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Have we forgotten Indira Gandhi?

Many Indians love Indira Gandhi for what she stood for and what she did. Many Indians shun her memory for what she did between 1975-77.But her imprint on post-independence history of India is indelible. In the government policy area, the shadows of her polices linger though unacknowledged. Her signature was leadership, writes S Narendra, former adviser to PMs and ex-Spokesperson, Govt of India. A PRapport exclusive! (Pictures from Congress party website)

As an Indian I was both sad and upset to see in my morning daily newspaper a half-page bland

display advertisement on Indira Gandhi by the Congress party announcing on 19^th November her birth centenary.The party in its present form,under dynastic leadership,continues to exist solely because of Mrs Gandhi’s daring and successful confrontation against the old guard in 1969. The party’s credentials as a pro-poor, secular outfit with pan -India appeal are based largely on her record. Even posthumously her name earns votes. The half page newspaper tribute is one more evidence of  theabsence of imagination and leadership in  the party. Purely in utilitarian terms, Indira Gandhi’s centenary was a  great opening for reminding the post -1991 Liberalisation generation of the unquestionable contribution of Indira Gandhi in putting India first in several fields. This was also a missed opportunity to come forward with the leadership’s vision  fora youthful India, especially when Rahul Gandhi is likely to replace his mother as party president.

Like all political leaders who wielded enormous power about whom posterity reads in history books, Indira Gandhi’s record was mixed.As an adversary,she was formidable and the present ruling establishment  has lots of causes to despise her. But we as a nation have to thank her for a lot of things that may be politically inconvenient for the present rulers. Again.as a nation, we cannot forgive her for imposing ‘her political emergency’ in 1975,abusing the Constitution. Nothing prevented Indira  of those days from preceding Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and many others who declared themselves to be heads of their governments for life. But She redeemed herself by abruptly ending the emergency and opting for election in early 1977. And,Indira should be remembered for this act alone, If not for other reasons I am about to list.

I was more upset to see the Congress tokenism, because if in power, the party would have splurged government  money on ‘celebrating’  Indira’s centenary and made it a political event. In 1969, the party and Indira politically exploited Mahatma Gandhi’s birth centenary and claimed impliedly that she was out to fulfil Gandhi’s dream of wiping the tears of the last man in the line[ the talisman]. In 1989, an election year, Rajiv Gandhi’s government opened the government purse to observe Nehru centenary for a year to tell the nation that his grandson deserved to be rewarded by the electorate.

In 1969, the Nehru family’s hold on power was about to slip out. Indira resolutely rescued the dynastyand made the Congress a family owned party, against daunting odds.She, thus, set the trend of dynastic politics. Regional leaders-Karunanidhi,Jayalitha,Mulayam Singh Yadav, Patnaik, Devegowda to name a few,later only followed her example of promoting dynasties.

What all did the Congress party miss out to tell? The present government is presenting its successful confrontation against China at Doklamas an example what strong leadership could achieve.No doubt that must be noted and applauded.The successful face-0ff against China was facilitated by Indira’s gutsy master stroke in making Sikkim a part of India in 1975, where the Indian army ,at present ,is deployed in strength. For those unfamiliar with Doklam geography, it is atthetri-junction between Sikkim,Bhutan and China, a highly contested territory, important for  India as it helps in protecting the narrow(24 km wide) Siliguri corridor that connects the north east states to the rest of India.If Sikkim were not part of India, it would have placed India in a precarious situation.

The Sikkim annexation was not the only peaceful expansion of India’s territory. Indira was also responsible for the ground work that entitled India to a piece of territory in the Antartic,  one among  half a dozen countries  to set up research stations there.Not only that India’s exclusive rights to explore polymetallic nodules from sea-bed in central Indian ocean basin have been extended by five years in August 2017.These rights are over 75000 sqkms of area in international waters allocated by International seabed Authority for development activities for polymetallic nodules. How did that come about?.This was possible because the government set up a separate Ocean Development department in 1981 and encouraged it to  pioneer in developing seabed survey and research, including the technology for seabed mining.The Ocean department and the Indian navy cooperated in carrying out the sea bed survey in 2000, that entitled India to claim seabed territory.

ISRO,India’s space agency is globally hailed for its innovation in the satellite technology business.The Space commission and ISRO took shape in 1969 and Aryabhata satellite went up in 1975.Satellite TV broadcasting was introduced  throughSITE experiment; this was followed by satellite telephony experiment. Indira was criticised for spending money on fancy projects. In a congratulatory message to ISRO, Indira had said;’ expensive high technology was low cost in the long term when harnessed for development’. ISRO’s Chandrayaan and other odysseys have made the country proud.

Pokharan-II nuclear explosions in 1998 made India a nuclear power, and in 2009 India shed its status as a nuclear pariah when the Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement was signed .The efforts of the present  government to gain the membership of NSG, pacts for nuclear cooperation with Japan and with others would not have been possible without Pokharan-I in 1974.

