India’s Voice or Government’s Echo? Ending Prasar Bharati
Embedded Files
WE NEED SUPPORT TO FIGHT IGNORANCE
Urgent Need: Safeguarding Prasar Bharti’s independence is vital for India’s democratic future, cultural continuity, and global credibility in an era of rising state propaganda.
Prasar Bharti’s Decline: India’s public broadcaster suffers from weak autonomy, excessive government oversight, and eroding public trust, unlike its global counterparts.
Comparative Lesson: BBC (UK) and DW (Germany) thrive due to strong legal safeguards, independent funding models, and editorial independence, enabling them to uphold democratic discourse.
Democracy and Free Media: Independent broadcasting is a cornerstone of democracy; where media independence weakens, democratic values also decline.
Historical Warning: India’s 1975–77 Emergency showed how state-controlled broadcasting was weaponised to mislead the public and weaken democratic institutions.
For more read the full article .....
Independent, fact-checked journalism URGENTLY needs your support. Please consider SUPPORTING the EXPERTX today.
AUGUST 2025
Why India Needs Independent Broadcasting? For millions of Indians who grew up with the signature tunes of Doordarshan and All India Radio, public broadcasting was more than entertainment.
It was the nation’s mirror bringing poetry to the doorstep, cricket to the courtyard, and debates into the living room.
Prasar Bharati, created by an Act of Parliament in 1990, was supposed to give institutional independence to this national voice.
The Supreme Court’s 1995 judgment underlined this autonomy, declaring broadcasting freedom essential to democracy.
Yet, the promise remains unfulfilled. Nearly three decades later, Prasar Bharati is still tied to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting through financial strings, bureaucratic control, and political pressure.
Former Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar’s sharp remark “200% sarkari” captures the disillusionment.
“
... Prasar Bharati is still tied to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting through financial strings...
Content producers complain of vacancies, frozen promotions, and decision-making dominated by engineers and deputed officers with little grounding in programming.
Editorial independence, once envisaged as its soul, is largely hollow.
The appointment of Sudhir Chaudhary, a television anchor known for his partisan leanings, to a prime Doordarshan slot, reportedly at a cost of ₹15 crore per year, shows how transparency and meritocracy have been sidelined.
Meanwhile, senior programme officers who once nurtured India’s cultural and social tapestry are pushed to the margins.
The danger is not just institutional decay but the erosion of public trust in state media.
The Global Contrast: BBC and DW
A glance abroad illustrates what India has lost. The BBC, founded in 1922, is often under political pressure but operates under a Royal Charter that guarantees independence.
Its annual budget of £5.7 billion dwarfs Prasar Bharati’s roughly ₹3,000 crore (about £280 million).
More striking is how resources are used: nearly 80% of the BBC’s staff are content creators journalists, producers, and filmmakers.
In Prasar Bharati, insiders say that figure is below 10%, with engineers and administrators outnumbering creative professionals.
The BBC has faced criticism from charges of bias during the Brexit campaign to questions over licence fee funding but its structural independence allows it to withstand pressure.
When Boris Johnson’s government attempted to intimidate the broadcaster, public backlash was immediate. In surveys, 70% of Britons still valued the BBC’s neutrality even if they disagreed with its content.
Germany offers another instructive case.
Deutsche Welle (DW), funded by the federal budget, is governed by a council that insulates it from day-to-day government interference.
“
...Nearly 80% of the BBC’s staff are content creators journalists...
DW’s mandate is global broadcasting providing independent, multilingual news in more than 30 languages. It has consistently ranked among the most trusted international broadcasters.
In 2022, during the Ukraine war, DW provided impartial coverage while Russian state outlets like RT and Sputnik were banned across Europe for serving as government propaganda.
The contrast with India is painful.
Doordarshan, once the unrivalled broadcaster of cricket and cultural events, has lost its edge.
Private channels dominate the airwaves, and Prasar Bharati struggles with low advertising revenue due to loss of 60% revenue from crickets and sports. Thus plummeting credibility.
