Monday, November 26, 2007

Ear to the ground

Of ignorance and inaptitude

Come to think of it, nobody, including the government which legislated the measure, knew for close to ten years that political ads were banned on private television channels and other cable television networks. Thanks to a spat between the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the Election Commission the fact has come to public knowledge. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has drawn attention to the advertising code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995. This code says: “No advertisement shall be permitted the objectives whereof are wholly or mainly of a religious or political nature; advertisements must not be directed towards any religious or political end.”
The Election Commission’s first directive banning political ads came way back in 1998. For obvious reasons, nobody challenged it then. The logic behind the move was simple. The commission wanted to provide a ‘level-playing field’ to smaller political parties who couldn’t have matched bigger and financially stronger political parties in terms of airtime. The commission also argued that since DD and AIR provided free airtime to all political parties, on the basis of past electoral performance, there was no need for additional propaganda. That was the time when the commission and the government were thinking in terms of state-funding of elections and bringing down the role of money in electioneering to the bare minimum.
It was when the commission re-issued its directive the next year, in 1999, that it was challenged in Andhra Pradesh High Court. The court struck it down but the commission didn’t know about it. So, it issued the same directive again in November last year. When someone pointed out the court ruling, the directive was withdrawn and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry informed accordingly. This wasn’t the first time that the ministry was being informed. The commission’s earlier directive too was meant for the ministry and all political parties. It was only last month that the ministry got back to the commission saying that withdrawal of its directive didn’t make sense since the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995 banned it anyway! The commission then asked the ministry to implement its own law. That is when all hell broke loose.
True, it is difficult to monitor over 100 TV channels and about 30,000 cable operators in the country. But instead of saying so, it blamed the commission for its discomfort, evoking strong reaction from CEC T S Krishnamurthy.
The commission officials acknowledge their ignorance about the ban and explain that they didn’t know because they were “not consulted while the said legislation was being framed or enacted”. No such excuse is available to the ministry. But why on earth did the ministry frame such a rule in the first place? Private television channels and cable networks had quite a powerful presence in 1995 too. How can a particular medium of mass communication, that too the most powerful one of the time, be kept out of the biggest democratic exercise? The only logical answer is that the ministry babus didn’t apply their minds and simply copied down DD’s advertising code that says ads “must not be directed towards any religious or political ends…” while framing the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995.
But don’t expect the babus and their minister to explain. They haven’t yet explained why they wanted to impose the Conditional Access System (CAS) and why don’t they scrap it altogether now. Probably, most of them don’t know what they are doing and why. Expect them to keep doing weird things.
Expect the Election Commission to flounder too. It has begun working like a bureaucratic set up. Former CEC M S Gill was often derided as a publicity seeker but it goes in his credit that he initiated public debate on electoral reforms. He periodically invited journalists and political parties to his office and discussed various ways and means to cleanse the system. But that practice has been discontinued. As a result, the only worthwhile move made to reform the electoral system in post-Gill phase was at the instance of a few public-spirited individuals. They went to the apex court and asked for a directive which would force those aspiring for public office to furnish details about their educational qualifications, assets and criminal antecedents at the time of filing nominations.
Krishnamurthy tried and failed miserably in his very first attempt to bring in change by way of providing voters the “right to reject” a candidate. Last Sunday he said he had approached the government with a proposal to provide an option “none of the above” in the electronic voting machine so that the voters could exercise their “right to reject” if they felt the political parties had not fielded deserving candidates. He also said that the government didn’t bother to respond. Not many political leaders and government officials, even ex-CEC MS Gill, could react to the proposal saying they didn’t know the details. Some reacted to it saying that there was no need for it since a large chunk of voters absented themselves expressing their lack of faith in candidates and political parties in any case. CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee said this would result in chaos and that would be the end of parliamentary democracy in the country. Not a very pleasant turn of events. He could have achieved a better result had he sought public debate on it, rather than passing on a note to the government and hoping for things to happen on their own.

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