Few prime ministers in recent years have had the time or the interest in reflecting on how the government communicates with the people. It was an obsession with the late Indira Gandhi. Therefore, we welcome the ruminations of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the subject. Considering the fact that his office has more journalists in it than any other Prime Minister's Office in recent years, he must have received considerable internal briefing on the matter. Mr Vajpayee has been an effective communicator all his life and as a political leader he must have realised long back that the best way to communicate with people, if you wish to win their trust, is to do so openly, honestly and transparently. If he can communicate this advice not just to the many government officials and ex-journalists who man the government's official public relations machinery, but also to his ministerial colleagues and senior officials, he would have done a lasting service to improving the government's ability to keep the peopleinformed.Organisational reform of the ministry of information and broadcasting, the public information bureau (PIB) and the Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity (DAVP) is a necessary but a less important second step.
What is a needed first step is the internalisation of some "new thinking" on how a government should communicate with the people. Both the central and state governments in India, as well as local government bodies, see withholding information as power. Hence they have never bothered to master the art of communicating it. It is only when sharing information is viewed as the real exercise of power that we can hope to see any real reform in the way governments deal with information. Mr Vajpayee has reportedly called for a "revamp" of the government's media establishment. This process should begin by abolishing the ministry of information and broadcasting (with due regard and regrets to the very capable person who now heads this ministry).
This ministry, like the civil aviation ministry, the railways ministry and the telecommunications ministry is a legacy of the "ancien regime" of the "neta-babu" Raj. Many other developed country governments seem to get a better press at home and abroad than the Indian government manages to get without this paraphernalia of information management. There is a message in this somewhere. We are available for more advice, if solicited!
Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
