Re: Is India a model Democracy?

[Arun Mehta <indata@satyam.net.in>]

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Firstly, Padmanabha, please see if you can find a way to better demarcate
what you said from what I did -- I would hate to have someone someday
ascribe your (what I would call reactionary) views to me. Below, I have
manually had to put in > signs.

While I agree that often with the conventional electronic media, those
running it also produce the content, there is now all over the world a
significant community radio movement, where the attempt is for the
community to own and run its own stations. In such a situation, an FM
station is "just a pipe, nothing more" as well. We can certainly discuss
how best all media outlets could be opened up to a plurality of opinions --
I just think that if you simply ban the coverage of current affairs by
radio, you throw the baby out with the bathwater. For now, let us focus on
community radio, where this sort of monopoly doesn't exist.

Community radio is a useful means for entry into the media world: a well
known Bangladeshi TV personality told me that when she started, in Canada,
she faced the usual "no job if you have no experience, you get no
experience if you have no job" vicious cycle. So she joined a community
radio station, where the person in charge told her that they only had two
rules: don't break the law, and don't start a fire. Other than that, she
had complete freedom to do and say what she liked.

All over the world, there are radio stations that run without censorship,
they are allowed to carry current affairs without question, and the skies
don't fall down on their heads. Why are we so scared that people in India
want to foment trouble via the radio, and not discuss, maybe, how badly the
hospitals function, or the cleaning of the streets? Those are current
affairs too.

TV, which again is outside the reach of most poor people, has functioned
for over a decade with plenty of news and current affairs coverage. TV
hasn't fomented any riots that I know of: why should radio? As an aside,
even the government news and current affairs coverage has improved
considerably after the private channels started to give it a run for its
money. Currently, the quality of radio content in India is so poor, lots of
people never listen to it. Watch what happens when the private stations
start to flourish (if allowed by the horrendous licence fees they must pay,
but that is another story).

On the Net they say that the remedy for bad speech is more speech. I'd say
the same with radio. If there were stations that told lies a lot,
reasonable people would stop listening to them, and tune into better ones,
if such were available.

All of the arguments Padmanabha puts forth could be applied equally easily
to Net censorship as well. For those willing to fight government control
(if you don't want to use the word censorship) over the Net but not over
radio, may I recall Father Niemoeller's sobering words from Nazi Germany:

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, for I was not
one; They came for the Jews, and I was silent because I was not a Jew; They
came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not protest, because I did not
belong to a trade union; They came for the Catholics, and I said nothing
because I was not a Catholic; And then they came for me. There was no one
left to say anything... "

Arun

At 1/7/2001, Padmanabha Rao wrote:
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>Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Arun Mehta wrote:
>
>  >There is an irony in people on the Net discussing what level of
>  >censorship there should be for the rest of India.
>
>It's not about *censorship*. It's about *technology* and the 'abuse' it
>could provoke and so how to 'contain' that. No more. Further, the Net is
>
>just not comparable to the any of the other media -this is owned by the
>web/net servers and yet not controlled by them. In fact the Net probably
>
>defines the word media best: just a pipe, nothing more. On the other
>hand,
>the other so-called media are not media in this sense - they actually
>*produce* in an institutionalised manner that may not be absolutely free
>
>of interests (needless to say on the Net too it is institutionalised,
>only
>that it is freedom at its chaotic best that is institutionalised here)
>
>  >How many of us would tolerate censorship of what is said on this list?
>
>No one would.
>
> >Now, why are the poor people who can only communicate through the
> >spoken word, denied that same opportunity of free speech?
>
>It's not about censoring "free speech" by "poor people". The issue is
>about countering free-news by people (assuming bounded rationales
>abound,
>rich or poor doesn't matter here since the reward is only more money
>-not
>more information [and just why could this be so ? It has to do with
>money
>being equal to information + carelessness, and not just information as
>economics would have one believe]). When free and news go together,
>either
>the free is not, or news is not. What I have been writing is not free in
>
>the sense it has come from my mind and has my agenda attached to it. To
>be
>free the producer (me) should be free of agenda, just a pipe (like the
>Net?!). If that's not the case, then you should be doing something about
>
>me, like either ignoring me or educate me on the negative externalities
>of
>my doings and convince me that it's not 'good' to be doing negative
>things
>and get me to shut up voluntarily (oh yeah, that also means you will
>educate me on what is negative and positive to begin with, because we
>may
>not agree on that first definition itself), or maybe simply ban me if
>that's most economical (of course we have not defined 'economical' here,
>
>but I don't know if one should care about that because why should I
>bother
>about extra-personal things like the economics and society ? Maybe
>that's
>the problem, but I just don't know. Don't know, and maybe *that* is the
>problem too). Of course when I say "educate" I mean "make him/her
>agree",
>and the problem of "making" and even "agree" is left unspoken. Why
>SHOULD
>you be doing something about me FIRST in such a case ? Because RIGHTS
>flow
>from the performace of DUTIES. If I am dutiful to the law of absolute
>freedom, then only do I get to have that from others in the comity of
>humans I live amongst.  Is free-speech anywhere denied here ? Please
>indicate for the better efficiency of this list.
>
>  >Rumours spread quick as wildfire without electronic help. I'd much
>  >rather mischief-mongers went on the air, where everyone can hear what
>  >they are saying and possibly correct it, than that this kind of talk
>  >was pushed into the back alleys.
>
>That would mean: it already does without any help. Why not go and add
>more
>fuel so it can become a truly magnificent sight to behold. A
>qualification
>needs repetition here I guess: the ban on CurrentNews coverage by FMs is
>
>justified on the grounds of their ability to expand fatal VIOLENCE and
>not
>anything else. If that can be established as counterable then there is
>no
>case for any ban. Even with the ban, everyone can still rake up the next
>
>Ganesha Miracle Part II if they want. That's hardly a law-and-order
>problem (or is it?).
>
>  >I am in favour of completely opening up the use of short-range FM
>  >transmitters in areas outside the reach of the existing FM channels.
>
>That's great! India is opening up a large part of its territory for
>discoverage by FM. To remind it is not in a position to open the
>coverage
>of CurrentNews by these FM wherever they operate. That needs a small but
>
>important qualification: CurrentNews may be an explosive in relation to
>the size of the consuming population in relation to the magnitude of the
>
>counterable force required in case of a law-and-order problem. It should
>
>be easy to ensure that in smaller places as compared to a place like
>Mumbai or Delhi or Blore or Ahmedabad and so on. So maybe 'wherever they
>
>operate' is wrong analysis. 'Wherever not possible to manage the
>law-and-order problem of a vast spread' is probably more real.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Padmanabha Rao
>
>
>
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Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi -- 110024, India. Phone
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