Prasar Bharati is not a public service broadcaster

Why in the News

The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990 promised an autonomous public broadcaster, but the bodies meant to secure that autonomy have never been set up. Twelve years after a 2014 promise to recast Prasar Bharati on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) model, the 138th “Mann Ki Baat” (the Prime Minister’s monthly radio address) shows the state still treats public airwaves as its own platform.

What is Prasar Bharati meant to be?

1. What it is: Prasar Bharati is the statutory corporation running All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan. Like the BBC, it was meant to be autonomous, editorially free and accountable to Parliament.
2. Origins: The Emergency of 1975 made AIR and Doordarshan instruments of the regime. A BBC-style model drawn up by B.G. Verghese became the 1979 Prasar Bharati Bill, which lapsed.
3. The Act: Introduced as “a charter of freedom” under Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression), it received assent but was enforced only in 1997.
4. Section 12 duties: The corporation must inform, educate and entertain, and safeguard “the citizen’s right to be informed freely, truthfully and objectively”.
5. The takeaway: The law already promises independence, so the failure is one of implementation.

Which parts of the Act were never implemented?

1. Section 13: A 22-member parliamentary committee, elected from both Houses, was to oversee Prasar Bharati for Parliament. No government has constituted it.
2. Sections 14 and 15: A Broadcasting Council was to receive complaints and guard political impartiality. It has never been set up, so no one can challenge an editorial decision.
3. Section 10: A recruitment board meant to keep appointments free of government interference saw no action until July 2020, when the head of Bharat Prakashan, publisher of Panchajanya and Organiser, became chairman.
4. Section 23: The Centre can still issue binding directions on what may or may not be broadcast.

Does Prasar Bharati pass the public broadcaster test?

1. UNESCO test: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defined public broadcasting in 2001 as neither commercial nor state-controlled.
2. Engineering-heavy workforce: A manpower audit found almost half of the 25,000 staff in engineering, against a little over 10% at the BBC.
3. Thin content staff: Content staff were under 20%, against about 70% at the BBC. So Prasar Bharati is staffed to run transmitters, not to make news and programmes.

Why has autonomy never been delivered?

1. Nehru’s formula: In 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru told the Constituent Assembly that broadcasting should be a semi-autonomous corporation, “otherwise not conducted as a government department”. That caveat has not been honoured.
2. Supreme Court direction: Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of Bengal (1995) held that airwaves are public property. Its direction for an independent authority to control them is unmet.
3. Chanda Committee: The Chanda Committee concluded in 1966 that “a psychological transformation is necessary” in the government’s approach to broadcasting, and that change has not come.

Challenges

1. Ministerial answerability claim: Ministers insist they alone answer to Parliament, so they keep summoning AIR and Doordarshan officials.
2. Bureaucratic control: Officers of the Indian Information Service, a government cadre, run daily broadcasting.
3. No independent money: With no fund of its own, the Prasar Bharati Board depends on the Ministry for money.
4. No complaints channel: The government told the Lok Sabha it got no formal complaints about autonomy last year, but with no Council, complaints have nowhere to go.

Way Forward

1. Parliamentary committee: Constitute the Section 13 committee so that Parliament, not the Ministry, oversees Prasar Bharati.
2. Broadcasting Council: Create the regulatory council the Act names, to hear complaints and guard impartiality.
3. Professional Board: Rebuild the Board, now filled with bureaucrats who defer to the Ministry, as a professional body, and transfer to it the assets and staff never handed over.
4. Funding without strings: Design funding free of government strings and remove Indian Information Service officers from operational control.

Conclusion

Prasar Bharati’s autonomy fails for want of political will rather than law. The open question is whether citizens go to court to enforce the Act and the Supreme Court’s direction, or wait for a future Lok Sabha willing to act.

Key numbers

1. Public Service Broadcasting Day: 12 November, declared in 2000, marks Gandhiji’s only AIR broadcast, made in 1947 to two lakh refugees at Kurukshetra.
2. Prasar Bharati Bill: A new version was introduced in 1989.
3. BBC in India: Accused of a “continuing colonial mindset” after its 2023 documentary, the BBC split its Indian news operation from April 2024 to meet foreign-investment rules.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2014, GS2, 12 marks] What do you understand by the concept “freedom of speech and expression”? Does it cover hate speech also? Why do the films in India stand on a slightly different plane from other forms of expression? Discuss.”