Opinion

Madan Bhandari On Media Freedom

Last week, the ruling CPN-UML marked the 70th birth anniversary of the late Madan Kumar Bhandari. However, his contributions to the nation and democratic polity were shadowed mainly by the current squabbling among the party leaders. His role in democratising Nepali communist parties by shedding traditional and orthodox outlook is remarkable. Three decades after his demise, Bhandari is being respected as an iconic figure in the country’s democratic movement. One of his great contributions was commitment to and respect for freedom of speech and press freedom within the broader ideological framework of Marxism. 
Late Bhandari had propounded People’s Multiparty Democracy (PMD) that energised Nepali communist movement at a time when the world’s communist movement suffered big setbacks with the collapse of Soviet Union and its satellite states in the Eastern Europe in 1989. One of the 14 salient features of the PMD is its unswerving commitment towards press freedom. Departing from the traditional communist approach, he envisioned a political system ensuring people’s control over state powers through multiparty electoral competitions. Late Bhandari devised a media system, which was different from that of the former USSR. He envisioned building an open and plural society that is the key to media freedom.

Open society 
Other characteristics of PMD include principle of separation of power, multiparty competition, periodic elections and formation of government by a party having majority in the parliament, with minority party in opposition. While interpreting the notion of a pluralistic open society, he said that everyone shall have the right to thought, speech and expression of his or her perception or views on the people and the nation. He stated that Nepali society shall not remain isolated and closed from the outer world, rather the culture of dialogues and discourse shall be encouraged. Thus, Bhandari envisioned a vibrant society based on freedom of expression and opinion.
The UML had adopted the political programme of PMD in the early 90s and reasserted it in its 6th convention in 1998. At the moment it was reconfirmed that PMD programme envisages a mass- and cadre-based party guided by a clear Marxist outlook, organisational principles, and discipline. It is Bhandari’s contribution that the ideas of democratisation of the party, state and society have prevailed in Nepali society. Albeit, for the sake of unity between two giant communist parties from different backgrounds, Bhandari’s PMDP was withheld for two years, his idea of broadening the communist outlook continues to inspire the general public and intellectuals who seek freedom of thought and expression. 
He categorically stated that the communist parties in Nepal shall not deprive the people of their fundamental rights including the freedom of expression and opinion as well as media freedom.
In their seminal work Four Theories of the Press, Wilbur Schramm, Fred Siebert and Theodore Peterson, analyse the press system of the then USSR in 1956. They termed it as the Soviet Communist theory of the press and concluded that it was grounded in Marxist determinism but in the harsh political necessity of maintaining the political ascendancy of a party that represents less than ten per cent of the country’s people. They diagnosed that the Soviet press was operating as a tool of the ruling power just a clearly as did the older authoritarianism. According to them, the Soviet media system had no allowed the private ownership of media which even did not reflect the older pattern of authoritarian press theory.
Even today, media groans under state ownership and censorship in the countries where the older form of the communist regime exists. Bhandari’s PMD rejects the authoritarian tendency in the name of the dictatorship of proletarian. Rather he opted for a pluralistic system with the sovereign people. Hence, PMD does not subscribe to the mass media system developed after October 1917 in the former USSR and theoretically, ownership of media outlets would be allowed and encouraged in the private sector unless the government has to take over to ensure public service. While disapproving the Soviet model of state-owned and closely controlled media, which functioned as an arm of the state, PMD has stipulated that media should have autonomy as well as an obligation of meeting social responsibilities.

Original idea 
Madan Bhandari urged the party and the followers of Marxism to revisit Marx’s original idea of freedom of expression and opinion. As Schramm had traced the Soviet theory of mass communication in 1956 from its roots in Marx through its mutations in the gardens of Lenin and Stalin, Bhandari called for an inward review of the performance of the ruling communist parties for their failure. In May 1993 at an international seminar organised on the occasion of the 175th birth anniversary of Marx by the then ruling communist party of the Indian state West Bengal, Bhandari told the world’s communist leaders that since Marxism was a scientific, theory it needed to analyse the causes of the dissolution communism in USSR and eastern Europe. 
Marx, as Schramm holds, undoubtedly dreamed of the press as free of the state, serving as a real spokesman of the people. Over the years Marxism itself has been wrestling with its problems and shaping its destiny. Bhandari was a prominent figure who relentlessly worked for the true interpretation of Marx’s philosophy. That is why the heading given to his famous interview of 1991 which was published by Newsweek seemed very appropriate. It reads: In Nepal, Karl Marx lives. Bhandari worked to revive the real spirit and essence of Marxism by dismissing the legacies of the discredited communist regimes in Soviet Union and elsewhere.

(Dr. Aryal is associated with the Central Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of Tribhuvan University., : soruce: RN) 

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