Raghav FM on roll;

Next target is to make Cable TV free from Cable

By Osama Manzar
March 20-21, 2006
Village Mansoorpur, District Vaishali, Bihar

By now, Mansoorpur village in Vaishali district of Bihar is on world map of media attention, ICT4D and for the reason what ICT can do for the social transformation of an area as backward as a typical village in Bihar or for that matter anywhere in India. A 23-year old illiterate, un-educated boy has been running "community radio" for more than 3 years, covering a range of 10-16 kilometers of radius around Mansoorpur village, 40 kilometers from Hajipur and hardly 5 kilometers from the Stupa of Ashoka in Vaishali. His name is Raghav Mahto, who has father waiting on the death bed because of mouth cancer.

Village demography & People
Interestingly, more than 90 percent of the Mansoorpur population has radio, many having more than one radio in a family. Mansoorpur has a population of 5400 voters. "Many a times, we use Raghav's FM radio for Panchayat related information including announcements of voters list, and so on," said Arvind Kumar, 35, Mukhiya of Mansoorpur village in a very endorsing manner.
 

Raghav's radio is endorsed by all and sundry, whether it is the headmaster of Government High School, or the local Health Center, or women of the village or the villagers in the field. It seems Raghav serves everybody in sectors varying health, education, Right to Information, entertainment, agriculture and even alarming notices like that of "lost & found".

Raghav & his background
When I strated approaching Mansoorpur on 20th of March, I stopped at least three times on the narrow and broken road leading to Mansoorpur village from Lalganj, the landmark spot on the Hajipur-Vaishali highway. I talked to a village child, people in a market, barber sitting on the roadside, makeshift restaurant owners. They all knew everything about Raghav, his FM Radio, and the interesting songs that he plays found to be liked by villagers of all ages, class and gender. And without exception, everybody mentioned the poor economic situation and about his ailing father. Which clearly indicated that he comes from a very struggling background? He does. Raghav says that he has been taking economic responsibility ever since he could be on his feet. He does not hesitate to mention that his father has always been under the influence of alcohol and therefore he had to eke out the living for his parents, two brothers and three sisters. Now, that all his sisters are married his responsibilities are not over as one of his sister died leaving back a daughter which he looks after, one of his brothers has been absconding for 3 years, another does not do anything. Raghav has to manage to earn at least Rs. 3000 per month to even out all the expenses. Which he has been doing, though with lots of struggle, but successfully.

Raghav Mahto recalls that he had gone through a proper training of radio mechanism when he was even less than 8 as he was working in an electronic shop. But he had to leave that for earning instant daily wages for his family's daily needs, and he started working for a tent house. But soon he found tent business is a seasonal business because of its need in marriage seasons. He got good help from fellow villagers and the owner of the tent house and started an electronics shop. An electronic shop in Mansoorpur village means businesses like: radio repair, radio selling, parts needed in radios like batteries, speaker and so on, need of providing big speakers and Mic for parties, marriages, and political gatherings. Having some time left Raghav would do and still does the tent house job, and often the job of a driver - perhaps anything to earn those extra bucks.

Raghav FM Community Radio (Technology, Genesis, History, Present)
It was during his years with electronic shop when one day he was quite impressed by the logic of cordless Mic which he had to give on rent to a local party. In any case he always used to spend hours figuring out problems with radio and transistors not working, and he would make sure or at least try his best to correct it. His fellow villagers would vouch for that: "Raghav (as they would call him as favourite boy of the village) would never leave a problem unsolved, perhaps the reason why his mind and soul is truly meant for doing something big or do some good in-depth research in the area of electronics, especially radio, TV, and CD players, etc." says Sanjay Kumar, whose grocery and STD Phone shop is in front of Priya Electronics, the shop owned by Raghav.

Raghav's mind was restless some time in the year 2002 or so figuring out "if this Mic can work without cord why cant I speak from my shop and people listen wherever they are without any connection of a wire." He started experimenting between IC transistors, various chips, electronic nodes and many related things which are used in a transistor or a radio, but does not know their names. All the names that he knows is transistor, battery, Mic, speaker, chip and few more. His diction is very limited even in the business that he is in. But he known all of what any of those radio parts can do. And one fine morning he could listen his voice through radio without wire. He could smell the success but he had to figure out how to increase the range from feet to meters and kilometers. He also had to work on the clarity of the voice and perhaps fixing the broadcasting from only one particular frequency.

For sure, he was experimenting on Frequency Module (FM) only as he knew that it could have worked only on FM and not on MW (Medium Wave) or SW (Short Wave). Even Raghav could not explain that why he only experimented with FM to broadcast his station - perhaps the gut feeling or his deep but un-explained knowledge of what is possible and what is not.

