Noise over Voice of America: I&B Secy becomes fall guy

India had to have powerful transmitters to counter Chinese propaganda during the 1962 aggression. The I&B Minister okayed an agreement with VOA which led to the government coming under domestic fire. The I&B Secy became the Bakra.

By S Narendra

Former Adviser to PMs and Govt of India Spokesperson

(Political communication is the oxygen of an open democracy like India. Its role and complexion changes when a nation confronts an external threat. PC becomes a ‘aapath dharma shastra’ or weapon for survival by rallying the people behind the flag. But PC as propaganda has its downside as well since it tries to steamroll dissent, the essence of democracy. Also, peace negotiations after the armed conflict becomes difficult)

As mentioned in the previous posts, the 1962 Chinese attack was a chastening experience for Indians and its government. It made the government revisit many areas. One of them was the propaganda policy and organisation for, and its structure, people and channels. The WW II propaganda machinery such as AIR and its monitoring units in Simla that were listening to external radio broadcasts and providing inputs to intelligence wings, PIB, Armed forces Information Office, film documentary wing,  and the new five year plan publicity wing and advertising wing over -night became critical assets in the wake of Chinese aggression.

The Chinese armed  assault on India had been preceded  by propaganda aggression for several years before, especially targeting people living  in the Himalayan border areas. The government had not thus far given any attention to propaganda coming from across the borders both from the west and the east. Even within India various foreign embassies were distributing vast quantities of propaganda material.

As a student, I had the personal experience of a government funded Kannada journal publishing my article that was a translation from an English magazine that I came to know later in life was a channel for anti-communist western propaganda. Some of my journalist friends who were recipients of foreign propaganda material would translate such material and get them published in their newspapers. They were paid handsomely for their efforts by concerned the foreign embassy. The academia was influenced by supplying them with slanted articles by home country academia. Among the latter, there was an unstated bias against the west, particularly US seen as an ally of Pakistan, mostly induced by political communication.

After declaring national emergency, the government hastily put together an emergency media cell in the government for churning out official propaganda material for use by media. However, the officials working in this unit did not have China -related information resources for their work and they had to depend upon the US information service. This emergency cell soon became a patron of private feature services agencies which expected to remain credible but regularly turn out material plugging the Indian (government) view point vis a vis adversaries. Such agencies were paid on the basis of their subscriber base and impact.

During the Mrs Gandhi’s personal emergency in 1975, such feature agencies pro-actively worked for the government.

Another valuable source the emergency cell could access was the AIR’s foreign broadcast monitoring service, a relic of WW II. Located in Simla, this unit monitored world-wide broadcasts on a 24 hour basis and mainly serviced the intelligence community as well as AIR news wing. Overnight, its importance was recognised and it was given more resources. Another wing that assumed importance was the external broadcasts of AIR. While the number of foreign language broadcasts could be increased, reaching them to intended audience was a serious problem. And there by hangs a bizarre tale.

I&B Secretary Fired: The Chinese were beaming broadcasts in Hindi and other Indian languages including in north-east dialects from very powerful transmitters. Suddenly, it was realised that AIR had not been equipped with powerful transmitters even for its domestic, leave alone external, broadcasts for countering China.

  The I&B ministry’s secretary P.M.Laud I.C.S. was asked by his minister Gopala Reddy  to  come up with an immediate solution. Since the prime minister had personally pleaded for urgent and massive American military aid, the I&B secretary with the approval of his seniors had approached the US. The latter readily agreed to spare the transmitters of Voice of America radio located in Ceylon for AIR’s use and a deal was struck.

The Author

When the  the news of the deal became public, the deal met with severe criticism on the ground that such an arrangement could open Indians  to American (capitalist and anti-communist) propaganda. Not only the deal was cancelled but the secretary, P.M.   Laud was forced to quit the government to save the government’s face. 

Laud later went on to become an editor of the Financial Express.

