Mule In A Turf Club: The birth and death of India Update mag

• How I dealt with IAS 'Media Experts'
• One wanted to charge media for PIB pictures!
• Another couldn't differentiate between TVCs and TV Programmes!

By S. Narendra

(Former Information adviser to PM, Principal Information Officer to Govt.of India,

and Govt Spokesperson)

The narration in part one of this series dealt with a summary of the hurdles to be crossed for initiating a comprehensive public affairs campaign. An agency can conceive and recommend but the client has to totally buy into the philosophy, goals and objectives and the plan of action of the campaign. In the case of DAVP, it had to think both as the client and the agency. In addition, the client -the government- was not one but multiple entities each guarding its own turf zealously. The Steering committee, headed by the principal secretary, on paper was supposed to be an overarching body for overseeing reforms roll out but it also had to work through various departments and ministers that was a very slow process.

An added difficulty in planning and implementing  a  public affairs campaign for economic reforms was that  I&B ministry, filled exclusively with IAS and central secretariat officers, was oriented towards regulatory functions and prone to ‘control’ media units under it. There was no media and communication expertise within the ministry and it had to come from its media units that were looked upon as subordinate wings and rarely involved in policy making. Some IAS officers who came as I&B ministry secretaries, understood their limitations and attempted to seek professional  inputs from media units and  made other officials  in the  ministry to allow relative  functional  freedom  to media units. But more often than not, such functional freedom depended upon the individual traits of the secretary and other officials. In any case, the ministry was always preoccupied with Doordarshan, not only it bristles with problems but also because it offered more visibility, preferred by the political leadership for which all  that mattered was how much time - not to  what and for which purpose - was devoted to PM and  the government.

Speaking about individual styles of ministry’s leadership and its impact on media units functioning, here are a few instances:

There was an additional secretary-cum- financial adviser. On a financial proposal relating to the Press Information Bureau (PIB) he sagaciously recorded that since UNI and PTI were dishing out  official news widely, there appeared to be no need for the  government to have its own  PR and information disseminating unit. A secretary who came suddenly from urban development ministry to I&B, issued instructions that the government media units such as PIB, Photo Division should not make freely available photographs of  government functions to the media and should charge a fee. I had a hard time in explaining to this official that media give their  space free of cost when such photographs gets published even on the front pages. For love or money,   that space will not be available for government. He did not know how much PR effort was spent to get such media space. During his tenure in Urban Development ministry, he was overseeing renovation of Vigyan Bhavan, the principal venue for organising  important  officials functions. Ignoring my advice that the visual media must be accorded a special enclosure facing the stage, he arranged for their enclosure to be located far away from the stage, that too in small balconies in some corners of the main hall. 

Another I & B secretary, recorded his precious opinion that after the official TV-Doordarshan and AIR expanded their reach, they were capable of fully taking care of government ‘publicity’ and funding and staffing of other media units could be drastically cut. He did not realise that he was officially acknowledging a commonly known fact that Doordarshan and AIR were being used as government mouth pieces, and in the process losing their credibility and audiences.

There were several honourable exceptions to the rule of such bureaucrats and it was a pleasure to work with such officers.

Generally, there was little understanding within the ministry of the significant and subtle changes taking place in the media scene and people’s media consumption habits. Amidst such difficulty, I tried to push a series of TV spots addressing  complex economic reform themes like ‘value added exports against bulk goods’, ‘benefits of devaluation’ and so on. The ministry frowned upon such TV spot production as ‘infructuous expenditure’.

In the view of one of the financial advisers, production of TV   programmes was the exclusive function of Doordarshan and, therefore, DAVP should not stray into this area. DAVP was not expected to pay Doordarshan and AIR for their spots on reforms themes, as a consequence the slots they got depended upon their whims and therefore, there could be no media plan. The sad part of the story was that he could not distinguish between Spots and Programmes!