Coming to the strides made in agriculture,rural development, poverty reduction  and Make in India, the humongous contribution of the nationalised banks must be acknowledged.When Mrs Gandhi nationalized the 14 commercial banks on July 19,1969,their total number of branches was less than 2000 and their total deposits was less than Rs3000 crores.Of the total bank lending, barely 1.75 percent went to agriculture.When the present government is taking credit for announcing the earmarking of highest bank credit (10 lakh crore) for agriculture, it has to be noted that this would not have been possible if the banks had not been nationalized.India now can boast of being a leading producer of milk,vegetables and fruits and agri- products. Impartial research would show that the farm and rural directional change in economic growth and development was ushered in by the 1970 budget. Prime minister Indira Gandhi had presented this budget as the finance minister. A document accompanying the Budget-titled ‘growth with social justice’ had launched the small farmers development agency, dry land development agency and many others with self-employment avenues (dairy farming,poultry, animal husbandry) assisted by nationalised bank finance. This white revolution is noted but its author is less remembered. Indira’s CSRE {1972} or crash scheme for rural employment has now turned into MNREGA, aboon to landless labour in drought seasons. The government’s direct intervention for reducing poverty, distress in agriculture took off ina big way. Of course, lots of money has been syphoned off by politicians of all hues from such schemes but Mrs Gandhi cannot be blamed for the leakages. Politics teaches its practitioners to tap into any and every government programme with a kitty.

This 1970 budget also tightened the ‘Licenceraj’, under which many industrial houses,new and old flourished. And, crony capitalism spawned big businesses.Owners of some of them today are making it to the list of billionaires in the Forbes magazine.

Her finest hour, and that of India, was December 16, 1971 when the Pakistan army surrendered to the Indian army at Dacca in Bangladesh and the latter became an independent country.

Then PM and statesman Vajpayee paying tributes to at Indira's Samadhi - Shakti Sthal

On that occasion ,the poet in Atal BehariVajpayeeji came out to anoint her as ‘Durga’. This powerful and benign ‘Durga’ , unfortunately showed  to the future prime minister and to her other political rivals her dark  face in 1975.

The opposition and the regional parties also must thank her for breaking the cycle of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and the state assemblies in 1971. The argument advanced then was that the issues in play in a parliamentary poll are national in nature,unlike in Assembly elections in which regional and local issues are agitated. This one Indira move incapacitated the Congress juggernaut from steam-rolling into power across states.Smaller and regional political outfits had very little chance of coming to power if simultaneous polls were held for the Lok Sabha and assemblies. Strangely, now there is talk of undoing this in the hope of establishing a political monolith on the lines of the Congress party before 1967.

History has mysterious ways of revisiting itself. Unlike her father, Jawaharlalal Nehru, after India’s victory over Pakistan in 1971,Indira`veered towards the cult of personality. Wikipeadia explains it thus:’cult of personality arises when a regime uses mass media,propaganda or other methods such as government -organized demonstrations to create an idealized, heroic and at times worshipful image of a leader,often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Her party president Devkant Barooah became famous with his quote ; ‘Indira is India’. Indira was irritated by media criticism and began to ignore media.She had said that the media represent 0.001 percent of the population and public opinion. Editors like B.G.Verghese who  were critical of her policies  and centralisation of power ,came under their newspaper owners’ pressure and were sacked. Her contempt for free media not unexpectedly showed up as media censorship during the emergency. However, her contribution to media development was significant.Under her instructions, the TV training was added to the Film and Television Institute in Pune in 1974 and the institution became a full -fledged visual media training facility  with full government support. The film documentary wing as well as the film development corporation for financing creative films flourished.The newspaper industry starved of news print due to global scarcity let out a sigh of relief when the government responded to its appeal for producing newsprint by government mills.

Indira Gandhi when she became PM after the sudden death of prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri initially did not have power; it was wielded by her appointees in the party. But she acquired it by sheer dint of her determination and wielded it demonstratively. The academic literature on Power states that power is rarely given;It has to be acquired and exercised and make other feel it in action.She brought that into  full play in the months leading upto the Indo-Pak confrontation over Bangladesh. The crisis was an opportunity for Indira Gandhi to established herself as a leader to be reckoned internationally.Her face off with US President Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger are well documented. The Indo-USSR 20 -year agreement for peace and friendship singed a little before the Indo-Pak war of 1971 was a diplomatic coup that unsettled both the US and China that were siding with Pakistan. This pact, according to some commentators, stopped the US from sending a contingent of its 7^th Fleet into Indian ocean to brow beat India.

Many Indians love Indira Gandhi for what she stood for and what she did. Many Indians shun her memory for what she did between 1975-77.But her imprint on post-independence history of India is indelible. In the government policy area, the shadows of her polices linger though unacknowledged. Her signature was leadership.

