AIRY ARGUMENT

It would be utterly absurd to regard the result of the Rajya Sabha debate on All India Radio as a victory to the Minister for Information and Broadcasting. The debate centred around a resolution demanding the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the working of AIR.The sponsor of the resolution was Shri Bhupesh Gupta, a Communist. It was the political hue of the author of the resolution that was chiefly responsible for its defeat.The defeat highlights one aspect of our democracy in which the ruling party, by virtue of its brute majority, is always ‘right’ even when it’s patently wrong. AIR’s character as an organ of public opinion is necessarily propagandist. This is clearly unfair to the parties in the opposition. Worse, AIR’s one-sidedness inhibits the growth of democracy to an immeasurable extent. It may be that Dr. Keskar and his colleagues in the Government as well as his party comrades are convinced that AIR is non-partisan. But as far as the vast majority of the listeners are concerned AIR is a fossilised old bore. As a source of news it is neither original nor lively and as provider of entertainment it displays neither verve nor imagination. AIR’s lack of vitality is largely because the Government has never bothered to find out what is wrong with it. And for reasons known only to the Government it has always resisted instituting any investigation into the manner in which AIR is being run. Some members of the Rajya Sabha made a good case for the conversion of AIR into an autonomous Corporation. Dr. Keskar scouted their arguments with the indefensible plea that Parliament would have a greater control over AIR if it continued as a department of the Government. The validity of this argument is questionable particularly in view of the fact that Parliament does exercise effective control over all autonomous corporations in the public sector. The plain fact is that the Government does not want to relax its grip over AIR.This is a sad commentary on the quality of democracy that is being evolved.