Where the BBC and DW defend democratic discourse by challenging governments, Indian public broadcasting too often echoes the ruling establishment.
Similar Stories you may be interested
The EXPERTX Analysis coverage is funded by people like you.
Will you help our independent journalism FREE to all? SUPPORT US
Lessons from the Past, Warnings for the Present
India does not lack historical warning signs. During the Emergency of 1975–77, Doordarshan and AIR became tools of government propaganda.
Opposition voices were silenced, dissent was painted as treachery, and the airwaves became a one-sided drumbeat of constitutional subversion.
The memory of that misuse of media was one reason why Parliament created Prasar Bharati to prevent such capture from recurring.
But democratic backsliding rarely announces itself with fanfare. It seeps through institutional erosion.
Today, Sansad TV often stops showing opposition MPs in debates, shrinking parliamentary discourse on the very platform that should have preserved it for posterity.
Hiring practices favour loyalty over merit. Content decisions are made not by editors but by bureaucrats. Staff morale, already battered by decades of neglect, is at a low ebb.
The irony is sharp.
India, with more than 420 radio stations and 36 television channels under Prasar Bharati, commands one of the largest public broadcasting networks in the world.
Yet this empire operates without the independence or credibility of its global counterparts. As one veteran insider remarked, “Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a funeral in slow motion.”
Why Independent Media Safeguards Democracy
The case for an autonomous broadcaster is not merely institutional housekeeping, it is civilisational.
Indian traditions of debate and pluralism, from the shastrartha of ancient philosophy to the syncretic exchanges of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, have always valued multiple voices.
Democracy thrives on dissent, and dissent depends on platforms that are free, fair, and fearless.
Global examples underscore the point.
“
But democratic backsliding rarely announces itself with fanfare. It seeps through institutional erosion
In South Africa, the role of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) during the post-apartheid transition was critical it broadcast diverse voices, nurtured reconciliation, and held leaders accountable.
In Eastern Europe, broadcasters in Poland and Hungary that lost independence became early casualties of democratic decline, their capture paving the way for broader authoritarian consolidation.
India’s own history testifies that free media strengthens democracy.
In 1977, after the Emergency, when censorship was lifted, independent journalism played a key role in mobilising public opinion and restoring constitutional order.
Without independent broadcasting, the Emergency might have lasted longer, and the cost to democracy would have been far greater.
The challenge today is sharper.
Social media has amplified disinformation. Private news channels, dependent on advertising and political patronage, often lean toward sensationalism or partisanship. This makes a trusted, autonomous public broadcaster more vital, not less.
A Prasar Bharati that is professional, adequately funded, and structurally independent could be India’s equivalent of the BBC or DW—providing balance amid noise, facts amid propaganda, and pluralism amid polarisation.
Similar Stories you may be interested
A Call to Restore the India’s Voice
The decay of Prasar Bharati is not inevitable, it is a consequence of choices.
Parliament must revisit the funding model, ensure that appointments are transparent, and create a genuine firewall against government interference.
Content creation must return to the centre, with writers, journalists, and producers leading rather than following bureaucrats.
“
India’s own history testifies that free media strengthens democracy
If India is to remain the world’s largest democracy not just in numbers but in spirit, it must protect the institutions that sustain free thinking. Public broadcasting is one such pillar.
Without it, the airwaves risk becoming empty corridors where only the powerful speak and the people merely listen.
The haunting question remains: will Doordarshan and Akashvani rediscover their role as the nation’s conscience, or will they remain muted departments under ministerial control?
For a civilisation built on dialogue, and for a democracy that claims moral leadership, the answer cannot be delayed.
For when the broadcaster’s independence dies, the people’s voice is silenced and democracy begins to sound like a forgotten signature tune, drifting away into silence.
The EXPERTX Analysis coverage is funded by people like you.
Will you help our independent journalism FREE to all? SUPPORT US
To Comment: connect@expertx.org
Support Us - It's advertisement free journalism, unbiased, providing high quality researched contents.
Google Sites
Report abuse