The success of Raghav FM reached its interesting stage when one day in later 2002, he asked his friend to do the commentary of the village level cricket match which was taking place under one kilometer distance from the Mansoorpur market where Raghav's shop is situated. Raghav and other fellow villagers could believe their ears who could clearly listen to the commentary in the radio. The experiment was successful, and all it required is enhancements, robustness, and clarity. Which he accepts without hesitation that he was sure of doing and achieving. His broadcasting range since 2002 has increased stage by stage, year by year to 10 to 16 kilometers in radius. The broadcast is, however, not constant across the entire diameter but its does work towards some direction up to 16 kilometers.

Raghav is not hesitant to mention that he can increase to any distance but he does not do it. He increases couple of kilometers every year. As he claims, I do what my fellow villagers allow him and ask him to do. "All my elders suggest not increase too much as it may be intercepted or may be intercepted on the wireless system of Police Patrolling Cars." Raghav smiles and adds, "I know for the fact that my FM cannot be intercepted on Police Patrolling Wireless System but I cannot make my fellow villagers and elders understand so I simply either switch off the system when there is patrolling and also avoid trying to reach out too far where we do not people."

Raghav's FM in all its senses can only be categorised as a "Local Community Radio". It is of the community, by the community and for the community; Raghav is the technical chord of this community radio. Raghav does not do any announcement, his friend does, he does not broadcast anything without the consent of the community, and he does not deny any broadcasting asked by the community. So, in modern jargons, he has a DJ, and his content providers are the local community and his audience is a captive audience of local community of Mansoorpur village and surrounding villages. In the last three years, if the content of Raghav FM can be defined, it would be: Entertainment, Health, Education, Announcements & Instant News, Disaster, Deals & Voluntary Advertisements, Agriculture, and Community Information Services.

Raghav FM's typical day starts with Bhakti Sangeet in the morning for at least 2 hours, followed by songs, jokes, folk music, Bhojpuri Sangeet; announcements of information like AIDS Prevention, Pulse Polio, Health Mela, Availability of New products in the Market, Any New Deals, Commercials of friends and Villagers' Shops; Educational Content like songs for kids, chapters reading from some books recommended by local school teachers and head masters; and the evenings are usually dedicated to Hindi Songs. Interestingly, Raghav ends his shop around 8 O'clock but the songs continue till 9 O'clock or so. Raghav puts the longest cassette and leave the auto reverse cassette player on to switch off on its own after finishing both the sides.

There are two recording cassette players that Raghav uses, and they look anything but a cassette player. Open from all sides, dust on every parts, Raghav's cassette players look like skeleton but perhaps it has a soul which is so powerful that it has never failed Raghav's broadcasting of all those songs and other recordings. Raghav replied, "It may look primitive and broken to you but it works absolutely fine," to my suggestion to use a better quality cassette player.

When I strated enquiring about the technology and circuitry that Raghav is using, all he could explained or rather preferred to explain is that he has used some transistors and with some chips and that is it. And all this small parts has been rapped in a piece of cloth and plastics and kept in a small metallic box, tied at the tip of a long and tall bamboo, which is kept on the highest roof of a building in the Mansoorpur market. This small kit in a small wrap-around is nothing but technically the dish antenna which broadcasts the program of Raghav FM. According to Raghav, he had kept his Kit-cum-Antenna in an accessible point which was stolen by some neighbouring village radio enthusiasts. Since then Raghav has kept the antenna at bay from normal human reach.

The circuit of the entire Raghav FM is that there is a cable connected between the Kit-cum-Antenna and the Mic or cassette players. That's about it. The Mic voice or cassette players send their music through the cable up to the Kit-cum-Antenna, from where the magic of rupees 50 kit antenna works magic and reaches up to 16 kilometers humming the radios of hundreds of villagers of Mansoorpur and neighbouring villages. The broadcast of Raghav FM results in so much clarity that in full volume it sounds like a cassette player playing - no humming, no noise, and no break in voice.

Social impact
Although Raghav has been running his FM Broadcasting for almost 3 years or perhaps more, but the real impact has caught the geometric progression in the last few months. So much so that no one listen to any other station other than Raghav FM - at least in Mansoorpur. People of Mansoorpur claim, at least 50 of them whom I met, that there is hardly any household who does not have radio and for the reason so that could listen to Raghav FM.