I had also introduced on a modest scale monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of DAVP outputs. Later, I tried to introduce similar M&E into PIB’s functions and wanted an outside research agency for evaluation of its reach and effectiveness. I was cautioned that such an exercise could expose the inadequacy of our efforts and hence, should be avoided.  

sunarendra@gmail.com
blog:https//spokesperson.blogspot

Kannadiga Becomes A Telugu Bidda: The presentation that made to PM Narasimha Rao in January was a turning point in the campaign. I did not know Rao personally. Even this presentation had come about in strange circumstances. I was due to be elevated to the next level in my career and certain forces were working to edge me out and carried tales to PMO that my performance as Director General of DAVP was not up to the mark. As narrated in part one of this piece, I had made a candid presentation that almost told the story of the emperor who wore no clothes. Surprisingly, I survived and the PM’s appreciation of the negative feedback. I was already a member of the Principal Secretary’s Steering Committee overseeing the reforms. Soon, I was appointed the Principal Information Officer to government, and concurrently Information Adviser to PM, and Spokesperson. The India Today announced my appointment thus: Mr xxxxx , a person hailing from the PM’s home state, Andhra Pradesh, has been appointed as xxxx’.

Workshop for Government Media: On my suggestion, the PM directed that a 3-day workshop for senior officials of I & B ministry media units should be conducted to brief them about the reform agenda. He personally addressed this Workshop, which was followed by discussions with the finance and other ministers and senior officials. The cabinet secretary and the Principal Secretary to PM also participated in it.

In the first interaction with PM after my appointment I had informed him that when I was working inside the government councils, I would be representing the media. And when I am with the media, I would be representing the government. Also, I requested him that as the Spokesperson of government, I must be allowed to keep my credibility with the media intact. That would mean that I should have full access to all official information and be part of the decision making process. Further, putting media under undue pressure would be counter-productive in the long run.   Rao was very gracious in appreciating these points. Never in my tenure I was asked to ‘kill’ a negative media story that had some substance in it.

AICC Session at Tirupati: The PM had taken seriously the point I had raised in my presentation that the government and Congress party were deficient in their political communication. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the Congress party session were to be held in April at Tirupati. He told me that he would use this session to initiate political communication for removing the apprehensions of the party rank and file about the reforms. Several people were working on the speech that  Rao was to deliver as the party president at this session. Almost all drafts of the speech received from different sources were sent to me for arriving at central   unifying messages. In the final speech he included my suggestion that it should focus on Gandhiji’s reference to the poor as ‘Daridranarayan’. The ‘Talisman’ test (reforms measures) should  be invoked to see whether  they go to wipe the tears off the eyes of the poor or not. In his address, Rao explained that he had not changed the Nehruvian economic model of private and public sector mixed economy. The Reforms were meant for expanding the role of the private sector in critical sectors like infrastructure and manufacturing that would free the government resources which would be increasingly used for improving health, education and for anti-poverty programmes. He was at pains to stress that the role of the government   under the reforms would only change but it would not lessen the government’s importance.

During the  run up to the AICC session, perhaps,  I had gone out of the way in suggesting to PM  that he should  consider appointing  a trusted person as  his chosen deputy, who could  regularly  interact  on PM’s behalf, with the  party rank and file and travel to states for party communication work. I had made this suggestion because I learnt from a modest study that the district and state Congress leaders had expressed their dissatisfaction with the party’s political communication. The PM was very busy with official work  and even in Delhi  he was unable to spend time in the party office. The PM seemed to be inclined to consider this suggestion but certain manoeuvres by Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar and other AICC members, especially their efforts to manipulate the party poll at Tirupati, made him abandon the idea. 

Investors’ Conferences: The PM was called upon to address a number of foreign and Indian investors meets   organised by various sponsors, such as the London Times, and The Economist. He used such occasions to seek to correct the impression that   India was favouring FDI at the cost of India’s sovereignty. The finance and commerce ministers were expected to say whatever appealed most to investors. For example, they would highlight the attraction of India as a huge middle class market (of about 100-150 million people), and they would assure that the government  in the course of time could  fully open up for FDI sectors that had been partially opened.