Between the scissors and blade

Or how Spicer landed in hot waters over Spicy tweets by his boss Donald Trump

By S Narendra

(Former adviser to PMs and ex-spokesperson for Govt of India)

Did the US President Donald Trump on April 12^th tell For News  that  America ( “we are”) sending an armada’ to the waters around the Korean Peninsula  for countering  North Korea test firing missiles capable of carrying nuclear war heads  and  holding threats to test every week its nuclear weapons? In the TV interview the President made it clear that North Koreas threats would not go without a response from the US. He went on tell that the armada (did not say ships) being sent includes submarines, ’far  more powerful than the aircraft carriers’.

A few days  later , when the  looming crisis  had  not materialised,  the New York Times reported that the armada was not sailing to deter Korea as suggested by the President.  It was in fact thousands of miles away sailing in the Indian Ocean for joint exercises with Australian navy. According to the report, there was a miscommunication between the White House and the Pentagon. One does not know whether the President unknowingly had made an ill-timed suggestion or a deliberate bluff  for scaring  North Korea .But this failure of the armada to turn up in the area as suggested upset  US  allies like South Korea and Japan which rely on US defence support. In the event of a belligerent and impetuous leader Jong-Un had taken rash  action threatened by the news of US armada,  the allies would have been exposed to extreme danger. Commentators point out that due to the ill-timed statement of the US President, the credibility of US as a reliable ally has suffered.

The controversy got fresh lease of life when the President’s spokesperson ,Sean Spicer,  in his media briefing  (a week later, even  though the  naval fleet  was still  operating near the Australian coast)  attempted to explain his boss’s statement. He disingenuously asserted that the naval fleet was ‘ultimately’ headed in Korea’s direction and no timeline was specified. This was said despite the fact that the President’s TV interview was given when, according to Spicer, ‘sending the armada ‘  it did not mean immediate dispatch, hence  there was no ambiguity in the President’s claim.

Sean Spicer has adopted a very combative style matching that of his boss. The President has more than once characterised the media as ‘dishonest’ ,’evil’ ‘fake news peddlers’ and the White House  had taken the extreme step of barring media outlets perceived as not friendly  like CNN and Washington Post from the White House  briefings. Watching the recoding of the Spokesperson’s briefing sessions, one gets the impression that Spicer is both shifty and often testy. No doubt he has an unenviable job, since the President is eager to first air his weighty views on policies and global events on Twitter.  

The President does not hesitate to make controversial unfounded claims nor does he entertain any qualms about executing 360 degree U-turns on his stand on key  issues. As a result, most media have opened a special section for fact checking on President Trump. It is therefore, an under- statement to say that this Spokesperson is between the blades of a scissors.

Here is another instance where Sean Spicer got into hot waters in trying to parse another of President Trump’s highly controversial claim. The following Tweets of President Trump are on record;  they went on to embarrass the American democracy itself.

 @real Trump

“Terrible.Just found that Obama “wire tapped’  in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism” 2.35am-4^th Mar 2017.

“Is it legal for  a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW” 3,49 am 4 Mar 2017

“I bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October just prior to Election!” 3.52 am 4 Mar 2017

“How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” 4.02 am 4 Mar 2017

The US Justice Department and FBI  responsible for carrying out wiretapping in certain cases require Court sanction. The FBI’s current chief is registered supporter of the Republican party. Both the agencies could not unearth any evidence in support of this very disturbing claim by the President.

Now, you may ask as to how the White House spokesman dealt with this controversy!

Sean Spicer’s first response was to let the President’s Tweet speak for itself. However a week later, Spicer told the media that “wiretapping” was an entirely separate accusation to Trump’s unverified “wire tapping” allegations.” If you look at the President’s tweet, he said very clearly, quote wire tapping  unquote. And Spier added, “there has been substantial discussion in several reports. There’s been reports in the New York Times, and the BBC and other outlets about other aspects of surveillance that have occurred”. (Media fact-check did not show any such reports in the outlets named). “The President was very clear in his Tweet, you   know, that ‘wire tapping’ that spans a whole lot of other options’.

The hole digging went further when the high profile White House adviser Kellyanne Convey told a channel that covert surveillance can be conducted through microwave that can turn on  camera etcetera. The key word used by her was “can”. But did it happen?. Neither she nor Spicer could offer any proof.

While explaining the President’s relevant Tweets, both Spicer and  Convey ignored a raging controversy  about Russian intelligence spying on the election campaign process and leaking information adverse to Trump’s opponent that helped the winner. The US legislature was inquiring into this Russian spying. It was apparent that the President wanted to divert attention away from this controversy and also from the charge that he and his administration were close to Moscow. As a result of the Spokesman’s   attempt to parse the Tweets of the boss, the bad story was gaining more traction and more unfavourable fact checking on this and other statements of the President.

