Sight & Sound
The best man for I & B
Amita Malik

It might seem odd that in two consecutive columns, while speculation was still on about allocation of portfolios, I had singled out Jaipal Reddy as the best man for information and broadcasting. I had said he was a gentleman and an able spokesperson for his party. I now intend to document what I said because there is so much more to him.

During his former brief tenure as minister of I and B, there was no whiff of controversy or hint of favouritism. Reddy is a loner and there were no daughters, sons, brothers, sisters or best friends to be given lucrative assignments as anchors, producers, interviewers and top posts in DD and elsewhere. I am sure he will not appoint a pretty star as head of The Children's Film Society - which is a highly specialised job in places like France or the UK - merely if she says that she loves children. Nor, hopefully, will he have actresses from his own party heading the Censor Board or stuff it with Page-3 women, parading as social workers.

He was also protective of his staff. When an unqualified and arrogant bureaucrat took over as DG of AIR, he sent for the two top office-bearers of its Staff Association, a very mild and non-violent association of senior staff members, who never agitated enough, while the engineers fought for and got their rights. "I know who are my enemies," he thundered. "Before I joined here, I sacked two people and suspended three of them. Remember that". One of the two went straight to Reddy and told him of the threats. "I shall certainly protect you. I'll have to transfer you to DD for the time being, although I know you have specialised in radio`85." And he kept his word.

Reddy retains both his instincts and his sense of humour. Once at a reception, someone said something nice about my writings and moved on. "Did you hear that?" said Reddy, "That was an oxymoron." I smiled feebly, because with my English grammar far behind me, I had forgotten what was an oxymoron. Later I asked a Page-3 woman with a terrific accent what was an oxymoron. "Must be something to do with morons," she smiled. I looked up the dictionary when I went home. Reddy was right.

I listened to his press conference and he has certainly got his priorities right about both broadcasting and culture. But he left out something vital, our great failure in broadcasting on both our frontiers, the North-East and Kashmir. The grand moghuls in Delhi have not yet woken up to the simple fact that the North-East is asleep when the primetime 9 p.m. news in English is telecast. The North-East is more familiar with English than Hindi. Youth of the North-East whose choral groups in western music and lively pop bands are among the best in India listen to pop from China, and watch the latest American films dubbed in Indonesian or the Thai language. When Sushma Swaraj went to inaugurate a news service in the North-East, the pompous anchor from Delhi presented the Chief Minister of Meghalaya as the Chief Minister of Tripura. So what do you expect?

Our failure in Kashmir is even worse where Pakistan continues to cut circles around us. It is a wrong choice to have Delhi-based TV programmes and, worse, technical lacunae have made our transmission weak in the Kashmir valley. These are two important and, indeed, potentially dangerous areas which need urgent attention, Mr Reddy.