Recently, on the occasion of Diwali, three electronics shops in Mansoorpur market sold more than 400 radios. Why? Because, Raghav did some entrepreneurial tricks. He announced through the broadcast that anybody could buy a deal of Ramson radio with a Wall Clock as free at the cost of Rs.260. Ramson is a very popular brand in the region. He sold more than 200 radios in a span of three days as the deal was valid only for three days on the occasion of Diwali festival. The reasons of such high impact are simple and quite common sensical. Villagers of Mansoorpur eloquently express: "we get local songs"; "we have content in local language"; "we get to know when and where the polio pulse camp is organised"; "we all now know the AIDS related messages and the fact that it is not as scary as we always assumed";
 

"we can broadcast our own needs and messages without any money"; "we get to hear Bhojpuri songs in abundance which no other radio stations would broadcast as much as we would like"; "we get to know, more often than not, messages about lost and found"; governance information including Panchayat meetings, elections, and even voters list"; the list goes on and on. In totality the impact of Raghav FM could be categorised as pure "community" and not commercial. Each and every content broadcasted on Raghav FM is for the community, suggested and advised by the community.

Some of the other impacts are that now no body buys cassettes of songs as most of the songs are broadcasted by Raghav and his DJ friend Sambhu on the radio. In fact, many fellow villagers who have had the cassettes have started giving to Raghav to play them now and then. Although Raghav does not make any money from the broadcast, it has however indirectly contributed in the business of his shop - Priya Electronics. According to Raghav, "there was a time when the villagers asked me to shut down the FM station, and I did, which affected in my business of radio repairing as well as sale of other electronics item." "The buzz of FM Radio keeps me in business as I am in vocal touch for almost 12 to 14 hours every day." Some of the other interesting developments have been the live broadcast of any entertainment programme in the village or nearby neighbourhood. Raghav simply organises the equipment to be placed at the entertainment venue and they broadcast the live shows or concerts, and reaches to even those who did not attend the show.

Challenges (Legal, Sustainability, Technological, Financial)
However, the challenges for Raghav FM are many: legal, financial, technological and of course livelihood and sustainability related. The legal challenge is most imminent. At the end of the day, Raghav’s FM Radio is illegal, and not only the smart villagers know it but even Raghav understands it. However, they do not understand the details of legal implication and what exactly government does not allow as far as broadcasting is concerned. Certainly commercial FM radio is made open and almost every nook and corner of the country, which could be seen as has the potential of commercial viability, has been into the bids. Clearly, that amounts money and the adoption some established technology which costly but robust and time tested. However, Community Radio in India is still floating in the files across various desks of government. Raghav FM typically fits the bill of a community radio and would have been a perfect match to the idea of "Community Radio for Social Transformation". However, the community radio is permitted in India in an educational campus, and Raghav FM could be experimented for its technological reasons of being highly economical, in the campus environment.

What Raghav has achieved through his passionate interest in radio and its technology without being literate and adequately educated, poses a serious economic opportunity and technological challenge as far as FM Radio broadcasting is concerned. Raghav FM certainly compels the research community to look into his technology keeping the morality of IPR issues and protections rights, and sees if his technology is truly different than the existing FM broadcasting works or is it just because of various reasons just economical. Whatever the truth, the reality cannot be denied that the equipment cost of Raghav FM is nothing but Rs. 50 or so and its works as crystal clear within 5 to 10 kilometers as we would hear commercial FM radios in metros.

Some of the other challenges for Raghav FM is financial and the issue of sustainability. It is a well known fact now that Raghav has established a technology which works and it needs an adequate research and financial environment to take to the level of robustness, documentation, testing in real time situation for various purposes. But all this is better done by initiatives being taken by an established private institution or autonomous government institution with full umbrella support by the government. As far as the sustainability is concerned, commercial viability has not much that could be seen in the case of Raghav FM, but its social impact is remarkable and has hundreds of opportunities if tapped can create total social transformation pertaining to all walks of life.

Possibilities & proliferation
The quality of broadcast Raghav FM is unbelievably clear and loud. And Raghav claims that he can create his broadcasting system in less than one hour, anytime, anywhere. He has full control over how much distance he wants the broadcast to reach and thus can make the Kit-Antenna accordingly. Raghav claims that he can also make the broadcast reach scores and hundreds of kilometers by multiplying the Kit-Antenna at different distances. In fact, many of his radio disciples have acquired the Low-Impact Kit-Antenna from him and they are using in their respective villages - one of them is using the same and broadcasting in some village of Chhapra district.

There are certainly unlimited possibilities of the Raghav FM Radio. It can work purely as a community radio in a closed group environment. It can be used commercially as a low-cost entry level device based broadcasting business for small entrepreneurs. It can be replicated across various educational institutions in the country, especially having large campuses. In fact, there is another possibility waiting to happen is, the geometrical proliferation of the technology. The reason is that Raghav is getting tens and scores of fan mails everyday. Most of them are from deep villages of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and so on. All of them urging Raghav to share his technology and circuit as they could also start similar FM radio in their village. This is not impossible, as Raghav has casually given couple of kits to some his friends, but they work in a very limited range.