In both the incidents cited, the credibility of the administration and that of the primary official source of news was stretched. The office of the Spokesperson is a bridge between the media and the government.  What sustains and strengthens  this bridge is the  mutual respect  the Spokesperson and the media hold for  each other’s roles and responsibilities; neither crosses the professional lines. The   Spokesperson is invariably is a media professional and the media generally regard him or her as one among them.  

In the US system, the white House has a less visible director of communication whose job it is to ensure unity of message emanating from the totality of government, Again in the US political arrangement, the White House is the focal point of both politics and the government. As such, its Spokesperson has the opportunity to lead the headlines. The ordinary people get to see their President and the government in action through the media - conventional and social. As the latter  borrows and blend stories and commentaries from each other, the Spokesperson as the primary source of news and explanations of policy and developments can influence perceptions.

Coming back to the incidents cited, the first response of Spicer- ‘the President Tweet says it all’- was a wise one. The later attempts to parse the President’s TV interview or the Tweet was a case of bad judgment, No doubt the media must have trapped Spicer for implication.  Professionalism prepares the Spokesperson not to be trapped by media. Professional training helps the Spokesperson to allow a bad story to exhaust itself look for opportunities to change the headline.

sunarendra@gmail.com 

While working as the government and PM spokesman, I adopted the policy of letting the statement of the boss remain, even when it was most untenable. Or advice the chief to issue a wholesome retraction, if the statement was indefensible or very controversial. Media expects and accepts a  politician to equivocate and tell half truths. 

But it would not trust a fellow professional who happens to be speaking up for the government, when he equivocates or offers disingenuous explanations. 

Once the spokesperson’s credibility is lost, his (her) value to both the media and the organisation he speaks up for diminishes.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author are purely his personal. PRapport does not take any responsibility for any of it, except respecting Narendra for his candid views as a veteran communication professional - Editor

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)

Budget Wadget! Let's hear ourselves!!

Jaitely’s  Dilemma

Familiar Photo Ops or expect some Good News for the common man? Lets wait and watch

According to media reports,  Arun Jaitley has invited economists and business representatives for consultation just before sending his budget papers for printing.

This is indicative of the fact that Jaitley is on the horns of a dilemma. Despite several  government steps since assuming office, including goading RBI to cut rates, to push economic growth,their  outcome is very modest. It is pertinent to quote a nugget from the  official Mid-Term  Review of the economy : ‘the remarkable thing about 2015-16 growth performance is that it continues to be as strong ( about 7%) as it is, given the weakness of exports ( because of weak world markets) and private investment’.

The Review has identified two intractable problems: One is that the global trade is declining and most economies-,China, Japan, Europe are on the decline. The US economy is barely growing. The latest Economist magazine says  that  world leaders are running out of options  in fighting  global recessionary trends.As a result, Indian export earnings have declined.

Second, the Indian  private sector is not investing, as there is  external and internal demand contraction. Most companies are heavily indebted and finding it difficult to service their debts due to low earnings. This is having a cascading effect on banks.

This has complicated budget making. Simply put, only government can create demand by making huge  investment  in infrastructure and other projects. But  a low performing economy is accompanied by low government revenues. Against this background, the captains of industry are urging the government to  cut taxes and offer incentives to spur  private investment. Both the measures would result in further worsen the  revenue picture. The Mid -Term Review clearly spells out the difficult choices before jaitley. If the latter were to opt for higher government investment, that could come only from  borrowing or deficit financing. But under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the finance minister is committed to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.9 or lower. This is  known as  fiscal consolidation. If jaitely were to cross this Laksman Rekha, and opts to spur growth from public investment out of borrowed money, would it also spur inflation? The retail inflation, particularly of food items, is climbing up.

The other big worry is that the economy is not creating enough jobs to absorb almost a million youth entering the  job market every month. If the  government were to stick to its fiscal consolidation promise, and not  make big ticket investment, this will have an adverse effect on the job market. That is a recipe for youth unrest.

All in all, Jaitley finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

Perhaps he had made up his mind to jump the fiscal deficit commitment in the fond hope of acerbating growth. The last minute consultation is a bid to gain advance endorsement for his growth push. 

- S Narendra

============================

Hello, Telecom Dekho!

India currently is the second largest telecommunications market in the world and there is a consistent growth in this sector, given the kind of growth and investment this sector is seeing it definitely needs attention from government, the current move to adapt GST on the policy front is commendable and these new regimes will have more impact on telecom sector. 

Tax incentives and holidays for Research and Development, Manufacturing in Telecom sector from the government will be a welcoming move again.

 - Atul Jain, COO, Le Ecosystem Technology India Pvt Ltd.

============================

Of taxes and death!

The other day, I read this anonymous quote: Death and Taxes are certain, but dearth does not come annually.