Rao was to address one such important conference. It began with the familiar mention of India as a great middle class market. When his turn came to speak, Rao   ignored his prepared text (prepared by the finance ministry) and spoke extempore. He told the investors that if they came only to exploit the small Indian middle class market of 100 -150 million, that would make the market shrink and unsettle the reforms. He said that he would welcome FDI that   aimed to make India a market of 850 million (that was the total population) by creating jobs and give a stake to them in the economic reforms. He asked them to look at India’s infrastructure deficiency as an opportunity, not as an obstacle. He even promised to remove any difficulties they faced in investing in sectors like infrastructure and food processing which the government had listed as priority areas for investment. 

While leaving the venue, Rao asked me to join him in his vehicle and during the ride explained to me   his thinking behind his speech. From whichever platform he spoke later, the prime minister would make it a point to explain to me, after the speech delivery, as to why he had stressed certain points. This was to give me background that I could use in my briefings to media commentators. This also helped me in editing PM’s speeches that were printed in several languages and distributed to a select mailing list, running into hundreds of thousands!

India Update: As mentioned earlier, economic reforms and globalisation were viewed with apprehension in many quarters. Only the pink newspapers were their supporters. I had mooted the idea of the government acquiring a voice for advocating reforms and the road ahead. The suggestion was unprecedented in the sense that it should not be identified with the government, but out of its control, could criticise government and its policies and reach out to businesses and other opinion makers.

Thus was born a fortnightly INDIA UPDATE published by a private firm but funded by the government, indirectly. The PM and his Principal Secretary A.N.Verma approved my proposal to support a fortnightly magazine focused on economic reforms. Competitive bids were invited and they were screened by a committee that included the finance ministry representative. The firm that fielded the best editorial team, content and design was to be selected. The team that won the contract for publishing the fortnightly included Siddharth Ray (later, of Star TV), Raghav Behl (later, TV 18), Vivek Sen-Gupta (who later headed IPAN) Gopalakrishnan (later editor  of Mathrubhoomi) among others. The scheme was that DAVP would contract to buy at   cover price (inclusive of distribution cost) ten thousand copies. The publishing firm was to distribute   the copies to business chambers, place the fortnightly at leading hotels, on flights and send to select opinion makers in different fields. A targeted mailing list was prepared for this purpose. In addition the magazine was sold through newspaper vendors.

The magazine, besides highlighting reforms, would espouse the cause of further reforms. Each issue would take up a sector as a special section in the 8-10 page fortnightly. The government had no editorial control over, including the views and commentaries. INDIA UPDATE acquired traction, judging from the fact that its sales went up.

Scandal Avoided: When the magazine was opened for bidding, there was a  hint from the prime minister Rao that I may consider giving it to a senior lady journalist who was known to be close to him. I met the principal secretary and submitted to him that if the contract were to go to this lady journalist, the magazine would loose its credibility and its birth would be preceded by a scandal. Myself and Verma met the PM and as politely as possible explained the likely fallout. The matter ended then and there.

One of the conditions I had put on the publishers was that the magazine should be brought out issue after issue regularly and there should be no break. Further, after one year of government support, it would be phased out so that India Update learns to stand on its own. Unfortunately, the  professional team chosen by us, after six months of continuously publishing the magazine, began to  break-up and it was not able to bring out the issue on time. As a result, I had  to change the publishers. The new outfit that took over the magazine, was not as competent. The firm wanted to curry favour with the government as a result of which the magazine lost its credibility. With the government’s permission, I withdrew the funding.