Although Raghav is very tight lipped about the technology that he uses to make the Kit-Antenna, he says, "I would not like to explain or reveal how I have made the broadcasting kit." Obviously, on the other hand, he also does not know how to protect his intellectual property. Besides, there is a possibility that if specialist engineer takes a closer look and opens the Raghav's Kit-Antenna, may figure out the circuit without much difficulty. But this is a hypothetical assumption.

However, there is certainly a possibility of usage of Raghav's FM radio technology across the rural belt of the country. If that happens, it will be a similar case of what happened with cable TV, which had strated as illegal but was never stopped, and now we have more than 110 million TV penetrations because of the cable TV proliferation.

Another possibility is that Raghav FM technology is acquired at a cost by the government and they are made a compulsory extension of 100,000 Common Service Centers (CSCs) that the Government of India is rolling out in the next two years. We must realise that India is a country of people having largely dependent on oral communication, and if the communication and empowerment have to go together, oral medium should be adopted for rural empowerment. On one side Personal Computers need all kind of skilled training for handling it to best effect and impact; on the other hand we have Raghav's cheap FM technology available which can be optimally exploited to offer all kind of services that are planed to be offered through CSCs. And if the issue of security is a major bottleneck, the government can always put the responsibility on the Village Level Entrepreneur (VLEs) who would be running the CSC for making sure of no wrong utilisation of Local FM Radio. Because one of the reasons why Raghav FM is so popular among the women of Mansoorpur is because it informs on the radio about all health related issues which illiterate women can’t read through the posters that health service centers paste on trees and walls of the houses across the village.

Since the roll out CSCs are through a proper channel of state level Service Center Agencies (SCAs) and VLEs, the accountability and ownership is identified, thus adding Raghav’s cheap FM technology into each of the CSCs would have least chance of being used for any illegal activities.

Future & vision
Besides the fact that there is a huge opportunity that Raghav provides to cover the entire country geographically through the community radio, there are extremely viable products and services that can be envisioned to embed into Raghav's FM radio to make it revolutionary in terms of social impact, economic prosperity, and educational reach. And most of the peer group of Raghav knows what could be those services that can be offered through the radio but provisioning of all possible services at a large scale would require some financial support.

Besides, Raghav has been found to be continuously dedicated on permutations and combinations of electronic technologies. His next experiment is to find the way to make the CD and DVD players reach the TVs without cable at far away distances. In other words, he wants to get rid of cable in the entire game of cable TV business. "I believe the cables used for getting cable TV services are very costly. If we can have CD players at home which play CDs and we see them on out TV set without any cable connecting CD player and TV, then it should be possible to make this work even at a longer distance," confirms Raghav with full conviction.

Raghav is certainly an entrepreneur and innovator – could be truly called as social entrepreneur and a grassroots innovator. Having compulsion to quit school when he was in Class II, and yet never stopped innovating with ideas; always finding entrepreneurial excuses to do something or the other to be on his own; are some of the rare traits that he has, which also brought him on the world map of recognitions.

Role of media coverage
For the last three years Raghav has been broadcasting his FM Radio, but only recently he has caught the fancy of media. In the least one month, there is hardly any recognised media who may not have reached Mansoorpur to meet him and do coverage. As per Raghav, more than 20 TV channels have visited him; some of them like CNN-IBN have visited Raghav more than two times. Many of the channels have even conducted discussions on the future of Raghav FM Radio in the light of its illegal standing vis-à-vis community radio in India.

Interestingly, there is a lady actress called Konika who visited Raghav, and promised to help and literally sent Rs. 15,000 to him through the local Mukhiya, Arvind Kumar.

Government, are you listening?
While media has a certainly highlighted the existence of a poor passionate person’s grassroots innovation, it has also raised the issues related to community radio, FM radio licensing, and the pending act related to FM community radio.

Having said that, it cannot be denied that because of the severe media coverages, existence of Raghav FM may be an embarrassment for the government that being illegal it is still running and liked immensely by the local villagers. So much so, that the villagers are ready to take the issue head-on with government officials if they would try to shut-down Raghav FM by force. Ironically, there are few campus based community radio existing in India and their broadcast reaches even beyond the campus, but since community radio in a campus is allowed, there is not much monitoring on the campus based broadcast range.

It is more ironical that, the government, which has formed a special cabinet council to revamp the community radio policy, has been sitting on the proposal for many months. If the Cabinet Council accepts the proposal for the community radio, Raghav FM could not only be saved but hundreds of such community radios can change the educational, social, and economic situation of the country. Government should understand that India is an oral communicating country and its knowledge lies in oral communication, and if government wants to see how much knowledge lies at the grassroots level of the country, radio can show them positively and sustainably.

Note: Osama Manzar is the director of Digital Empowerment Foundation.