Rural Indians turn to radio over Maoists
Tired of violence, some villagers shun both the government and the rebels and find their own voice.
When villagers in this restive corner of India realized that an official was siphoning off food and fuel meant for the poor, they had a choice. They could go to the authorities, or turn to Maoist rebels.
Worried the government would get bogged down in bureaucracy and the Maoists would only invite bloodshed, the villagers chose a new route: They broadcast their case on community radio.
After their report aired two years ago, administrators were questioned, and the corrupt official was promptly sacked. Distribution of food essentials resumed. Soon after, residents of a nearby village followed suit and drove out an official who was pilfering rice and wheat.
"Such action is unprecedented. It made us marginalized people heard for the first time," says Satendra Kumar Mehta, a local farmer who exposed the Bauraha official on the radio. "It solved our problem."
Tired of the daily toll of Maoist violence, rural people in India's Jharkhand state are experimenting with radio as a potent new tool that promises social transformation – without bloodshed and gore.
"They [the Maoists] come and kill the corrupt. But that doesn't solve our problem," Mr. Mehta says. "Community radio [on the contrary] empowers people to kill corruption."
Local villagers say they are excited to find a voice of their own on the airwaves. During broadcasts, people gather at village schools and community halls with a radio set – still beyond the means of many – for group listening. Many villagers – literate and illiterate alike – actively report stories, and participate in making these radio programs.
Alternative for India Development (AID), a grass-roots nongovernmental organization runs two 30-minute radio programs a week called "Come, let's go to our village" on the government-owned All India Radio. The effort began four years ago in Jharkhand state, and several NGOs are running similar programs in other parts of India.
The program has raised local issues menacing rural people including dowries, feudalism, child labor, alcoholism, education, and healthcare. Slowly, villagers are realizing the power of radio to solve their issues. Often, a story is taken up to shame the torpid administration into action.
Through repeated broadcasts, villagers across Jharkhand were alerted of their rights to demand employment from the government through India's ambitious new Rural Employment Guarantee Program. After hearing of it on the radio, a group of 200 women in the village of Merul barricaded the local Block Development Officer in his office for two days, after he failed to provide work to them. He was let out only after he promised to provide work to all villagers through the program.
A 2001 study by the US-based Rockefeller Foundation says that community radio is one of the best tools to reach the marginalized segments of society who lack other means of communication. The study notes that experiences from Latin America, dating as far back as the 1940s, have demonstrated the potential of community radio for social change – especially in third-world rural areas. And with community radio stations multiplying by the thousands all over the world in the past five decades, the same was being repeated in Asia and Africa.
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