Technology Advances: Those were early days for India’s IT. Our organisation PIB, was one of the earliest ones to embrace the state of the art IT available then. As the language media was slow to adopt It, we threw open our facilities to media and offered free of cost computer training to journalists in Delhi as well as the state capitals. We introduced   an electronic bulletin board with the latest official information that could be accessed by media from anywhere. Video conferencing was a novelty then, and this facility was deployed to hold periodic briefings for the regional media. The representative of the latter were required to assemble at a regional video conferencing facility, set up at PIB’s regional centres, for interacting with me and others at Delhi.

I traveled to state capitals to meet owners of regional media for pleading with   them to station staff in Delhi who could cover economic and business subjects. With the   help of Reuters and Thomson Foundation, we organised free training in economic reporting for journalists.(To be Continued)

From Snakes-and-Ladders to Snakes & Scorpions

By S. Narendra

(Former Information Adviser to PM, Principal Information Officer to

Government of India & Spokesperson)

“Narendra, the prime minister has said that he would wind up DAVP. There have been serious problems with the printing and distribution of PM’s speeches. Saving DAVP depends upon you,” said the affable secretary of I&B ministry P.Murari to me as I was sent to head DAVP as its first Director General. By upholding the official ad policy of political neutrality and non-discrimination, distancing from   media   political games and restoring DAVP’s professional credibility were few of the apparent challenges. These had to be accomplished in an election year, 1989, when official media system like DAVP come under maximum political stress. Read on for yet another interesting blast from the past.

Irrespective of the party is in power, they all misuse the official media machinery for perception management, and it tends to get worse in an election year. Luckily for The Rajiv Gandhi government, the Jawaharlal Nehru’s centenary that coincided with its penultimate year in office, offered a legitimate opportunity for opening the government media advertising. Other reasons were being invented every other week to saturate the media for trumpeting the achievements of the government.  By this time the ad revenues of Doordarshan & AIR  had swelled. The newspapers - the only private media available then - were making  lots of hay in this pre-poll sunshine. The influential sections among them were engaged in mutually destructive games for cornering bigger slices of government patronage. Openly claiming to be government-friendly, several of them – the likes of  Times of India, National Herald, Hindustan Times, Hindustan, Amrita Bazar Patrika, apart from scores of regional media businessmen -  were attempting to isolate competition in order to improve their share of the official patronage. On the other side, papers like the Indian Express, Statesman were feeding the opposition with complaints that they were being denied official Ads. Even while I was navigating this cross-fire, PMO had given me a select list of newspapers to be given priority in Ad space as well as in effecting payments. A senior PMO official was monitoring the implementation of this instruction.

Parliament to Rescue: Suddenly, Parliament took up this controversy in its questions hour. A very worried I&B minister, H.K.L.Bhagat, also the parliamentary affairs minister, called me for a briefing. He also enquired about the complaints against me. I seized this opportunity, and submitted that he can turn the tables on the opposition by   fully disclosing the share of government Ads going to different newspapers. Despite the pulls and pressures, we had struggled to maintain some balance in Ads allocation and this helped us to disprove the complaints by a section of the disgruntled media. The fear of Ad matters   coming before Parliament came in handy in resisting further government pressures to increasingly favour government-friendly media.

From April onwards I had scaled down DAVP activities like printing and storing of publicity material  and film production, as I did not want to mount inventories. This precaution was taken mainly because there were hints that the government could opt for early elections, and such inventories relating to outgoing regime would not go down well with any successor government, particularly if it happened to of a different political hue. By August , I had spent most of the funds allocated and I definitely had no intention of asking for more funds for new communication activities. I reckoned that not having funds would help me to ward off government pressure to launch new ‘achievement’ projecting campaigns close to elections.

The Rationale: Let me explain the rationale behind the government communication policy. It can be broadly divided into following  categories - all clubbed under public service advertising  (PSA).

