Left-liberals have gone into a tizzy. That of course happens more often these days than Arnab saying The-Nation-Wants-To-Know. The reason this time is the expected appointment of a “right-wing” columnist A Surya Prakash as Chairperson of Prasar Bharati – the “autonomous” body that runs Doordarshan and All India Radio.

Members of the committee that has been set up to select the chairperson maintained that they are yet to meet, and that no decision has been taken. However, highly-placed sources told Newslaundry that the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar did seek out Prakash.

Javadekar, however, refused to confirm. He said that a President-appointed committee that includes Vice-President Hamid Ansari will take a final call on the issue and the names doing the rounds now are just speculation. Prakash when contacted declined to comment.

Press Council of India Chairman,Justice Markandey Katju, who is on the selection committee along with Ansari and Bimal Jhulka, Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, told Newslaundry that he has not even received intimation on when the committee will meet and that media reports were based on “false rumour”.

Prakash is a Distinguished Fellow of the Vivekananda International Foundation – a Delhi-based think tank that has fair representation in the upper echelons of the new bureaucratic set-up in the country. The Vivekananda International Foundation is affiliated to the Vivekananda Institute, an organisation that has close links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS connection is precisely the reason why many are uncomfortable with the idea of Prakash heading an organisation that has always struggled with editorial independence.

This unease is perhaps a little ironic considering Prakash’s impressive CV states that he has been in senior editorial positions in mainstream newsrooms – where he probably exercised far more influence than he would in an impotent organisation like Prasar Bharati. Prakash has been Editor, Zee News, Executive Editor, The Pioneer, Political Editor, Eenadu Group and Bureau Chief at The Indian Express.

So why the furore? A possible explanation could be that some of Prakash’s journalistic work does pander to the Sangh’s cultural agenda. Prakash’s website has a section that puts all the articles he has written so far in neat categories of: Our Constitution, our institution, our democracy, our representatives; the secular and the pseudo-secular; the Nehru-Gandhis and our democracy; and governance. Under the subhead “the secular and the pseudo-secular”, is an article titled “Hussain must not get away”. Prakash states that “many Hindus who are aware of [MF] Hussain’s vile art rightly see him as a ‘Qatarnak’ painter. So, one supposes that Qatar was the logical destination for him!” He then goes on to conclude that India should seek Hussain’s extradition and prosecute him for hurting the religious sentiments of 800 million citizens.

In another article, titled “Throw out the Sachar report”, Surya, while expressing his disbelief at the housing apartheid that Muslims reportedly face, says the report blames “all and sundry” for the woes of Muslim: “It says builders and house-owners do not sell or rent out houses to Muslims, the environment in schools is so hostile that Muslim parents get the feeling that their wards are unwelcome, Muslim graduates do not get jobs in either the public or private sector and that is why they turn to self-employment but here too their plans are stymied by banks which do not lend money to them. These are some of the complaints that Muslims made before the committee. Shockingly, the committee swallows these complaints unquestioningly.”

While making his scepticism of the Muslim predicament clear, in true Sangh style, he has expressed affinity with the minority Parsi community in a piece. Some of Prakash’s recent pieces in The Pioneer have focused more on politics though. In one, he blames the Congress’ humiliating defeat in 2014 General Elections on the party’s “arrogant and contemptuous behaviour towards the Hindu community”.

His book Public Money Private Agenda was lauded for exposing the misuse of Member Of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) funds and questioning its continuance.

The practice of having someone close to the central government at the helm of affairs in Prasar Bharati is hardly a new development, though.  In 2008, MV Kamath, a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) appointee had to make way for someone the Congress was more comfortable with. The Congress had then passed the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill, 2008, setting an age cap of 70 years for board members, in effect, forcing Kamath to resign and make way for Anil Bhatnagar who till the previous year had been a member of the National Advisory Council.

However, the significance of the Chairman in Prasar Bharati is in itself debatable. While the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 2008 does seek to give “autonomy” of functioning to the public broadcaster, the fine print of the act has some rather contradictory provisions. In a scathing attack on some of its stifling paradoxes, former Chairperson Mrinal Pande wrote in Mint:

Chapter 4 (miscellaneous) of the act guarantees that the authority for practically everything, from fixing the salaries and allowances and laying down conditions of service (including retirement benefits) for three whole-time members of the board, (i.e., the CEO, and members of personnel and finance), six part-time members (including the chairman) and all the employees of AIR and DD, remains with the ministry.

Prasar Bharati has arguably the best resources among its competitors at its disposal. In spite of that it is hardly any competition to private players in the market. With more players in the TV news media space and Internet penetration increasing, how relevant Doordarshan remains is debatable, but the present dispensation is taking no chances.