[icernet] Radio Ujjas, Kutch's Community show, still popular after three years

[Arul Selvan]

Radio Ujjas has become extremely popular in the remote Kutch region of
Gujarat since it was launched three years ago. It uses folklore not only
as a tool for entertainment, but also to spread social awareness.

In the Kutch region of Gujarat, farmers and fishermen wait for Sunday
evenings, which is when their favourite weekly radio show goes on air.
They gather around radio sets wired to car batteries to listen to Radio
Ujjas -- the community show that tackles such important issues as
alcoholism, dowry and corruption.

Kutch, a sparsely populated region on the west coast of India, shares a
porous border with Pakistan. Kutchis speak their own dialect. The
literacy rate for women in the region is among the lowest in the
country; in some areas it is as low as 1%.

A rural womens group called Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) came up
with the idea of a radio show in a bid to communicate with thousands of
villagers across the region. They learnt about radio production from a
group of media professionals, and since then they havent looked back.

KMVS launched its show with help from the Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad. They bought airtime from the state-owned All
India Radio (AIR), which has a monopoly over Indias airwaves. The show
now receives support from the United Nations Development Programme and
the Indian government.

Radio Ujjas uses local language, song and soap-opera-style dramas to
raise social awareness. Almost two thirds of Kutchs 1.5 million
inhabitants tune in to the programme that discusses the burning issues
of the region. 
We wanted to bring out the real issues that people dont
talk about in the open,
 says Preeti Soni, the programmes producer, who
hails from a Kutchi village. 
So we created an imaginary village named
Ujjas, and gradually it became the most popular programme in Kutch.


Initially, the programme addressed important issues through a serialised
weekly soap opera that drew heavily on Kutchi folklore. Its main star
was a Siberian crane -- a popular figure in Kutchs folk stories -- with
a birds eye view of the region. Three years down the line, besides the
ever-popular serial, the show hosts a weekly newsmagazine that
broadcasts investigative reports and a segment that explores the history
and art of the region.

`Parda Fash, a programme about investigative exposes, is one of the
shows most popular segments. A team of 15 trained reporters, mostly
school dropouts, visits remote villages in Kutch to ferret out
muckraking stories. That these reports do have an impact is borne out by
the fact that Batti Ahmat Bacchu, a 52-year-old fisherman whose plight
was aired on the show won a legal battle against a company that was
about to oust him from his land.

But the aim of Radio Ujjas is to teach media skills to villagers,
particularly women. 
We believe that we should impart the skills to the
local people so that they can, in turn, impart them to somebody else,

explains Nimmi Chauhan of the Drishti Media Collective, who co-founded
the project. 
Thats how you truly can be (called) community radio.


Source:
The Nation
February 9, 2003