e-Malerkotla

Hindi, 30 min, 1998

The history of Malerkotla, an erstwhile princely state goes back to more than five centuries when the village of Maler was graced by the arrival of the Sufi Peer Hazrat Sheikh. This is the only town in Punjab which has a Muslim majority. Its citizens have always lived in peace. The town’s tradition of peaceful cohabitation between communities has been zealously guarded by the majority community. Rituals of reaching out to each other by the different communities have been a part of the cultural life of the city.The presence of Sufi traditions kept alive by the tradition of Qwwali singing and the devotion of thousands of pilgrims of all communities that come to visit the dargah of the Peer every week, the touch of finesse lent to it by the stateliness of the Nawabi life style and the vibrant tradition of poetry have all contributed their bit to make up the chequered history and evolution of Malerkotla.

Film by: G. S. Chani and Harleen Kohli
Source: Same as previous film
VHS Price: Rs. 500