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Censoring the Parliament
SEVANTI NINAN
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Important debates in Parliament have been carried live on the national network like no-confidence motions and the debate on Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA). What happened this time?
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IN the wee hours of Wednesday morning, during his reply to the censure motion in Parliament, the Prime Minister thought it necessary once again to draw attention to the negative role of the media in covering the events in Gujarat. They must ask themselves, he thundered, whether it was necessary to show so much, to repeat visuals of burning houses and of bodies. They must introspect on their role. But as citizens we could turn around and ask him, will the national broadcaster Prasar Bharati introspect on its own role as well? We used to be able to take it for granted that important debates in Parliament would be carried live on the national network, or on some Doordarshan channel that most of us can access. No-confidence motions against the Government of the day have been telecast in the past, and just a few weeks ago the debate on Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA) was shown live. So what happened this time?
It was amazing how no clear answer was forthcoming to this question. Doordarshan officials said that there was no request from Parliament to carry it on the National Network. Once the signal is generated, does Parliament decide which channel of Doordarshan can carry the signal? Surely it is for Prasar Bharati to decide that. No, said one DD official stoutly, "Parliament is supreme, they decide." That begged the question, why would Parliament decide that this debate not be shown? The Director General of Doordarshan was abroad, the Chairman of Prasar Bharati, professor U.R. Rao said he did not know it was not being telecast live, since he did not normally watch TV during the day. But he agreed that it was an important debate, and that such debates are normally telecast live. Other Prasar Bharati members were surprised, but left it at that. The Indian Express meanwhile reported that the Parliament secretariat had said that there was no request from DD to show the proceedings on the National Network
Prasar Bharati costs the nation around Rs. 2,200 crores a year, going by its annual budgetary allocation, or more than Rs. 6 crores a day. Last week, on Tuesday, its television network was establishing its supreme irrelevance at times of crisis by showing completely fatuous discussions, film songs, and serials. Even on Wednesday morning, when it could have been re-running the debate, or the Prime Minister's reply, or the vote itself, it was telecasting a food show at 8.15 a.m. Even after the scrapping of the news channel it still has more than 15 channels at its command, two of them terrestrial. No time could be found on any of these? Or were they waiting for Parliament to tell them where to telecast it?
The debate was telecast live on the low power transmitter dedicated to Parliament. Thus the official reply was that of course it is being shown, the Parliament LPTs are showing it. Don't you have an antenna? Why don't you watch it? Of course we all have antennas to catch Doordarshan in these days of cable transmission, and gizmos to switch back and forth between our national broadcaster in terrestrial mode and all the others in satellite mode. And of course all one billion of us live within 10 km of Parliament House, which is the telecasting range of the Parliament LPT. Did they network all the thousands of LPTs around the country for this occasion? They did not. They judged that it would be bad for our health.
Those who were able to take what footage they wanted off the Parliament LPT were the privately owned news channels, but since they had to pay for it, they only took clips for the news. They could have shown us large chunks of the debate live and earned our gratitude. In the early days when Star was trying to ingratiate itself with the Indian Government, it would show the PM's Independence Day telecast, the Budget speech in Parliament and other such events live. This time not one of the three private Hindi/English news channels did. But why castigate them? That Doordarshan wanted to censor the proceedings was clear from the fact that it did not generate that day a single special programme at night to show highlights of the debate. Star News did. Could Prasar Bharati not have done the same?
Why do we spend so much money on Doordarshan if it remains an instrument for the ruling party to control at crucial times, and pretty ineffectual the rest of the time? And why do we have a Prasar Bharati Board, since it seems to count for so little? If the members of Prasar Bharati do indeed raise their voices when something like this happens, we do not hear them.
On the morning of the debate itself one was told that it would not be telecast, and that DD could not afford to lose the revenue. That is laughable. Between 12 noon and 2 a.m., how many hours actually get ads on this channel? And how many ads? We would love to know, Mr. Prime Minister, since for all practical purposes your Government still calls the shots on this supposedly autonomous corporation.
Let me give just two recent examples of DD carrying the PM live on National Network without bothering too much about revenue. They did so when the Prime Minister addressed the annual convention of the Confederation of Indian Industry last week, and they did so again when he addressed Mahavir Jayanti celebrations earlier in the year. Not long transmissions these, but the fact is that of late DD has been cutting into regular transmission with live coverage for many of the PM's public appearances.
And as for Parliament being supreme, some months ago the late Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi wanted a portion of the then ongoing Speakers' conference carried live on Doordarshan. Did the national broadcaster oblige? It did not. It became a fight. And the Speaker was so angry that a senior official was sent to pacify him. They recorded an interview with him, and did a special programme. But they did not carry the segment live.
So from what happened on Tuesday, the message is clear.
A Government on the defensive will even censor Parliament proceedings if it has to. And for that privilege, we underwrite the national broadcaster to the tune of Rs. 2,200 odd crores a year.
E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com
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