(Next: War By Other Means..Lessons Learnt from 1962-65 wars)

A mini Kurukshetra over Media Mahabharat

This is the Part-V of the series on political communication By S.Narendra Former Information Adviser to PM, Principal Information Officerto Government, and Spokesperson.

The five-year plans right from the first one gave flesh and blood to the political promises of the Indian National Congress.

Gandhiji had set up a community development project known as the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa. However, after returning to India, he had not done anything with it on homeland. Perhaps, the affairs of the Indian National Congress kept him too preoccupied to experiment with anything else! But after his death, a country-wide Community Development movement was started with much fanfare in 1952. One does not know whether this was inspired by Gandhiji’s Tolstoy farm or not.  It may come as a great surprise for the present generation to know that this CDP or community development project was undertaken in partnership with USA. An American trained Indian, S.K.Dey had sold this CD idea to Nehru. In the soaring idealism that pervaded the air then, CD arrived as a pathway to Utopia, in some ways a short cut to for solving the myriad problems faced by India’s villages due to centuries of neglect. CD neatly fitted with the Left-of-centre  politics of INC and its leaders who were fascinated by Socialist thinking.  CDP was integrated into the first five year plan ‘for initiating the process of transformation of the social and economic life of villages’.

S K Dey with Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Politically it was marketed as the Gandhian concept for developing villages in a participatory framework as self-sufficient entities. To quote one of the thousand-odd scholars who flourished on the CD concept, the initial programme aimed at the upliftment of the rural poor, covered agriculture, animal husbandry, roads, health, education, housing, employment, social and cultural activities’ ( Arent they the same subjects covered under the Rural Development programmes and Panchayat Raj even now?) There was also the ultimate Utopian idea of villagers pooling farm lands.

The first Plan allocated substantial sum for community development, and a separate ministry under S.K.Dey was created. A central institute   was set up for training policy makers, development administrators and communication officials and  I had the privilege of getting trained in that institute. Very symbolically, it was located at Karnal, near Kurukshetra, where the Mahabharata war was supposed to have been fought. The officials trained in the institute were supposed to be at the forefront of waging the much needed epic battle against poverty, with farm development as a core activity.

The large number of officials trained at Nilokhehri had become its most vocal advocates and communicators. The official PR machinery PIB had a special cell for ‘publicising’ CD. The I & B ministry started a specialised  journal titled ‘Kurukshetra’ for spreading awareness  about  CD philosophy and activities. In many ways than one, CD was an effective political mobilisation channel that to a large extent helped the ruling party in electoral terms. Late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi unsuccessfully attempted a similar political mobilisation through Panchayat Raj reforms and push rural development as his party’s patent on the eve of 1989 Parliament elections.

PRapport readers would recall that the five-year plan created a vast and unique official media system and an information bureaucracy. The Five-Year Plan publicity division (later renamed Field Publicity) for undertaking direct communication overtures to the  public, The official  advertising wing DAVP spawned a vast network of field exhibition units. There was the Song and Drama division for harnessing folk media for development communication. Already, the central government had a country-wide PR network-PIB- for liaisoning with the news media. A specialised unit was already in existence for producing documentaries. Under an official order, all cinema theatres were expected to screen the official documentaries before showing the main feature film – something this generation of communicators would not be aware of! All India Radio network got further expanded. In the name of development communication, the Union Government, thus, came to own and run a powerful communication system. The centralised planning structure and planning processes, along with communication network soon came to serve the political purposes of the Congress party that had a pan-India hold. This vast network was deployed to publicise the five year plans, especially the community development work.

Official Media for National Themes: Right from the beginning, the leaders of the Republic were worried about divisive forces raising their head. Such apprehension had a certain basis in the initial years of Independence. The first Home minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel had bulldozed the hundreds of princely states to integrate with the new India. While the political map presented the picture of a united India, the cultural and linguistic identities, along with regional identities were very strong. These were seen as a serious threat to the unity of a nascent democratic India. The INC presented itself as the only entity that could save India from an imminent fragmentation. AIR, along with the large central communication machinery, was entrusted with the task of spreading the message of unity and national harmony.

