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Government 'retires' 2 Prasar Bharati board members

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

The government has 'retired' Prof Romila Thapar and Rajendra Yadav as part-time members of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) board.

Thapar is a historian of repute while Yadav is an author and editor of the Hindi literary journal, Hans.

The Prasar Bharati board exercises control over the state-owned television (Doordarshan) and radio (All India Radio).

A press release from the information and broadcasting ministry said that though the members were appointed for a term of six years, the rules stipulate that a third of the board's members would retire every two years.

Thapar and Yadav were appointed to the Prasar Bharati board two years ago, along with journalist B G Verghese, ex-bureaucrat and former ambassador to the United States Abid Hussain, scientist U R Rao, and ex-bureaucrat K Padmanabhaiah.

Well-known journalist Nikhil Chakravartty was appointed chairman of the board and died in harness while Padmanabhaiah quit his post when he was appointed the governor of Mizoram.

The government press release said Rao and Hussain would be the next to retire after a further two years, which means only Verghese will complete his six-year term.

The statement said the decision on whom to retire was based on four factors, which were:

1.  the experience, expertise and background of the members;
2.  their contribution to the effective and harmonious working of the board;
3.  relative indispensability of the part-time members at this stage and the need for their services; and,
4.  all other relevant circumstances.

Both members wanted to know on what basis they had been retired. "The two of us have been removed only because we were inconvenient to the government," Yadav told rediff.com

"Romila Thapar is a historian of world repute. Recently, the British Historians Councils invited her to join their board. The government terms me a novelist, forgetting that I have also authored books on various subjects, that I edit a magazine whose past editors include Mahatma Gandhi and Premchand. How are we any less than the others," he asked.

Yadav also questioned the legal validity of the removal, saying that as per the Prasar Bharati rules, both Thapar and he were appointed for six years and any arbitrary removal was questionable. He said moving the courts was an option he was considering, but he would decide in consultation with his friends.

Yadav said the board members had decided to fulfil the retirement-every-second-year clause by a draw of lots. "This would have been fair to all rather than to arbitrarily choose two people," he said.

Both Thapar and Yadav said their dismissal only reflected the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party's intolerance of views different from its own. "The government has already begun to dismiss all independent opinion from other institutions to promote people who promote this government's ideology," said Thapar.

Yadav was scathing in his criticism, calling the government a "fascist" regime unwilling to tolerate any dissent. "This government cannot tolerate any democratic, liberal, humanistic values. They are out to promote feudal, conservative and fossilised views. Is it any wonder that this party has no intellectuals within its fold?" he argued.

Yadav said the BJP was only willing to tolerate someone who claimed that the Taj Mahal was once a temple and the Qutub Minar was built atop another temple. "This is the same party that has identified 50 kitchens used by Sita from the Himalayas down to Kanyakumari. Do you mean to say Sita spent all her time cooking at various spots in India? This is the kind of work this party does," he said.

Both Thapar and Yadav feared for the kind and quality of programmes that would be dished out in the absence of control from the Prasar Bharati board. "We must remember that Doordarshan is the only channel that reaches rural India, unlike the cable and satellite channels that primarily remain urban phenomena. It thus remains extremely influential," warned Thapar.

Giving an example, Yadav said, "When some Western TV channel did a programme on The Ten Commandments, they carried out archaeological excavations and gave historical references even as they did a serial. Why couldn't the Ramayan have been done in a similar fashion? What we have shown is total absurdities masquerading as religion," he said.

Yadav also said Doordarshan was rife with corruption and there was no attempt to clean up the place. "Pahari (a Doordarshan executive at whose residence were found bags full of money) is only the tip of the iceberg. The entire system is corrupt right up to the level of the ministers," he claimed.

He pointed out that Doordarshan had completely stopped producing programmes, giving them out to private producers. "And for every programme broadcast, the executives and government receive a cut of up to 25 to 30 per cent. That is how much money is floating around," he said.

The Hans editor regretted that the Opposition was keeping quiet on an issue of fundamental relevance. "Autonomy of Doordarshan and AIR is not the end, but the beginning of our rights. If BBC can criticise the government, why not Doordarshan?" he said.

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