• The first category relates to awareness building and empowerment campaigns (especially in a poor, developing country) in support of development programmes (Like MNREGA, HIV/Aids prevention, Mother  & Child Development schemes like ICDS,  Janani Suraksha Yojana, Swasthya Bima Yojana). These have now acquired  the title BCC or behaviour change (desired behaviour)  communication.
• The second category belongs to easing policy and programme implementation and compliance ( e.g.GST, IT, Ease of Doing Business).
• Third, somewhat controversial field is the government’s legitimate duty and need to put information  in public space about its performance in relation to its poll commitments (e.g.100 days achievements, annual reviews, new schemes, rallying  calls). This is a grey area where performance accountability clashes with partisan   publicity using public funds for political gains.
• Parties criticising this from opposition benches revel in exploiting this avenue when they are in power. Governments are prone to overload this function of PSA when their electoral mandate   nears the end.
• Another category   is the public advocacy of certain policy options. For example, Rajiv Gandhi government was keen to push through legislation for giving constitutional status to Panchayat raj (local self governments)   institutions and making elections to them mandatory. Such communication again is controversial as there would be  no political consensus on their goals and benefits.   

Early Christmas Turkey! The Rajiv Gandhi government was in the midst of a rough monsoon Parliament session, when there were hints that it could seek early poll, after announcing a slew of populist measures.

Around   this time, I was asked to be present as an observer during a close-door presentation  to be made to a group of ministers by select advertising agencies. Invitees to this ministerial group were Romi Chopra, an Ad guru of those days, Sam Pitroda, (and Jairam Ramesh who was assisting Rajiv him). Apparently, this ministerial group had been asked to come up with an election campaign. Presentations from top guns of first tier Ad and PR agencies continued for from mid-September Monday to Thursday. This was to be followed by a final presentation to be made the next Thursday before the PM by the selected one or two agencies. We were unclear over the kind of brief to be given to the agencies. It had been made clear that I was to be present only with a watching brief.  

By Thursday evening it became clear to the ministers that none of the agencies had come up with an acceptable campaign theme and there were no outlines of audio/video /print material scripts and there were no ‘scratch’ AV productions to be shown to PM in the following week.

The ministerial group was obviously in a panic as they had to face the PM next week and present an acceptable campaign kit.  I was summoned to a crisis management meeting  of this group. The senior minister expressed appreciation of the good work being done by DAVP (nice to hear such words once in a way), and requested me to produce a campaign kit. Until now, DAVP had been treated as a pariah and I had been told that the PM had no confidence in DAVP’s professional credentials. All professional talent was supposed to be outside the government domain! I had barely four days to prove our capacity.  Working day and night, with teams of empanelled producers and printers, we managed to put together a kit. It consisted of two 30 minute audio cassettes, four video clips, six posters, four scripts for booklets and four leaflets.  The ministerial team was much impressed by the kit and profusely thanked me. However, there was one sour note. I was informed that they would not attribute the kit to DAVP, as the PM was biased against it!,

Danger Lurks in Success: In this hour of some joy, I could not see a great danger lurking. K.Krishnakumar, the minister of state in the I&B ministry called me to inform that the PM had expressed his appreciation of  the campaign and I should attend a meeting the next morning.  At this meeting the minister’s private secretary Thomas   (IAS) handed over a paper containing the numbers of print and AV material   required to be produced. The numbers were mind boggling:  a million copies of each poster (6 versions), booklets (2 versions), leaflets (4) and some 10,000 copies of each audio and video cassettes. At 1989 prices, the cost of production was close to Rs 40 crore. All these items were to be produced in about two to three weeks, before the announcement of elections. Sam Pitroda in one of the earlier   meetings had announced that the polls could be held end-October. I had thought that once I handed over the campaign kit materials for presentation to PM, the production and distribution would be taken over by selected Ad agency and the Congress Party. But Krishnakumar said that it had been decided to entrust this work to DAVP.

