The Odyssey of Raghav Mahto

Journey of a Community Radio innovator from Vaishali to Tilonia

Raghav Mahto is 24 and hails from Vaishali district of Bihar. He is better known as barefoot innovator who got inspired by cordless mic and later created FM Radio transmitter, and also used to run community radio for more than 5 years and his radio station became extremely popular during 2006-7 and latter had to be closed down as it was not legal and had no license.

The journey of Raghav has been interesting since then. Among many people and organisations who visited him when he became very popular, one of the organizations was Digital Empowerment Foundation from New Delhi. DEF had visited in early 2007 to find in detail how an individual as young as a teenager could make a community radio so successful that it became household habit for the villagers of Vaishali. DEF’s work is in the area of connecting masses through information communication technology (ICT) and radio being one of the most popular ICT tool was a great subject of case study for DEF to see how this tool had been used by Raghav Mahto as an empowering means as far as rural masses are concerned.

After DEF made its visit and wrote a case study about him, it became considerably obvious to DEF to engage Raghav in a different activity as his radio was closed down, and he could no more run the radio station without having license. DEF brought Raghav to its Delhi office and put him through an ICT and computer training program, and also donated him 3 computers, one printer, and couple of sewing machines besides scanners and a digital camera – all these to enable Raghav to run and entrepreneurially drive Community Information Resource Center enabled with ICT tools. Although only 2nd grade pass, Raghav managed to run the center for about a year and attracted more than 500 local youth in its center for various activities, however, for some reason he was not very satisfied. His heart was still with radio and he truly wanted to run a full-fledged community radio station.

By then, in 2008, community radio was picking up, and Barefoot College, based in Tilonia village of Ajmer district was planning to set up its rural community radio, later called “Barefoot Radio Tilonia 90.4 MHz”, with the help of DEF. DEF being BFC’s partner organization linked Raghav to BFC and brought him to Barefoot campus in Tilonia, Rajasthan. Raghav Mahto was an absolute fit in BFC being the barefoot radio engineer and innovator. Raghav soon took the responsibilities, right from setting up low-cost studio, making cheap FM radios, and putting together the digital infrastructure together to manage and broadcast the program.

Here the experience of Raghav with computers became handy and he could easily edit and record programs on computer using open source editing applications. There has always been lot to do at BFC, from digitizing hundreds and thousands of hours of recording that BFC has had for years in the areas of folk music, art and culture, and many other programs – Raghav has been digitizing all of them…

For the last few months – later half of 2009, since BFC got its license, along with the communication department of BFC, Raghav has been able to put together 6 hours of program mixed with issues relevant to local populations such as RTI, NREGA, education and of course local culture and folk music.

While the Barefoot Radio Tilonia is being launched formally on November 10th, 2009 by the Governor of Rajasthan, Raghav Mahto stands tall with the flag of barefoot concept and movement, ready to further the cause for the rest of Rajasthan, India and perhaps other parts of the developing nations.

In many ways, the launch of Barefoot Radio Tilonia 90.4 MHz brings many firsts to this land of barefoot movement:

It’s is also the occasion when Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) is conducting its first State Level Consultancy (Nov 9-10) to match the occasion – which means that with the help of CEMCA (Commonwealth Educational Media Center for Asia) and DEF, MIB has called more than 80 NGOs and other non-governmental organisations to create an awareness about the benefit of community radio and why they should apply for it and emulate Barefoot College Community Radio.
It’s also for the first time that MIB is holding its screening committee to decide who should be the next allottees of the community radio license from the applicants of Rajasthan.
It’s also the occasion when the MIB is announcing the advertisement rates and procedure as how community radio could enjoy the inclusion of advertisement for 5 minutes per hour, its rate and also how DAVP could ascertain at least 30 percent of the advertisement could be provided by the DAVP.
For the first time a Governor has agreed to launch a community radio. For the first time a barefoot engineer has christened the entire community radio for reaching the people at large.
Raghav has proved to be a perfect inspiration for the youth of rural India as how barefoot concept can make everything possible at the most economical means.

CONTACT:

Osama Manzar is founder & director of DEF, available at osamam@gmail.com
Sreedher Ramamurthy from CEMCA, available at r.sreedher@gmail.com 
Ram Nivas from Barefoot College, available at barefootcollege@gmail.com 

Download a PDF file of the document