Community radio: India
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Latur/ Osmanabad
2021, 2024
Mohua Das, March 24, 2024: The Times of India
In a room awash in soothing aqua tones with geometric patterns of a large open window painted in soft yellow, a lively crew of pre-teen and teenage girls and boys have come together. With a collective clearing of throats, they encircle the day’s centrepiece — an oval microphone. Some are poised to act out a skit, others to belt out a song, and a few to share a personal tale that will echo beyond the walls of this tiny recording booth in Maharashtra’s Latur city. And who knows, might even stir something in the hearts of listeners near and far.
For a few minutes every Saturday and Sunday morning, 11to 18-year-olds from the remote districts of Osmanabad, Nanded, and Latur have been taking over the airwaves with their Marathi community radio show ‘Majha Anubhav Majhi Prerna: Balakanchi Vani Balakanchya Zubani’ (My experience, my inspiration: stories of children by children).
“Friends, today we’re going to present a topic that is important to all of us who use phones and social media,” the radio host announces. A 10-minute audio drama ‘Digital Danger’ follows. The trio of Sangram Raut, 15, Shravani Gund, 13, and Shantanu Gund, 16, from Nipani, a village in Osmanabad, are the stars of the day, enacting the story of a girl who falls prey to a stranger posing as a casting director on social media. He convinces her to meet him for a fake audition, but her father intervenes before any harm is done. Through the skit, audiences glean a crucial lesson about the dangers of online deception and the importance of memorising emergency numbers they can dial for safety.
In these times of social media, OTT and podcasts, the old-school community radio remains steadfast in dishing out what no one else does — unique skits, songs and stories performed by a team of children — to seize listeners’ attention on serious issues that rural communities face like child marriage, perils of early pregnancies, child labour, need for higher education, empowering the girl child, sexual crimes against children and online safety.
It was in September 2021, that this community radio initiative took flight on 101.3MHz All India Radio (AIR) Osmanabad. “It took us six months to convince AIR to allow us to broadcast our community radio content about child rights and development,” says Jaivant Jangapalle, a member of Kala Pandhari Magaswargiya and Adivasi Gramin Vikas Sanstha (KMAGVS), a non-profit in Latur that works to protect and educate children in rural areas.
However, there was a hitch. The radio station was located nearly 150 km away, and children would take more than two hours just to get there. Realising the logistical challenges and financial burden to travel such long distances, they sought help from their partner organisation CRY to set up a studio in Latur. “We hired a consultant from the Osmanabad AIR station who guided the construction of the recording room and also trained the adolescent girls in the technical aspects of recording a show,” he adds. To date around 400 children have performed on this community radio show that runs for five or ten minutes. “Previously, many of them were part of children’s Kalapathak troupes which staged awareness shows on education and child protection across 160 villages in Latur, Osmanabad, and Nanded,” explains Jangapalle.
Kalapathak, the Marathi word for ‘art group’, is an art practice that holds a storied tradition in rural communities of Maharashtra. Despite the penetration of TV and internet in rural households, this 70-year-old outdoor theatre tradition still survives as a way to keep villagers informed about government plans and entertained with renditions of popular film songs and comic acts. “Building on this, we thought community radio would expand the platform while the performance skills honed through Kalapathak naturally translate to radio broadcasts,” he adds.
Senior members of KMAGVS, continuing the Kalapathak legacy, keep generating innovative scripts that the children enact on radio. “The theme usually has an emotional undertone because we’re discussing sensitive topics but infuse a comic touch so that it doesn’t feel preachy and is uplifting,” says Jangapalle. The show is broadcast nationwide, while field workers share the link on WhatsApp groups across different districts. Asma Salauddin, a member of the adolescent group in Bittergaon,
Osmanabad, recounts her first brush with the microphone while enacting a script titled ‘Bachho ki Suno,’ which narrated the story of parents eager to marry off their school-going daughters. “I was so nervous. I’ve never really expressed my thoughts in front of others.” But the comfort of a studio brought confidence. “Now I do it with conviction especially after realising that I was not only performing but also becoming a voice against child marriage and promoting education of young girls,” says the 16-year-old.
Inspired by the children-led initiative, schools and colleges in their districts have started setting up sound systems in their compound every weekend where students, along with their parents and teachers, listen to the shows. “There’s something compelling about hearing a child speak on important issues. It seems to elicit stronger response from the community,” says Jangapalle. “Next, we want children to start ideating and scripting shows, so that it resonates even deeper.”