It has become fashion for all political parties, particularly when they are in opposition, to talk about reducing the personal taxation burden. It’s like what Mark Twain said: Everyone talks about the weather, but no one has done anything about it.!

The common man is made to suffer silently and among this lot, the salary earner is the easiest goat for any government – tax them, tax them and keep taxing them.

It does not require a great economic pundit to tell you that if you leave some money in the common man’s pocket, he would only spend! So, why couldn’t the successive finance ministers reduce tax burden and allow people to spend more?

India seems to be the lone country (or among the few) in the world where you are taxed for earning as well as for spending!

I request the FM to allow some tax concessions to the middleclass and allow them to enjoy life! After all, you are taxing us on spending as well, right?

The Economic Survey doe not present signs of any exciting budget. But will the FM do some Jugad in an year where couple of Assembly elections are due?

I am keeping my fingers crossed!

-       BNK

Of poverty, Radio Rice, farm revolution, Mahalonabis Plan

• Political Communication-Part IV

By S.Narendra

Former Information Adviser to PM, Principal Information Officer

to Government and Spokesperson

The socio-economic agenda of the political leadership from 1952, when the first five-year plan was launched, until the economic reforms of 1991 was articulated in the Plans. Planning and five-year plans were considered as something like a magic wand for delivering the dreams of millions of Indians. And, thus began the halcyon days for development communication, serving as the oxygen of political communication…….and official propaganda. Read on the 4th Installment.

Nehru - the brain behind Five-Year Pans
that shaped dearly days of Independent
India's economic development

It began as an era of unimaginable scarcity and deprivation. Rationing of food, fuel, firewood, cloth and other essential commodities continued for several years after independence. As an eight-year-old boy, I remember, I had to stand in a queue for collecting mere 6 to 8 pieces of firewood. That was the weekly quota! My four older siblings were detailed at other queues for basic items like rice, sugar, wheat (a rare commodity), and cloth. On many days, after waiting for hours in the line, we would return empty handed, as the ration shop was short of supplies. Poverty was something that was shared by the majority of people. The advent of freedom and the promise of INC during the freedom movement that it would address poverty issues on a priority had kindled a faint hope among the people.

Agriculture, though of subsistence kind, dominated the economy. Overcoming scarcities, especially of food (the foodgrain output was less than 50 million tonnes) was a political priority as well. Congress as a national movement had committed itself to abolish Zamindari and now time had come for redeeming that commitment. While public pronouncements on honouring this commitment were sweet music to the landless and the farm tenants, the party had to contend with behind-the-scene opposition from its leaders and legislators. According to studies, nearly 12% of them were landlords. The new Constitution had included private property ownership right as a Fundamental Right.

Bhakra-Nangal Dam

A British government report in the early part of 20^th century had famously said that India’s agriculture was a gamble in monsoons.  And, the new government’s focus was on making farming less dependent on rains by building big irrigation projects. The core economic content of political communication in the initial days of Independence was naturally was on growing more food. After the famine of 1940s, the predecessor British government had launched a low key  grow more food campaign and it ended up only as  posters exhorting farmers to grow more food.  The campaign got subsumed and imbued with new energy in the first five-year Plan the focus of which was on improving agriculture. A large share of the  first five-year Plan of over Rs 2000 crore went to fund the grow more food campaign and multi-purpose irrigation projects.

Radio Rice Revolution: The policy makers were greatly impressed by the American  Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that had harnessed the Colorado river for greening the arid western America. This model was adopted lock, stock and barrel by India. The political communication went lyrical while presenting this government initiative. Prime Minister Nehru, who opened the sluice gates of 700-feet tall Bhakra dam in Punjab in 1954 called it ‘the new temple (s) of India’. According to newspaper accounts of the time, people lined up for miles along the canals branching out of the dam to witness the Sutlej river water entering their area. Many more such projects such as the Tungabhandra, Nagarjuna Sagar, Damodar, Hirakud laid the foundation for the  in the ‘green revolution’, catapulting India on to the way to food self–sufficiency. But it took more than a decade for this ‘green revolution’ to come on stream.

The communication saga surrounding India’s farm revolution, especially the ‘green revolution ‘has spawned thousands of Ph.Ds in the US and India. The political leadership that spearheaded this movement showed an extraordinary vision that resonated among the farming community. A notable feature of this political communication was that it was sans party politics. This effort also created a massive country-wide machinery including innovative communication channels reaching out to the villages. One of the AIR initiatives in this field -RRF or Radio Rural Forum - has donned the folk-lore of development communication. The illiterate farmers who were taught by participatory radio programmes to grow a high yielding rice (IR-8) associated it so much with the radio, they termed it  ‘Radio Rice’. I was a very, very small part of this farm revolution machinery when I started my career. I had the privilege of writing a series of feature articles on the green revolution that was taking place in the Kosi river command area in Bihar. 

