Even before it assumed office, in its National Agenda document, the BJP government made it clear that a reappraisal of the Prasar Bharati Act is inevitable. No doubt, the manner in which the corporation is being run could do with some improvement, but there can be two schools of thought on whether this calls for radical structural readjustment.The government's desire to retire the superannuated officials heading the organisation is entirely laudable. The last government had bent the rules in a transparently motivated manner to induct people who enjoyed significant comfort levels with the former Prime Minister. Inevitably, therefore, the choice fell on candidates who were well past middle age by the time television came to India, and who could not be expected to be entirely comfortable with the medium.
It is hardly surprising that in the months that it has been functioning, the corporation has not been able to make a noticeable difference to production standards on the state-owned television channels. ThePrasar Bharati Board may now be safely retired and replaced by younger, more expert and more adequate people.
But the government's intentions become extremely suspect when it insists that the Prasar Bharati Board should be made more accountable to Parliament. It defeats the very objective of incorporation and the formation of the board, which was to put the electronic media under autonomous control, to make it, in a sense, accountable to itself. If 22 parliamentarians are to supervise the working of the board, then it will become just another appendage of Parliament. A dysfunctional appendage, at that, because the proceedings will be dominated by 22 different voices. In a Parliament in which every other member appears to have an agenda of his or her own, this would be inevitable -- and inevitably disastrous. Right now, the board has to deal with the BJP's displeasure about a perceived bias in poll coverage. It is doubtful whether it will be equal to dealing with the pressure tactics of almost two dozen MPs,who will naturally have to be selected from across the political spectrum and will reflect a whole range of regional and ideological interests.
While the BJP's move does not appear to be motivated, it does set a bad precedent. The first government to come to power after the Prasar Bharati Act came into force has immediately announced the intention to tinker with it on a priority basis. It lends undue legitimacy to any subsequent government which may seek to introduce sweeping changes in its own interest. It may also legitimise the expulsion of board members whenever a new dispensation comes into force, just as the summary transfer of administration and police officials has become a quasi-legitimate function of all new state governments.
Sushma Swaraj should now make it clear that the BJP government's move is not directed against specific persons, but is a matter of principle. It also needs to be emphasised that the Prasar Bharati Corporation was created to free the electronic media from remote control bypolitical forces. The board is, no doubt, ultimately answerable to Parliament, but allowing it to maintain its distance would be the sensible thing to do.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