The demand for the creation of states on linguistic basis had gathered momentum and after some dithering by PM Nehru. But this transformation took place only after Potti Sriramulu undertook fast for the creation of Andhra Pradesh and became a martyr. This caused much violence across Andhra region of then undivided Madras State. The violent communist movement in Telangana area was perceived as endangering the national integrity. The north east frontier (present north eastern states) was in turmoil. In Punjab, there were agitations for creating the Punjabi suba, led by Master Tara Singh. Much before such agitations came on the scene, the government  of independent India had passed an infamous law-Rajaji Act (known as such because the then Union home minister Rajagopalachari had initiated this legislation for Prevention of Objectionable Matters) for controlling the media that was likely to cause unrest among the people and  pose a threat to national unity.

In retrospect, one could only say that the strong regional affiliations and tensions were largely on account of absence of communication infrastructure that had allowed people to lead their lives  in culturally and physically bounded spaces. In such a situation the centre took the role of a unifier and looked upon the official media as a stop gap substitute for the  absence of travel facilities like roads, transport and communication which could have enabled Indians to discover their commonness and a develop  a common national identity.

The policy makers in Delhi tended to suspect the political intentions of the States, particularly if they happened to be ruled by non-Congress parties. The first ever Centre-State clash occurred in 1959, in which Indira Gandhi had led an agitation against the popularly elected state government of Kerala and managed to topple it. The central government media had been extensively used to paint the state government as a danger to Indian democracy.

When I joined the central (it was not yet Indian Information Service) Information Service, there were elaborate guidelines on national integration communication. The policy makers in Delhi were inclined to doubt  the states’ ability to think in broader national interest. The official media was therefore, enjoined upon  to constantly plug in ‘national themes’.

There has been a huge academic debate on whether in a liberal democracy, the federal government should or should not engage in such communication. Purists argued that the Federal Government that uses public money should be neutral in its messaging. Both in Canada and in Australia there are strict guidelines for conducting such official communication. A national body oversees the expenditure incurred and the tone and tenor of federal government messaging on issues which touch on regional autonomy and identities and ‘national’ themes.

To return to India, this suspicion of the States transformed itself into a communication policy that blocked all attempts by states to create their own multi-media ‘publicity’ machinery. The Planning Commission would not approve states’ proposals for setting up such state official media machinery, especially broadcast facility and film production. They had to be contended with only  PR and advertising departments.

The Emergency of 1962: As a result of the central monopoly over media, including the airwaves, it conferred an enormous advantage to the ruling party at the centre. During election campaigns from 1957 onward, the ruling dispensation generously used the official media machinery that had put the opposition and the states at a great disadvantage. The national emergency promulgated in the wake of the Chinese aggression had enabled the centre to tighten its grip over the media and also offered   a sort of convenient legitimacy for media control, their use and even abuse. The external threat served another very useful purpose. Various parties and leaders who were fancying independence for certain regions were put on notice that the security of states that separate from India could be endangered by an external enemy.

Such concentration of media power also led to protests and demands for breaking up the centre’s media monopoly, especially over the broadcast media. The first but very tentative

The authorsunarendra@gmail.com

look at the  extent of central control over the broadcast media  and  possible  autonomy  for it was undertaken by the A.K.Chanda committee on Broadcasting set up by Indira Gandhi in her capacity as the I &B minister in 1966.  

Several aspects of government policy and national life were shaken by the India-China war of 1962. Besides claiming the political career of  Defence Minister Krishna the war claimed several casualties. Among them was the third five year plan. It also heralded the twilight period of Nerhu era and decline of the Congress, And the space for questioning many of the political, economic and foreign  policy areas hitherto treated as sacrosanct got enlarged.(To Continued with focus on Foreign Media Entry ban)