Media and Marginal Communities - II

When communication as an instrument of information becomes a means of power and of development. No community can afford to remain aloof to the modern means of communication. In the fast globalising world it is becoming all the more significant as the gulf between the information 'haves' and 'have nots'; is widening everyday. So is the divide between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural. In this context, it is necessary for marginalised or oppressed communities to adapt the new media technologies for communication. The acceptance and use of media technologies becomes even more necessary for the communities involved in their development because communication is one of the prime constituent of development process.

My recent involvement with the Musahar (a tribal/ schedule caste of Bihar in India) community has raised many questions and has shown the need to think of alternative models of development and communication. It is a community which has not been able to reap the fruits of development for last fifty or more years. The literacy rate of a meager 2.5 itself proves the fact that the communication strategies employed by the government and non government agencies have not been very successful. There have been a lot of drop out cases in spite of a few success stories in the field of education. The main reason for such situation could only be the lack of understanding of their culture and consequently the lack of expertise in the use of media on the part of developmental agencies.

In India, most of the tribal and down trodden communities, are oral societies. Radio could have been an effective media to communicate with them, but due to the biases of urban middle class communicators and the limitation of radio as a medium of mainstream nationalism, it could not be utilized for inciting a process of development. In this context, one of the ways to harness democratization and development is the introduction of community radios for these societies. The historical philosophy of community radio is to use this medium as the voice of the voiceless, the mouthpiece of oppressed people and generally as a tool for development.

The advocacy for Community Radio Station in Indian Marginal communities also stems from the fact that it gives our plurality a chance to survive in the fast homogenizing world. The 'dalits' (a term used for oppressed in Indian languages) or the downtrodden have shown a marked preference for this media. It has been found that not only the migrating dalits acquire a radio set as their first status symbol, but those who come to National Capital or other major cities for rallies also buy a radio set instead of a TV set as it is the radio that becomes a friend in need in the absence of electricity and a friend indeed in the fields during harvesting seasons.

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