In their voice

Mahadev Singh, a Baiga tribal person, hails from a village situated atop a forested hill near Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh. While most of the neighbouring villages are electrified and welfare schemes from the government reach them to an extent, Mahadev's village has lost out in this regard owing to its inaccessibility. Mahadev and his Baiga brotherhood do small-time farming to sustain themselves. His village, where more than 80 per cent of families belong to the below poverty line (BPL) category, hardly receives work and benefits from welfare schemes that regional political representatives proudly speak of at every election campaign. 

The Swara team, with the help of many volunteers, has been conducting media workshops where citizen journalists are trained in recording voice, reporting and editing/ Photo credit: Frontline

Early this year, the people of the village began trekking the 15 kilometres to the regional block headquarters every week to ask the circle officer to grant the village some work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The circle officer did not pay heed and even shouted at them for coming so often. The officer also refused to pay them for work they had done a year before under the MGNREGS.

There was, however, an unintended benefit that the villagers enjoyed. A hillock on one side of the village helped them to gain access to mobile phone networks. So, Mahadev Singh, one among the only four people in the village to own a mobile phone, did something extraordinary. He recorded the circle officer's rebuke on one such visit and passed it on to India's first mobile community radio, CGNet Swara, which in turn published it on its bulletin. Soon, the mainstream media picked up the news and word spread. The State government ordered immediate action against the officer and appointed staff to ensure that the welfare schemes reached Mahadev's village.

Similar is the case of Ramesh, a Gondi from Bhopalpatnam in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. The only graduate from his tribe, he earns a living by freelancing for local newspapers. Bijapur, in the south Bastar region, has a heavy Maoist presence, and clashes between the state forces and the Maoists are common. In one instance, the Central paramilitary forces, with the help of the Special Police Officers (SPOs) of the armed civilian militia Salwa Judum, allegedly burnt three villages of the area. 

The local press refused to publish the news fearing repression, and it was then that Ramesh telephoned CGNet Swara to report on the incident. Once the mobile radio beamed the news, national newspapers such as The Hindu and The Times of India picked it up, investigated it further, and published it. The incident was seen as a gross human rights violation, and the Chief Minister was forced to grant aid to the affected villages.

“Had it not been for CGNet Swara, our concerns would have been left completely unattended,” said Mahadev Singh. Ramesh seconded it: “If I had not joined Swara, it would have been very difficult for me to stay on in Bastar as I was highlighting human rights issues of the tribal people. Swara gave me a sort of immunity.”

Founded in early 2010, CGNet Swara was mooted by Shubhranshu Choudhary, a journalist formerly with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).What started as a small experiment last year has become a huge success if one measures it in terms of its impact. Many stories of police repression, delay in MGNREGS payments, human rights violations, caste abuses, and torching of villages by paramilitary forces, which came to Swara's notice, were picked up by mainstream newspapers. At present, Swara gets approximately 300 calls a day. Apart from Chhattisgarh, it has spread its influence to Orissa, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

The challenges to this revolutionary initiative have been many. But the success of this radio in such a short span of time is definitely encouraging and can influence policy changes in communications. The radio, most importantly, has managed to form a linkage between rural and urban activists. Rural activists report about incidents in the hinterland, which are then picked up by urban activists who use their contacts in power circles to create an impact.