Rules & Norms thrown to winds: I tried to duck for cover under several genuine reasons. DAVP had no budget for such a huge job. The minister said that PM had personally assured that such funds would be made available. I raised another problem - even if we commandeered the entire public and private production facilities in Delhi and elsewhere, such a mammoth job could not be accomplished in the given three weeks time-frame. The minister summoned a fellow Keralite businessman who was ready with a letter promising delivery of the entire lot within the schedule. I had posed one more problem: DAVP can undertake such huge job only on the basis of a requisition by a client department. Promptly, a letter making such a request to DAVP from the Directorate of Filed Publicity (DFP) was produced. This outfit had never in its existence placed a request  for print or AV material with us! The Director of DFP had not only agreed to place a request for such humongous quantity of supplies but had also promised to send bulk supplies to his over 250 field units. From the latter, the campaign material was to be lifted by the Congress party filed units.

I thought I had a last weapon to defend DAVP against this blatant misuse. I told the minister that under the official rules and procedures laid down, DAVP was mandated to go for open, pan-India tenders for procurement of services costing more than a crore of rupees. Also, a high value tender cannot be given to a single party and that too to a party without any track record. Soon, the joint secretary of the ministry was called into the meeting. This official informed the minister that he would give a letter to DAVP authorising it to make a one-time exception to the rules. The minister was very unhappy when I submitted to him that a joint secretary cannot issue such a letter without the concurrence of the ministry of finance. I was directed to meet the cabinet minister the next morning.

Another Sleepless Night: Myself and my colleagues in DAVP spent a sleepless night. The secretary of the ministry had conveniently stayed away from the ministerial meetings and refused to give me an audience for seeking his guidance. They would not even entertain my calls.

The author

(sunarendra@gmail.com).

blog: http://spokespersons.blogspot.in/

The next day’s meeting with H.K.L Bhagat was destined to be a tense one. He tried his best to persuade me to sign the single tender contract with the party recommended by Krishnakumar. Bhagat told me that the government was confident of getting re-elected and I need not have to worry about any kind of post–election problems like an enquiry into the matter. Further, I was promised that I would be elevated to the next level that was anyway long overdue due to me but had been denied thus far. In response, I submitted a letter to the minister, seeking immediate leave of absence preparatory to retirement (I had a decade of service left). I politely pleaded with the minister that the ministry should grant my request and appoint an immediate replacement, so that it can go ahead with its production plans. A surprised minister, refused to accept the letter.

Foot Note: The Congress party election campaign (1989) was entrusted to Rediffusion agency, and became a landmark, notable for its snakes and scorpions campaign. A little before the Dussera festival, there was one more Ad campaign …..Watch this space.

Diwali fireworks & Ayodhya Ad that bombed!

It was a full page ad that reproduced the previous year’s agreement between VHP, mahants and the home minister, along with their signatures. Below was the government’s message stating that the government was fully committed to allow worship at Ayodhya as per this agreement.  I had personally over-seen the final version and given it to the chief of the creative team who was to get the pulls printed. Somehow at the printers end......Read on

By S Narendra

(Former Information adviser to PM. Spokesman of Government of India)

Every year, July–August months usher in the festival season that concludes around Deepavali. While Muslims and Hindus are in a festive mood and some may be praying in religious fervour (Chaturmasya, according to Hindu Panchangam), officials entrusted with the responsibility for ensuring security and public order spend sleepless nights and tense days. Their prayer is for this season to quickly pass off without any violent disturbance to public order. It was one such festival season in 1990, overly heated up by  Ram Janmabhoomi movement spearheaded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leader L.K.Advani. The latter had announced his Rath Yatra that was to enter Ayodhya in Faizabad district in UP around Dussera festival-also observed as Navratra.

To refresh our memories, BJP was extending outside support to the Janata coalition government headed by V.P.Singh. BJP, along with its supporting organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (Ashok Singhal), Bhajarang Dal, mahants of various Ayodhya temples  had vowed to begin construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya at the place  where Babri-Masjid  stood from the 16^th century.

