Khadri Achyuthan has a soft corner for rural India. First as a journalist with a Kannada newspaper and then as a communications officer with the government, he had to extensively travel to the rural areas of Karnataka and popularise new methods of agriculture and irrigation. Even after retirement, the 70-year-old has found it difficult to sever ties with the rural people.

He wants them to grow, and come on a par with the ones living in urban land. To ensure that, Achyuthan is now on a mission to take social media causes to the grassroots level. Realising the importance of social communication in the rural areas, a group of journalists has launched a media research studies institute in Bengaluru, and as a managing trustee, he is training village youngsters in skill development.

The institute, which started its journey in the beginning of the month, is trying to garner funds by holding monthly media workshops, seminars and publications. “Journalism has taken different shapes and has impacted the society over a period of time. But technology has overtaken the language of the media and young journalists have to be equipped with storytelling abilities for portraying an event in the right perspective,” he says, adding that media education scenario in the country is quite depressing. “Language is losing its importance. The academicians and journalists have to come together to give hands on training to print and broadcast journalists,” he says.

Before taking up the government job in 1966, Achyuthan worked as a journalist with Navakalyan, a weekly paper published from Gulbarga. As he speaks, the veteran admits that the travails have helped him dissolve into something complete and fulfilling. It was in 1965 that he came to Bengaluru in search of a job. “My mother was not well and we had no money to buy her medicines, but she was bent upon sending me to the city. I managed to get a job at a salary of `60 per month. My passion for Kannada did not allow me to join an English newspaper. I shunted from one paper to another,” he says.

During his stint with Navakalyan, he came closer to rural people. However, after the Indo-Pak war in 1965, the government of India was in need of information officers and he cleared the tests successfully in an emergency recruitment in Madras and joined service at Shimla in 1966.

He was also one of the first 24 candidates to be selected by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and was posted as Field Publicity Officer, a position created by Jawaharlal Nehru to popularise the Five Year Plan at the grass-roots level.

In those days, when television was a distant dream, people flocked to see the news reels or any developmental films shown by the government. “Topics on agriculture, family planning and national integration were shown to the masses and the issues discussed threadbare. Most of the audience were illiterate and cinema itself was a new medium,” he says.

In his long tenure, he has come across instances when the government found it difficult to spread social issues among the rural people. He still remembers how the villagers would run away from the government officials thinking that they would be forced to follow family planning programmes.

Even as the influx of refugees from Bangladesh began in 1971, Achyuthan admits that rural communications in the country grew at that time. “Films Division was making and sending documentaries on the plight of Bangladeshis. We had to explain rural people about the creation of West Pakistan and the exploitation of East Pakistanis. To our surprise, people were eager to know and understand the refugee problem, while school children used to queue before information office to know the show timings,” he says.

Also a noted Kannada author, Achyuthan’s tryst with audio-visual communications began in 1981 when the first regional Kannada news on All India Radio Dharwar was launched. “Telecommunications had not improved and with the Dharwar services, both Press Trust of India and United News of India too started. Our bulletin almost became a mouthpiece for Gokak agitation in 1982-83,” he says.