Multi-story feat

His idea was revolutionary, his work is trend-setting and his vision has the potential to change millions of lives. Journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary’s ingenious idea was to promote citizen journalism and ensure that an entire region of people in the country, who felt separated from the media, could finally avail the news, using something as simple as mobile phone technology. Maybe there’s a long way to go for his brainchild CGNet Swara, but the focus of his initiative was enough to win him the Digital Activism Award, 2014, which is part of the Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards, even beating the likes of American whistleblower Edward Snowden in the process.

The former BBC South Asia producer’s idea was simple enough. When he realised that the rural people of Chhattisgarh were devoid of any form of communication with the outside world, he came up with a service that would enable anyone to call, tell or leave a message about a news story after which the recordings would be broadcast via phone. Any of the villagers could then call and listen to the stories in their own language.

“These are poor people living in the Maoist areas, who are even identified as ‘terrorists’ at times. But I understood that it’s a lack of communication that causes most of them to throw their lives away and being a journalist, I wanted to play a more constructive role in the media by reaching out to them. We wanted to do something fundamentally different in the field of mass communication that would solve these problems of distance and language. An open discussion forum on the internet started with like-minded people, NGOs, etc. Once the team was in place, we came to the realisation that iInternet, mobile phone and radio were the means to the solution,” explains Shubhranshu, who is a Knight International Journalism Fellow.

So, CGNet Swara was conceptualised after several years of planning and brainstorming. “But we had no basic model to follow; even Africa or South America had not attempted something like this before. We wanted to set up a community radio station, but the legal issues were always going to be a problem. Short wave radio was the answer to reach out to people over a large area but the government didn’t allow it. So then we chose phones, and approached organisations already working in the area, persuading them to let us help the locals, and put the plan in place,” he recounts.

Having grown up in Chhattisgarh himself, Shubhranshu did have a personal connection and their ingenious plan started taking shape. The users, who don’t even speak Hindi or English but only their mother tongue, could dial in and leave an audio message of the story they would like to tell in their own language. CGNet Swara has moderators who check on the authenticity of the stories.

But despite the enormity of his achievement, Shubhranshu admits that while the model is innovative, it can’t be sustained for long. And the long-term answer? “Short-wave radio. I’m hoping that recognition like the Digital Activism award will give us the necessary support to push for introducing radios into our experiment. We are looking to work with short wave transmitter companies and get the permission to implement them. Even while I was in London to receive the award, I spoke about this. Once we reach a larger audiences, we can combat this problem better,” he concludes.