MEDIA MATTERS
Nepal's fading radiowaves
By Sevanti Ninan
South Asia's only vibrant radio movement is being slowly asphyxiated.
`But even today, the story in Nepal, compared to India, is about the blossoming of radio rather than its eclipse.'
PEOPLE'S VOICE: A symbolic vote for FM radio in Kathmandu. PHOTO: LAXMI MURTHY
IT is an unusual experience to hear India cited as an example to be followed for the censorship it practises. Nepal's minister for information and communication, Mr. Tanka Dhakal, has an instant alibi when press freedom advocates call on him to urge his government to withdraw the censorship on radio news. He listens with a beatific half smile to his visitors in English and responds in rapid fire Nepali, which the secretary in his ministry does not bother to translate. "But India has recently said that it will not allow news on FM radio. Nobody else in the world does either. Why should we?"
As the foreign members of a press freedom advocacy mission leave, one hangs back to tell the minister and his secretary, "you know, we in India cited you as an example of a country that did not let insurgencies stop the spread of community and FM radio, and now you cite our negative example?" They grin and offer a lame comeback: "But we look to India for its democracy." The minister even drops his guard and lapses into English. But the message is, no go. Censorship clamped on radio news, since King Gyanendra dismissed the government on February 1, will stay in force. When Mr. Jaipal Reddy announced the FM policy recently and said that the ban on news would continue, he gave our neighbour a handle to defend its own snuffing out of a vibrant radio movement. And to lace it with the fiction that nobody in the world allows news on community FM.
In Kathmandu now the print media has some seeming freedom, in the districts none. Not only do the Maoists not want you to report their depradations, even the government and army do not! If they are losing control of administration to the Maoists they do not want that story told. At meetings organised by the Federation of Nepal Journalists (FNJ), you are told that private schools are closing down in the countryside "but we are not writing that story. The army said not to write."
Save radio movement
A "Save Independent Radio" movement has been launched, which held an opinion poll on July 14 in downtown Kathmandu. Forty-seven community and commercial radio stations have blossomed across Nepal since 1997. Until February 1, 2005, many of them had news bulletins on the hour. One news-producing venture called Communications Corner used to produce local news bulletins for a variety of stations and send them by satellite. But then the ban came, and its news staff dropped from 64 to 19. Radio journalists and stringers have lost jobs all over the country, and people in the countryside, including those who cannot read, have lost a vibrant source of political and other news. "There was a sharp political discourse on radio ? Nepalis are hurting even more for that reason," says Kanak Mani Dixit of Himal.
Radio stations have replaced hourly news with daily bulletins of community news. The army keeps a sharp watch on what radio stations put out. The manager of Radio Lumbini in central Nepal gives an example of why you might be summoned to the barracks: The army PRO listening to this radio station in the morning had heard a rendition of a poem on fighting Ravana. People might read double meaning into that, the station manager was sternly told.
But even today, the story in Nepal, compared to India, is about the blossoming of radio rather than its eclipse. While India remains silent on policy for community FM, in Nepal, Government regulation was brought in to permit private or community owned radio stations, same license fee for both, and then the Supreme Court ruled that they could also broadcast news. Here is a country where the middle class mobilises itself, collects Rs. 20,000 subscriptions and sets up radio stations. You can set up a 200-watt station for as little as three lakh Nepali rupees, if your transmitter is Chinese rather than Italian. Local businessmen advertise, as do ordinary people. For missing children or missing buffalos. And everybody tunes in to broadcasts in a variety of dialects.
But because it is a medium for the masses, Nepal's elites have not joined the campaign for restoration of operational freedom to radio. The government media does some not-so-subtle anti-FM propaganda. Now the State has begun to refuse permission for back up transmitters and accessories. South Asia's only vibrant radio movement is being slowly asphyxiated. With some unintended help from India.
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