Freedom of the Press in India? Yeah right

The following piece of mine appeared in the Mumbai newspaper, DNA:

All India Radio (AIR) is the only radio station in India that is allowed to broadcast news and current events.  For the world’s largest democracy, this is highly counter-democratic but perhaps not a problem if you trust the Indian government to deliver timely, honest, and well-balanced content covering the news of India’s many diverse regions in all of India’s diverse languages.  Pardon the sarcasm. To be fair, quality is less a question of Government capability and more a function of basic economics.

The problem is this: AIR exists in a vacuum, impervious to the ebb and flow of market demand that private radio stations are submerged in. If no one likes their content, there is no profit/loss trade-off that will make AIR suffer the consequences. Listeners and advertisers cannot move to another news frequency because there isn’t one. Without competition in radio news, AIR has no business incentive to keep quality up and the discussion relevant.

AIR is not the first. Rewind back to 1964 when Radio Caroline set up shop off the coast of Great Britain to escape the BBC.  While not the pioneers of pirate radio, Caroline certainly became the most famous, as they circumvented suffocating radio regulation by taking their headquarters into international waters and playing controversial music for the masses.  Caroline and the other pirate radio stations became the fuel of the rock ‘n’ roll revolution that made the 1960’s in the West legendary.  All were the result of people demanding openness in broadcasting.

Today, pirate radio has moved from international waters to the Internet and to Mumbai. But instead of wanting to play a Beatles track, pirate radio here is after something much more basic: news.

AIR was the exclusive broadcaster until 2000 when they auctioned off FM stations in several cities across India.  While stations have expanded since then and community stations have been allowed, it is still very restricted. Licensing fees for private radio stations are prohibitively expensive and community stations are only permitted five minutes of advertising per hour.

Despite these hurdles, radio has grown. Radio advertising went from Rs 2.4 billion in 2004 to  Rs 8.3. billion in 2008, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers Report – a CAGR of 36.4 per cent.  Advertisers have realised that radio can reach large sections of the population at low cost.  The government should realise this too.

Otherwise, the victim ends up being the consumer.  Indians want to know what is happening in the world that they are playing an increasingly important role in.  But not even two thirds of Indians are literate – so newspapers and books are not options.  When so many people rely on what they can hear, depriving them of a marketplace for radio news seems unfair.

Today the pirates in Mumbai are few, but shows like TiffinTalk which I distribute online are trying to catch the ears of Mumbaikars who are eager for something new.  Pirate radio was born because listeners demanded free airwaves.  Let’s hope Mumbaikars follow suit.

India’s Favorite Fruit

Besides any area that has air conditioning, the most exciting place to be in Mumbai during India’s hottest months of April and May is Vashi Fruit Market.  Located across the bay from Mumbai in Navi Mumbai, the world’s largest planned city and “sister” to Mumbai, work starts here during the dark hours of the morning.

That is because the Indian summer is mango season.  While everyone from the Bollywood big dogs to the Dharavi slum dogs shun the heat, mangoes relish it.  Indeed so much so that their fast ripening and short shelf life make the logistics of export very difficult.  But that does not stop merchants in Vashi like Balasaheb Bhende from dealing in enormous volumes of India’s favorite fruit.

“The general attitude towards mango in India is full of excitement…[mango season] is a sort of celebrating season that begins with spring in India and almost dominates the market throughout the summer.”

– Dr. Vinod Kumar, The Agricultural and Processed Food products Export Development Authority (APEDA)

Mr. Bhende is a fourth generation trader in Vashi who estimates that he now controls 20-25% of the fruit that passes through here.  He receives his mango shipments in the early morning by the truckload in wooden crates and then sells them almost immediately to domestic vendors, exporters, or other middle men.  Vashi is particularly important for mango because of its proximity to India’s largest port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, and the source for the allegedly best mangoes in India, Alphonsos from the Konkan Region of Maharashtra. 

Stepping into Vashi is like stepping into the pages of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim or any whimsical stereotype of a bazaar (the Hindi word for “market”) that a foreigner might have.  Immediately one’s nostrils are filled with the smell of straw, sweat, and mango – an oddly alluring combination.  Hundreds of shouting men speed walk through the stalls with three or four crates stacked high atop their head – ferrying the fruit from the truck to the market or vice versa.

It is during this chaotic normalcy that I step into Mr. Bhende’s stall to witness the arrival of a new shipment of fruit.  The porters bring in the crates and set down four of them in the middle of the only part of the floor not stacked high with consignments or covered knee-deep in straw.  Then three of Mr. Bhende’s men begin prying them open with a crow bar and peeling back the newspaper and straw that protect the mangoes within.  As soon as the mangoes are visible the noise becomes deafening.

The job of these boys is simple: make noise.  One yells praises of the mangoes in Marathi while the second pulls the mangoes out of the crate to show that the quality is the same from top to bottom – a common practice is to put the best mangoes on top to conceal damaged ones below.  The third boy puts his fingers into his mouth to blow a high pitched whistle right into my ear.  I am not sold.

But it seems everyone else is.  The area around the crates is swarming with potential buyers.  “[the noise] is the style of business. It creates the atmosphere.” Mr. Bhende tells me.  The purpose is to create a frenzied excitement and drive up the price.  When asked whether it works, Mr. Bhende and several other vendors around him all wobble their heads enthusiastically in classic Indian fashion.

Dr. Vinod Kumar from The Agricultural and Processed Food products Export Development Authority (APEDA), a government organization that promotes exports, agrees. “The general attitude towards mango in India is full of excitement…[mango season] is a sort of celebrating season that begins with spring in India and almost dominates the market throughout the summer.”

It is Mr. Bhende’s younger brother who runs the closed auction.  He carries a towel over his shoulder and one by one accepts the eager hands of buyers that are held aloft like anxious school children who all know the answer –or the right price in this case.  Once he accepts their hand, he throws the towel over their handshake and the secret bidding begins.  Each finger the bidder folds down represents 100 rupees and a half-bent finger means 50 rupees.  The towel prevents buyers from colluding, starting a bidding war, and forcing the price down.  If the auctioneer is unhappy with a price he pulls his hand away and scans the crowd for another taker.

This is no regular mango shipment either.  What is at my feet is the first batch of the season’s premium mangoes.  It takes a month for the best quality to emerge in the market and today the prices are as high as the mercury.  All of a sudden, Mr. Bhende’s brother grabs someones hand and slaps it in a stingingly powerful high-five.  The deal is closed.

Vashi runs all year and deals in many fruits, from watermelons and oranges to imported Washington apples, but all the vendors I spoke to tell me mango season is what everyone looks forward to.  All the traders shift their operations to mango this time of year and Dr. Kumar estimates that 70% of mangoes from the Konkan region are traded through Vashi.

“Vashi market being the largest market may be trading approximately 10 thousand  tons of mango fruit per day. The total trade during the season from this particular market shall be approximately 300 thousand tons.”

For all this excitement only 80,000 MT, or less than .5% of the total volume produced, is exported.  It seems that, for now, Indians are content to keep their mangoes to themselves.