Months after the young Desh Raj Singh became a community radio (CR) broadcaster for Radio Mewat in 2009, he was impromptu assigned to its signature programme, Suno-Prashasan-Suno (Listen-Administration-Listen). It was a live broadcast for a water-related protest by women. In the studio, the locals dwelled at length on stories about hardships and betrayal by the sarpanch. Within no time, the embarrassed sarpanch arrived at the station, and made a live promise to arrange for water.

Desh Raj remembers, “The flood that year inundated the village, and even the spots for open defecation were out of bounds. We realised how important toilets were for villagers, and I started working on a programme to construct them.” It was broadcast a year later. For the youngster, the two events provided insights into the power of CR. It was a lesson on how crucial water and sanitation are for the communities.

Today, Desh Raj is among the hundreds of youngsters, who are convinced that no other communication machinery can match the power of CR, when it comes to messages around water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Mewat is merely 100 km from the national Capital, Delhi. The climate is hot, dry and semi-arid, with parched and extended summers. Water is scarce, and any talk of sanitation is a luxury. It was difficult to talk about sanitation due to ignorance.

Alfaz-e-Mewat, which is another CR station run by S.M. Sehgal Foundation, caters to over 200,000 people in 225 villages. “CR stations use proactive approaches to reach the communities they work with. The station studios are open; anyone can walk in. There is a special space for experts to explain how washing hands with soap helps. For instance, listeners pay attention to what health officials have to say,” explains Pooja O. Murada of Alfaz-e-Mewat. “Officials cannot go to every village, but the radio can become a medium of communicating a message across the region,” she adds.

This attribute of CR came in handy during the first nationwide lockdown. After the 21-day shutdown was announced, Alfaz-e-Mewat aired new programmes to stress the necessity of washing hands. ‘Ekies batein, Ekies din’ (21 dialogues, 21 days) was a series where experts directly spoke to the listeners. Pooja Murada says that a range of subjects were discussed — from mental health and social distancing to immunity, with stress on the importance of hygiene and wearing masks.

Like Alfaz-e-Mewat, over two hundred CR stations rely on past built-in capacities. Speaking of hygiene and washing hands on radio has become a habit for CR broadcasters. This is their biggest advantage. The essential difference between CR and conventional media is the former’s ability to collaborate with audiences as well as informants. The medium fulcrums on a social process, where members of a community come together to identify what they need to know and hear, and freely participate in design and production of programmes. In doing so, CR does not talk to the community as much as it is spoken to – linking listeners, training them, and ensuring the community’s right to decide how the station is run.

For Lalit Mohan Sharma of S.M. Sehgal Foundation, the advantage of CR is that nothing gets lost in transmission. “The expert speaks directly to people. We can convey messages to a large number without mediators, which ensures that the messages are not distorted,” he says. Alfaz-e-Mewat could explain the science behind the working of soap solution so that people realised that this was not the same as wetting hands.

Typically, communication for social changes seek to enhance knowledge, bring about broad shifts in public awareness, and alter people’s individual and group practices, norms, attitudes and behaviours. CR harnesses them to the fullest.

Barsha Chabaria is the station manager of Salaam Namaste, a CR station run from the premises of the Noida-based IMS Institute of Management Studies. She feels that the programmes on water and sanitation are a necessity.

Life in Noida’s urban villages like Chhalera, Morna, Mamura, Nithari, Kanawani, Harola, and Pralhad Garhi embodies the physiognomies of slums. The low incomes of residents, their struggles to feed families, migratory histories, cheek-by-jowl existence, and quarrels over water and sanitation can shock outsiders. “The urban poor have to toil to make both ends meet. The urban poor habitually saves money – which, in behaviour terms, translates into savings that need to be spent on soap. Water is scarce. So, turning handwashing into reality is easier said than done,” says Borsha. She adds, “Even if you give them soap and water, they rarely know how to wash hands. Often, it is just palms – nail-beds don’t get cleaned. Every step in handwashing is an education for the urban poor.”

To negotiate the bumps along the road, Salaam Namaste took to songs. Since handwashing in urban slums demands washing from fingers to wrist, even till elbow, the station used a jingle, Kalai se koni tak – safai se sehat tak (from wrist till elbow; from cleanliness till health).

The station made a virtue of storytelling about two friends, Tony and Monu, one clean and tidy, the other unkempt. “CR has a huge advantage because it is not just broadcast,” Barsha explains. “We can narrowcast programmes and make a difference.” Narrowcasting is a method of taking a programme on a pen drive (or any other medium), and playing it out over a tailored system. It is a powerful tool because it engages listeners who have questions, and aids discussion.

Here, sustaining ideas on a continuous basis is a challenge. “Luckily, there are a few agencies that support CR stations to train communities to run them,” says B.S. Panwar, the president of Community Radio Association.

Abha Negi, Managing Director, OneWorld Foundation India, which works closely with more than 200 CR stations in the country, agrees. “CR stations are potential game changers. They have the power to galvanise local communities through local languages on social issues of importance.”? The voices of people like Desh Raj, Pooja and Borsha are set to trigger positive behaviour change through the CR sector.

Bijoy Patro Editor, OneWorld SouthAsia