Focus

Muslim organisations who are interested in launching Community Radio should take a look at the existing ventures. Muslims in India should wake up to the importance of this medium.


An American Indian proverb says, “It takes a thousand voices to tell one story.” And if the majority in a nation finds no voice, the story must necessarily remain untold. This is where community radio steps in - to fill in the gaps where voices from the Muslim community across the nation are absent.


The Union Cabinet in November 2006, sanctioned the establishment of community radio stations, albeit with qualifications. Under the policy, resident welfare associations, NGOs working in rural areas, and public trusts registered under the Societies Act and in existence for at least three years can open community radio stations. Permission will also be granted to state agriculture universities and institutions and to Krishi Vigyan Kendras (agricultural science centres).


Community radio is a type of radio service that caters to the interests of a certain area, broadcasting material that is popular to a local audience, but is overlooked by more powerful broadcast groups. Community radio outlets may also carry news and information programming geared towards the local area, particularly minority groups that are poorly served by other media outlets. Philosophically, we can see two distinct approaches to community radio, though the models are not necessarily mutually exclusive.


One stresses service or community model - focused on what the station can do for the community. The other stresses involvement and participation. Within the access or participat-ory model, the participation of community members in produc-ing content is seen as a good in itself.


Individuals, political parties and their affiliates, trade unions and religious bodies have been kept outside the purview of the initiative. The policy allows for five minutes of advertising per hour to allow the radio stations to become self-sustaining. For the time being, the ban on news and current affairs programmes shall remain in place.


The Rs. 50, 000 entry fee requirement to participate in the initiative has been rescinded. A processing fee of Rs. 2,500 will be charged and there will be no licence fee. A bank guarantee of Rs. 25,000 will have to be submitted once the clearances are secured.


Community radios work on low-frequency FM bands in the 87.5 to 108 megahertz range. The stations’ reach extends over a 5-8 km radius. Such stations have been operating in the West for years.


According to the Cabinet decision, non-profit organisa-tions will be able to set up stations after ensuring security clearances from the defence and home ministries. The community radio will be dealt with compre-hensively by an interministerial group represented by the ministries of home affairs, defence, rural development and Panchayati Raj


Within months after India opened up non-commercial community radio broadcasting, Muslim groups are exploring models to use the power of communication for community development.


In November, the govern-ment announced a policy that allows community and civil society groups to own and operate low power radio stations. Radio broadcasting in India had long been a government monopoly. It was only in the 1990s that private parties were allowed to ‘buy’ slots of FM (frequency modulated) time and undertake broadcasts. Subse-quently private players were allowed to set up their own stations.


In recent years, the government also opened up campus radio broadcasting, giving the green signal to universities and institutions of higher learning in different parts of the country.


Now it is the turn of developmental organisations. Most of them are, however, new to the medium. Searching for tips on how to enter this space, potential broadcasters have sought information via networks such as the community radio-network.org website, which offers some details.


Those Muslim organisations who are interested in launching Community Radio should also take a look at the existing ventures. Currently, there are four active community radio initiatives in India: ‘Chala Ho Gaon Mein’ in Palamau (Jharkhand), ‘Kunjal Panchhi Kutch Ji in Kutch ‘ (Gujarat), ‘Namma Dhwani’ (Budikote, Karnataka) and ‘Deccan Deve-lopment Society’ initiative (Pastapur, Andhra Pradesh).


These communities produce radio programmes and cablecast (distribute via cable TV networks), narrow cast (share programmes via cassettes) or buy time from local radio stations of government-funded All India Radio (AIR).


Two community groups in Uttaranchal - ‘Heval Vaani’ in Chamba and ‘Mandakini ki Awaaz’ in Bhanaj - have been producing and disseminating local content through narrow casting and cable casting and via satellite.


Experts on the UN-run Solutions Exchange (solution exchange-un.net.in) say that setting up a community radio station is not very expensive. Lakshmi M. Tikoo of funding agency Aga Khan Foundation (India ) and Ashish Sen of non-profit development communica-tions organisation, VOICES in Bangalore , which have been promoting community radio, argue that the ‘power of radio’ as a communication tool for rural communities needed to be explored further.


To scale up interest in community radio, a number of government and non-govern-ment initiatives have made available online information relating to Indian policies, technology options and even the circuits diagrams for building ultra-low powered transmitters for a few hundred rupees.


Those Muslim organisations wishing to launch a community radio network can also benefit from the Broadcast Engineering Society (BES) Expo, to be held in New Delhi from February 1-3, 2007, where UNESCO will exhibit some low-cost broadcast options, (http://www.besindia. com/)


Think of what community radio could mean to Muslims in India. Think of what it could mean to the Muslim community which has its own issues and problems.


In many countries, such broadcasting has become the platform for the languages, voices and views of local communities that would other-wise be ignored. There are over 1000 community stations in Latin America and over 2500 non-commercial educational stations in the US.


In community stations, typically, a critical mass of the listening community finances and/or participates in the operations of the station. Languishing for want of better radio policy in India are hundreds of government sche-mes, development programmes and civic coordination tasks that need a low-cost, citizen-driven and local information dissemina-tion medium that works for illiterate and semi-literate Muslims as much as for others.