DNA
 
SHILLONG, Jun 21: Now, the people of Arunachal want the Indian government to provide facilities to learn Chinese!

This strange demand is borne out of frustration at the inability of most areas in Arunachal Pradesh to access any Indian news channel or tune into All India Radio programmes. Both All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan, forget any private news channels, are jammed by the more powerful Chinese transmitters that are used use to air their radio and television programmes to the residents of the Arunachal districts near the Chinese border. The weak transmitter in Itanagar does not cover the remote districts of the state, though it serves the state capital and areas near it.

At a time when China is claiming Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory, Delhi’s oversight is a glaring example of successive governments’ lackadaisical attitude to the people of the region.

After the 1962 border war with China, New Delhi had distributed free radio sets to community centres across the state. AIR programmes together with Hindi film music became popular since then. But around 1965, the distribution of free radio sets stopped. A few years later, the Chinese began jamming the air waves to beam Chinese programmes. The people of the area neither speak nor understand Chinese.

“We have been demanding more powerful transmitters for many years but nobody is bothered. We want to access Air India Radio and Doordarshan and know what is happening in the rest of the country,” said Anthony, a human rights activist from Arunachal.

He said out of anger and frustration he had asked Indian officials to start Chinese classes.

There is also the fear in the districts bordering China that New Delhi may let go of their areas to China during border talks.