Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television

1. From Doordarshan to Prasar Bharati: The Search for Autonomy in Indian Television

  1฀ From฀Doordarshan฀to฀Prasar฀Bharati:฀ ฀ The฀Search฀for฀Autonomy฀in฀Indian฀฀ ฀ Television around฀3:00฀p.m.฀on November฀12,฀2001, the viewers of Doordarshan and the listeners of All India Radio were treated to a rare address that had been broadcast to the nation by Mahatma Gandhi on the same day in 1947. The historic event was recreated to commemorate the fifty-fourth anniversary of Gandhi’s first and last visit to the Broadcasting House in Delhi to record his message to refugees who had been violently displaced from their homes by the Partition of India and Pakistan. At the commemoration ceremony, some of Gandhi’s favorite bhajans (devotional songs) were also played,and a new museum of radio and television was inaugurated at the Broadcasting House by the minister of information and broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj. Describing the museum as the first of its kind in the country, Swaraj declared that the historic event was a reminder of the need for “introspection by the broadcasting agency to contemplate upon its goals as a public service agency.” Anil Baijal,the CEO of the Prasar Bharati Corporation,which oversees both radio and television broadcasting in India, explained that the goal of this endeavor was “to preserve our heritage and present it in the shape of a museum for the future generations.” Baijal also reminded the audiences that in the previous year, Prasar Bharati had declared November 12 “national broadcasting day” in honor of Mahatma Gandhi’s historic address to the nation in 1947.1 In this chapter, I interrogate the nationalist quest for autonomy in public broadcasting in India by mapping the changing identity of Doordarshan as a state-sponsored network. In the first section,I trace the historical evolution of Indian television from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, when the 01.23-54.Kumar.indd฀฀฀23 10/18/05฀฀฀11:32:36฀AM 24฀ gandhi฀meets฀primetime nationalist agenda of educational programming defined the identity of Doordarshan as a state-sponsored network. In the second section, I examine how the rapid commercialization of Doordarshan through the 1980s contributed to the creation of “national programming” as a genre that articulated the state-sponsored agenda of educational television to consuming desires of the cultural elites for entertainment. In the third section, I discuss how the growing challenge from satellite and cable television channels in the 1990s induced the government of India to recast Doordarshan’s identity as a public broadcasting service through the creation of an autonomous corporation called Prasar Bharati. In the final section, I address the question of an Indian community of television in terms of a hybrid formulation of imagiNation as a way to articulate the nationalist ideals of public broadcasting to the rapid transformations of electronic capitalism. Creating฀a฀National฀Network The idea of television broadcasting in India was first suggested in October 1951 by a Scientific Advisory Committee that was set up by the government to explore the possibility of establishing a pilot station. On February 2, 1953, the union minister of information and broadcasting announced plans to establish an experimental project to examine whether television would be within the economic means of the Indian government. Commenting on the feasibility of such a project,the minister declared: “Though television might appear to be a useful thing in the country,the expenses involved in installing it are very high.”2 India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was very hesitant to commit the government’s limited resources for the very high expenses necessary to sustain the electronic medium of television. However, major players in the Indian electronics industry proposed to explore the possibility of commercial operations by organizing public demonstrations of television in major cities like Delhi and Bombay. In 1959 Philips India set up a demonstration of closed-circuit television at the Industrial Exhibition in Delhi. At the conclusion of the exhibition, Phillips sold the broadcasting transmitter and twenty-one television sets for a fraction of their cost to the government of India.Subsequently,a UNESCO grant of $20,000 enabled the government of India to purchase fifty-five additional television sets, which were set up for community viewing in and around Delhi. A pilot broadcasting center was set up in the Delhi premises 01.23-54.Kumar.indd฀฀฀24 10/18/05฀฀฀11:32:36฀AM From฀Doordarshan฀to฀Prasar฀Bharati฀ 25 of All India Radio (AIR),and a...