This was fiercely opposed by the Babri Masjid Action committee. The dispute over its ownership and whether it was a Masjid or a Temple had reached the UP courts, including the Allahabad high court. The Central governments consistent stand for long has been that pending the courts’ verdict in the dispute, the two sides should respect the status quo. It was the constitutional responsibility of both the centre and UP government to ensure that no one was allowed to alter the status quo, as the matter was sub judice.

In fact, in 1989, the Ram Janma Bhoomi movement (had mobilised thousands of worshippers  or kar sevaks to bring ‘holy’ bricks from different parts of India to Ayodhya for starting the  construction of  Ram temple at the disputed Babri site. The Home Minister Buta Singh in the Rajiv Gandhi government had used his political skills to persuade the BJP and its supporting organisations to sign a document agreeing to offer worship and conduct a token temple construction (kar seva) away from the disputed site. The parties to the agreement had further committed themselves that they would not try to alter the status quo, as the matter was sub- judice. However, this time round in 1990 September –October, BJP and its supporters had decided to offer worship and undertake temple construction only at the disputed site, in violation of the previous year’s agreement. It was obvious that electoral politics, not so much religious fervour, was motivating L.K.Advani’s Rath Yatra.

Between Scylla and Charibdis: V.P Singh government was in a quandary. BJP was extending support from outside the government and any interference with Advani’s Rath Yatra was sure to result in its withdrawal of support. Negotiations with BJP and its allies to honour the previous year’s agreement ( not to enter the disputed site and conduct worship away from it ) that bore the signature of leaders of VHP ( Ashok Singhal) ,Bhajran dal, some mahants of Ayodhya and the Union Home Minister were unsuccessful.

BJP Ad Brinkmanship: BJP and its allies had begun to run a newspaper advertising campaign in support of their case for a temple at disputed site. A worried government wanted to counter this and tell the people that BJP and its allies were violating their own agreement of the previous year and could violate the court orders. The government could not oppose construction of Ram temple, nor could it alienate the minority community by allowing ‘kar seva’ at disputed site. And, it was decided to put the facts before the people in order to gain support for its stand. I was heading DAVP, the government’s advertising agency and was instructed to run a newspaper advertising campaign for the purpose

Counter Campaign: The government’s case to be put across through the Ads rested centrally on the Agreement, and the signatures of main people behind the temple agitation. The other message was that the government will be in contempt of the courts if it allowed   any ‘kar seva’ in the disputed area, but it was allowing ‘kar seva’ a little away from the site. The focus was on the legally untenable position of BJP, especially Advani, and to put the onus of the government going out of power on the  party. The time given to me for designing and running this campaign, like most such campaigns, was less than 24 hours! As the advertisements were dealing with a politically explosive subject that also touched on matters of faith and fervour, the contents of the Ads had to get political clearance at the highest level. Assisting the minister P. Upendra, the then I&B minister, I got the ad  design and messages  cleared by the prime minister late in the evening prior to Deepavali  festival day.

Advertising in Stone-age: Those were  the days before the PC era. The present generation in advertising  have no idea of how tortuous and time consuming was the job of Ad designs by hand and getting pulls (bromides) for manual dispatch to media. At the media end, it was equally a time consuming process to print the Ads. In the case of Urdu and small papers, DAVP had to get wooden blocks prepared (Now an Ad design can be prepared even on a smart phone and broadcast instantly to any number of media. Any number of iterations can be done in a jiffy). We had booked space in several hundred newspapers in various languages in several parts of the country. As the midnight hour approached, the newspapers began calling us frantically. I left office early morning, after seeing the final proof copy. My colleagues were entrusted with the job of getting the pulls from the press and dispatching them to newspapers.