Planning as an instrument of national development was, however, embraced by the Indian national Congress in as early as 1938, and Jawaharlal Nehru had headed the party’s committee on Planning. And, the National Planning commission was set up very soon after India became a Republic in 1950 and the first five-year plan was rolled out in 1951. Its first chairman was PM Nehru himself, who was also its foremost spokesman. The 1952 general elections was the first poll campaign in which INC showcased many of the five-year plan programmes. The party manifesto declared: “it is Not possible to pursue a policy of laissez –faire in industry....it is incompatible with any planning. It has long been Congress policy that basic industries should be owned or controlled by the State...State trading should be undertaken...A large field is left for private enterprise... Thus, the economy will have public sector as well as a private sector’.

Tungabhadra Project

The concept of this mixed economy progressed further for addressing the prevailing wide  income  disparities. In 1955, the All India Congress Committee session held at Avadi decisively moved for controlling the commanding heights of the economy. Its resolution said: “In order to realise the object of the Congress,...to further the objective of the Preamble (of the Constitution of India), and Directive Principles of State Policy ...Planning should take place with a view to establishing a socialist pattern of society, where the principal means of production are under social ownership or control, production is progressively speeded up and there is equitable distribution of national wealth’.

The IDRA or Industrial Development and Regulation Act (1951) had already anticipated such a political stance.

On the political front, the party Resolution not only reflected  Prime Minister Nehru’s own economic thinking but it was also a response to the criticism by stalwarts like Acharya Kripalani, Narendra Dev and Jayaprakash Narayan that the Congress was not sufficiently socialistic. These persons had left the Congress and formed new political parties. In fact, there was some discussion within the party at this stage whether farm land should be owned by communities but it did not go further. The Avadi session was a watershed moment in India’s economic history and decisively influenced the later official industrial policy.

A year later, the II five year plan, known as the Mahalonabis Plan- was unveiled. (Per Wikipedia, The Feldman–Mahalanobis model is a Neo-Marxist model of economic development, created independently by Soviet economist G. A. Feldman in 1928, and Indian statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1953. Mahalanobis became essentially the key economist of India's Second Five Year Plan, becoming subject to much of India's most dramatic economic debates.)

The Plan fully embraced the Avadi philosophy, with the government getting into running of big heavy industry enterprises such as steel. The political communication that emanated was somewhat jingoistic in the sense that India would build some of the world’s ‘biggest’, world’s ‘first’, ‘largest’ projects. While the policy of import substitution, self-sufficiency, had not yet appeared in political parlance, there was a definite  stress on ‘self-reliance’. This was also the period when Nehru had given his famous call for inculcating ‘a scientific temper’ among the people and had  laid the ground for setting up various institutions for scientific research and higher education like CSIR, Atomic research, IITs and others. But India had not closed its doors to foreign technology, expertise and enterprise. Media reports about projects were highly appreciative accounts of government policies. There was a spirit of ‘we can do it’ in the air and the impact of this spirit can be felt even to this day. 

Foreign Media watch on India: From the II Plan onwards, the Planning Commission became almost a supra-body that overshadowed the cabinet. The Plan document itself with its grandiose schemes was something like a post-dated cheque. It was an invaluable companion of government publicists. The newspapers gave prominent coverage to announcements of Plan schemes and the Plan document served as a great source for news stories spun out by economic journalists, especially on days when the news fall was thin.   

A largely illiterate population (85%) adopting the democracy based on universal franchise had excited the western developed countries and their media. No such example existed in political history. A poverty-ridden India’s experiment to push planned development in a federal democracy was another factor that came to be watched with keen interest. The compulsions of World War II had made the western capitalist countries also to accord a dominant role for the state in running the economy. Leading captains of Indian industry had come out with their own Plan document known as the Bombay Plan that had strongly argued for the state to take a lead in economic development, and had visualised a supplementary role for the private sector.  And, therefore, the Indian government declaring its intention through Planning to control and manage the economy for the greatest good of the greatest numbers was not contested either at home or abroad. The sheen of freedom movement had not left the Indian national Congress and the credibility of the prime minister was unquestioned. He spoke for the government and the nation on almost on all matters and dissenters were seen as an aberration.

One had to wait until 1959 for major political dissent on economic policy to surface in the form of the Swatantra party founded by C.Rajagopalachari, a close associate of Gandhi and Nehru. Minoo Masani had set up his Forum of Free Enterpise. The editor of Current weekly, D.F.Karaka was a trenchant critic of Nehru and had begun his free enterprise crusade. Around this time, there was also some disquiet on on Nehru’s foreign policy, especially with regard to China and its actions in Tibet. The first biggest scam of independent India -Mundhra Scandal- was coming to light. But let me not jump into another period.

The author
sunarendra@gmail.com

Returning to 1950s, a remarkable facet of political communication on economic development in the early years of independence was that the political leaders who had suffered incarceration at the hands of the colonial power, did not hark back to the economic havoc brought upon India by the colonial masters. This was in stark contrast to the content of political communication on the same theme that took   place in the recent past. Political parties at the centre and the states come to power by blaming the predecessor regime.

