The Community Radio in Kashmir: A Way Forward

In India, the campaign to legitimise community radio began in mid-1990s, soon after the Supreme Court of India ruled in its judgment of February 1995 that “airwaves are public property. Though the approval for setting up of Community radio stations in India was granted in 2002, it is yet to develop in the valley of Kashmir. Till now, the valley has not established any community radio station, but the first effort to use radio for the development of the community was made in 2009 when Panos South Asia, in collaboration with the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), a rural University in Awantipora (Kashmir) started a community radio program in the Awantipora community. The program named “Pesh Kadam” meaning “Step Forward” started in 2009 and completed 350 episodes in 2018. This paper is aimed to study the reasons for absence of community radio stations in Kashmir. It also documents the efforts made to bring this medium to Kashmir and understand the evolution and challenges of first ever community radio program in Kashmir, study its content, analyse its popularity and efficacy. Both qualitative and quantitative research techniques are deployed in this study.