Manik Sarkar must read history and also the manuals of AIR and Doordarshan before making unsubstantiated allegations against public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati
Manik Sarkar, the Chief Minister of Tripura, has alleged that Prasar Bharati, the public broadcaster of India, blacked out his Independence Day message to the people of the State. It is a fact that Sarkar's pre-recorded address was not telecast by the Doordarshan kendra, Agartala, as well as the All India Radio (AIR) — the two wings of Prasar Bharati. Sarkar and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) commissar, Sitaram Yechury, have come out openly against the throttling of freedom of expression by Prasar Bharati, which refused to air the former's speech in its original form. According to Prasar Bharati officials, the Chief Minister was requested to re-fashion his speech, which was out rightly rejected by Sarkar.
As someone with more than a decade of experience in the programme/news wings of Doordarshan and the AIR, after going through the script of Sarkar's speech, all that this writer felt, was that the allegations and laments by him are much ado about nothing. Having been the Chief Minister of the State since 1998, it cannot be argued that Sarkar was not unaware of what he could speak during the I-Day speech. One pertinent question which we forget to ask is: How come only Sarkar's I-Day message was blacked out while speeches of other Chief Ministers (irrespective of the fact that belong to the Congress, the CPI(M), the TDP, the TRS, the BJP, the AIADMK, or other regional outfits) were aired without any controversyIJ
It is only after going through the script of Sarkar's I-Day message that one could understand the reason behind Prasar Bharati officials' reservations against beaming the former's speech in its true form. Sarkar's message reads like a propaganda material for his political party and a diatribe against the Centre. It is a paradox that he chose the public broadcaster to attack the Narendra Modi Government. No official worth his salt would have allowed this speech to be aired in its true form. And, it is not because Sarkar has come down heavily on the Centre, there are other reasons too. The Prasar Bharati, constituted by an Act of Parliament, has been given the mandate to preserve the integrity of the nation. Its paramount responsibility is to preserve the values and morals enshrined in the Constitution. The Doordarshan and the AIR, have to function as per the broadcasting codes as well as prescribed manuals, the Bible or Gita of transmission. The public broadcaster is not a media for mud-slinging and name calling.
What Sarkar said in his speech is an open call to the people of the country to revolt against the present Government at the Centre. “The spirit of secularism is under attack. Conspiracies and attempts are underway to create an undesirable complexity and divisions in our society; to invade our national consciousness in the name of religion, caste and community, by inciting passions to convert India into a particular religious country in the name of protecting the cow. Because of all these, people of minority and backward communities are under severe attack. Their sense of security is being shattered. Their life is under peril. These unholy tendencies cannot be harboured or tolerated,” Sarkar said in his speech. Well, it may be his party's observations. But these are allegations meant to incite the people to rebel and revolt against the national Government. What Sarkar should do immediately is to go through the I-Day messages delivered by other Chief Ministers and also the messages aired by the public broadcaster.
I am sure, no Chief Minister would have done what Sarkar has done. He may also refer to the I-Day messages by Narendra Modi, when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. In spite of the fact that the then UPA Government was harassing, humiliating and intimidating him for each and everything he has done, it has to be said that Modi kept calm much to the irritation of his detractors. At no point of time did he accused the Union Government. But Modi used the opportunities to articulate the good schemes launched by his Government.
Well, I had the personal experience of observing how the I-Day messages delivered by Chief Ministers, which were recorded and aired from 1985 to 1992 when I was working with Doordarshan kendra, Thiruvananthapuram. The then Chief Minister of Kerala, K Karunakaran, described as the most trusted person of the Gandhi-Nehru family, used to send the script of his speech to the then station director, K Kunhikrishnan for approval. Karunakaran would come to the studio two or three days prior to the I-Day for recording. He was particular in asking Kunhikrishnan the quality of speech and for any factual errors.
EK Nayanar of the CPI(M), who succeeded him after 1987, too was careful not to drag political differences between his party and the Congress, which was ruling at the Centre, into his messages which were beamed by the official media. In the run up to the 1989 lok Sabha election, the Rajiv Gandhi Government issued a diktat to Opposition parties not to mention the word ‘Bofors’ or anything associated in their “election party political telecast” aired through Doordarshan and AIR. VS Achuthanandan, the CPI(M) leader, who came to the studios of Doordarshan to deliver his address to the people, was told by the then station director, R Mahadevan, in no uncertain terms that he could not use the word ‘Bofors’ in the speech. Achuthanandan, at that time (though later on he was downgraded as Kerala's Fidel Castro by none other than Yechury) agreed without battling an eyelid and removed the words from his script. It is another thing that the entire Opposition decided not to use the slots offered by Doordarshan and AIR for the 1989 election. Sarkar should read history, and also manuals of AIR and Doordarshan, before making unsubstantiated allegations of shoot and scoot nature, for which his party is famous.
(The writer is Chennai-based special correspondent, The Pioneer)