When several Afro-Asian countries gained independence from the colonial masters, very soon after India became free, the leadership of those countries kept blaming the predecessor regimes for their under-development and used this theme as an excuse for them not making economic progress. But Indian leadership, in contrast, was more far- sighted and kept focus on what it could do to remedy the aborted economic development of India under foreign rule. (To be continued)

Games journalist friends play: How Rao Govt dealt with foreign & Indian media houses during reforms

By S.Narendra

(Former Information Adviser to PM, Principal Information Officer

and Government Spokesperson)

This series began with a summary of the hurdles to be crossed for initiating comprehensive public affairs campaign...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... Part Three of Mule in A Turf Club discusses India in Search of Image...Read on.

The Indian governments for several generations were desperate to ‘project’ India’s (read PMO’s) image abroad. From time to time, PR agencies had been hired abroad for the purpose and there were attempts to subsidize Indian media to bring out overseas editions for countering the negative image of India, allegedly projected abroad by foreign media. At one time, official negotiations were conducted with the  Times of India for a London  edition. PTI was also assisted to undertake such efforts. Even India Today was initially conceived as such a government supported private effort to counter the Time magazine. Fortunately for India Today, the negotiations conducted during the last months of the 1975-77 Emergency period, could not be completed. I was involved in those talks and in compiling a huge mailing list of recipients of this Indian version of the Time.

http://prapport.blogspot.in/2015/07/mule-in-turf-club-journey-from-license.html http://prapport.blogspot.in/2015/07/mule-in-turf-club-birth-and-death-of.html

India was a big political story to begin with, especially its experiment in democratic process and its gigantic and colourful elections with universal suffrage. But as its economic development sputtered out and India became dependent upon food aid and IMF bail outs, it began to attract attention as an economic basket case. ‘Ship to Mouth’ (import food and eat) was how Indian food and nutrition situation was depicted. The foreign media para-dropped  their representatives on to India to cover disasters like famine, floods, death of leaders like Nehru, Mrs Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi (particularly the assassination of the latter two). The separatist agitations in J&K, North-east and later in Punjab were always grist to the foreign media. India was not an ‘economic story’, unlike the south-east Asian ‘Tiger economies’ such as China, South Korea, Singapore and others.

Partly, India’s moralising tone in its foreign policy and closing of doors to economic globalisation were responsible for western media that dominated the international information flow, to take a negative view of India. This only made the government more desperate in its search for an ‘image’ that wanted to change the law of physics. When in early 1970s, the BBC broadcast a documentary on India by a French TV team (Louis Malle), that depicted the prevailing poverty and squalor, the government asked BBC to pack up from India. Mark Tully came as a young-man when BBC reopened its office in 1974 but had to pack up again during the emergency.

The foreign press corps, stationed in India was small and mostly staffed by stringers and they covered southeast Asia and its neighbours. This situation, however, changed overnight when Narasimha Rao government launched ‘Reforms’. This change also coincided with India breaking into the new Information technology (IT), with products of IITs and IIMs on their way to becoming international brand ambassadors. With India’s ‘Reforms’, there was a spurt in international media interest not for a political or disaster story but as a potential emerging economy. As a result, in addition to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore began to attract foreign media representation. We openly welcomed foreign media such as Bloomberg, CNN, AP-Dow Jones to open their news bureaus.  With the active intervention of the finance minister, the foreign press corps was given a government accommodation for its association and club.

Caged Tiger to Elephant:  Until 1991, only the foreign ministry was considered as foreign correspondents’  news  beat. This changed and media specialising in economic and financial news began to cover other ministries as well as the states. We regularly arranged, under the leadership of the cabinet and principal secretary, closed-door briefings for groups of foreign media representatives. As Spokesperson, I used to hold a daily briefing and Reuters, AP-Dow Jones and other such agencies began attending. Without much effort, India began to be featured positively on the cover of international magazines like The Economist, Business Week, Time and Newsweek. This was a far cry from the way the Economist depicted India in April 1991, barely two months before the Narasimha Rao era. In a special section, this edition pictured India as a “Caged Tiger’ and had put the Ambassador  car as the symbol of India’s technological prowess. Suddenly, the tiger had come out of the cage and tuned into an ‘unshackled elephant’. A large number of well-known names in international journalism began to pay increased attention to India. Among them was Thomas Friedman of New York Times, who was inspired to write his famous book ‘The World Is Flat’. India had travelled a very long distance from the time of the books of 1960s on India, (like that of Washington Post correspondent in Delhi. Selig Harrison’s India: Dangerous Decade, predicting its economic and political collapse.   