What? Happy Deepavali?: I was woken up around 5.30 AM by a phone call. It was from P.Upendra, the minster. “Happy Deepavali, Sir”, I said. ”What bloody happy Deepavali. What have you done? Have you seen the newspapers? Do you know I cannot show my face to my colleague? Meet me at 8’O clock”, was the   minister’s   Deepavali greetings.

The newspapers had not yet come to my house. When they arrived later, I saw what had happened to our Ayodhya Ad campaign. It was a full page ad that reproduced the previous year’s agreement between VHP, mahants and the home minister, along with their signatures. Below was the government’s message stating that the government was fully committed to allow worship at Ayodhya as per this agreement.  I had personally over-seen the final version and given it to the chief of the creative team who was to get the pulls printed. Somehow at the printers end, the most vital part of the Ad, namely the signatures of the VHP, Mahants and of Home Minister appended at the bottom of the  agreement were missing. Without the vital signatures the Ad was a dud. Thus, the first round of our campaign had bombed.

As instructed I met the minister at this residence. The I&B secretary (late) Suresh Mathur was also present. Upendra was seething with anger and his voice showed: “What have you done about the mistake. Sack the officials responsible”. I submitted a hand written letter in which I had sought voluntary retirement, and spoke: “Sir: a grave mistake has occurred and embarrassed the government. I have let you down. I take full responsibility for this mishap. All my officials had worked very hard on the campaign and they are not responsible for the error’. Suresh Mathur, who was in no way involved in this also spoke: ’Sir, if Narendra is resigning, I will also put in my papers’. The minister was taken aback and his voice changed: ’Alright.  Alright. What can you do now to correct the mistake’? I informed him that I had already stopped the second round of the campaign and” I will personally go to the press to ensure .....”.

“Sir: Appeal for Peace and National Unity, and Go Out”

Advani’s Raht Yatra was stopped at Samastipur in Bihar by Laloo which led to violent clashes between the ‘kar sevaks’ accompanying the Yatra and the police in which several people died. Immediately, Atal Behari Vajpayee conveyed to the President that BJP had withdrawn support to V.P. Singh government. That meant the days of the government were numbered.

BJP began hitting back at the government with a new highly provocative display Ad campaign. The  full page Ads displaying  facts focused on how the governments were discriminating against the majority community, while favouring the minorities (‘appeasement’ to use BJP words). They focused on subsidies to Haj pilgrimage, official grants to minority institutions and similar facts. The Ads were meant to rally the majority and sure to divide people and spread disaffection among  them. A war room conference was held by the Janata leadership - V.P.Singh, M.M Syed, Upendra, Madhu Dandavate, George Fernandes, Ramakrishna Hegde. I was instructed to come up with a counter campaign, to be implemented from the  very next morning .I politely pointed out that the facts given in BJP Ads needed to be countered with facts and the government has to get me those facts .The Home Ministry officials were entrusted with the job of collecting those facts. In the mean while, R.K. Hegde offered to send me a well - known Ad agency representatives from Bombay to assist me in designing the ads.

The Author

(sunarendra@gmail.com)

Time was running out for me. To  make matters worse, the Home ministry admitted by the evening that the government had no facts to counter the BJP campaign.  Meanwhile, the private Ad agency had met Ramakrishna Hegde and the PM with their own campaign design that in no way touched upon the BJP facts. The design was replete with political messages attacking BJP and had content which could offend the majority community. As a government agency, I could not carry out an political campaign, and therefore, I came up with DAVP’s own messages emphasising the need for peace and communal harmony. It contained an appeal from the government leadership for cooling the political and social temperature. The minister Upendra took me to the PM, where other ministers had already assembled. I submitted that the moment was not conducive for further confrontation  through Ads. As the government was almost on the verge of demitting office, I said: “Sir: before going out of office,  It will be very dignified if the government issues an appeal for peace and national unity”.

Further, I suggested that the political campaign could be implemented through the party machinery. V.P. Singh quickly averred: ‘there is no need for any war in the media.”

In the next 24 hours, he left office!