Most of the reporting in foreign media about India is reflective of what is reported in the domestic media. In 1990s, an Indian journalist was paid a large sum by Strait Times of Singapore for getting sending over telephone India Today cover story, particularly if it was negative one, for publication. When Surat was hit by Plague in 1993, the most sensational and factually incorrect stories appeared in Indian media. The foreign correspondents met me to complain that such stories were causing problems for them back their home countries. We arranged a meeting of senior editors of Indian media to draw their attention to the tendency to sensationalise the plague stories. Prominent foreign wire agencies based in India used to make it a point to check from me the veracity of government policy decisions such as cabinet decisions published in Indian media, before picking them up. This shows the importance of ensuring proactive, prompt and responsible flow of official information to the media.

Handling Visual media: In the wake of economic reforms, we had to mount special efforts to engage the Indian media.  We were arranging in-depth briefings by senior government officials for editors, media columnists and commentators on the government policies as well as problems in pushing further reforms. Both the cabinet and the principal secretaries were very active in such efforts. Such briefings were meant as background and not for immediate reporting attributing to the so-called official sources. The Indian TV media was   just making its presence felt. The visual media representatives wanted such briefings on camera which was simply not possible. While we made every attempt to include them for off-the–record background briefings, educating visual media reps about maintaining source anonymity and confidentiality was a serious problem.

In the visual media era, fielding an articulate voice and face gives authenticity to stories. As ministers and officials were new to this medium, we had a serious problem, especially because they would not be willing to be counselled in the art of facing the visual media. My own advice to the government was that where its decision needed political background and it deservedly had to earn political dividend, the concerned minister should face the camera. In other cases, where the focus had to be on a decision sans politics, relevant officials including myself should be fielded as the spokespersons. The need for providing sound-bites on a 24-hour basis for international broadcast channels had surfaced and I had been authorised to give most of the sound –bites.

New Media: The Internet news media had started off with rediff and a few others. I tried to give them government accreditation so that Internet news outlets had access to official news sources. This was strongly opposed by the print media. The latter were also not in favour of giving accreditation to TV media like Asian news International, NDTV, Aaj Tak and others. Internally, I pressed the government to liberalise the import of TV equipment, reduce the duties on such equipment. My argument to the finance ministry was that by liberalising the import regime for visual media equipment, India could develop into a media software center that would in turn create hundreds of jobs.

Several international news agencies, including the German news agency, were keen to set up their English language hubs in India and had applied for I&B ministry’s permission. My written advice in favour of such opening up of this sector was rejected. As a result, some of them moved to another English speaking country in Asia - Philippines.

Time and again:  There was keen competition among Indian  media houses to  gain a head start in publishing the Indian edition of foreign publications like the Time, International Herald Tribune, London Times, Financial Times. India Today, Ananda Bazaar Group, Hindustan Times had submitted proposals for government approval of their tie –ups with such publications. According to a 1956 cabinet resolution, foreign wire agencies were barred from distributing their service directly to subscribers in India. They had to route through the Indian agencies. A similar restriction applied to publication of foreign newspapers and journals. The government permission was required even for reproducing in Indian newspapers articles published in foreign newspapers, of course on payment in foreign exchange. Considerable pressure was put on the PM by powerful media houses to change the existing policy exclusively in their favour. The language media along with political parties like BJP, CPM were opposed to any change in the policy.  It was feared  in  media  and political circles that allowing foreign publications to come in would endanger the Indian media and also  alter  Indian culture. The prime minister was not in favour of opening up of media at that stage of reforms, as it would create a needless controversy and hamper critical reforms in other sectors. Rao was of the view that the government should develop a broad political consensus for changing the policy and develop guidelines on FDI in media before considering any individual cases.

Media Commission: During a discussion with the PM on such issues, I suggested to him that the government should set up an independent Media Commission, on the lines of the   Press Commissions that was formed earlier,  with the aim of examining  the issues involved in opening up media. He accepted the idea and asked me to submit a note to I&B minister. Accordingly, after discussing with the minister, I submitted a note on the setting up of such a Media Commission. This proposed Commission, consisting of eminent persons from   Media, Entertainment  and Advertising industry, Communication, media and  communications technologies,  social scientists, legal experts  and others, was  to be entrusted with a Review existing laws and rules governing media, emerging media and communications technologies and their implications for India,  prepare a vision document for  the development of media, entertainment, communication  and communication technologies , including  the new media. It was to lay out a roadmap for developing India’s what has now come to be known as a nation‘s soft power to complement its hard power. Unfortunately, the ministry did not pursue this idea.

The handful of media business houses that wanted to exclusively corner the market for foreign publications by bringing out their Indian editions were not averse to use their journalistic clout. Their game went something like this. The owners of a publication or a very senior journalist from the group  would have a one- on- one meeting with PM, and urge him to have their proposal for tie-up with a particular foreign publication group cleared. This would be followed by a very favourable story about the PM and the government. When I used   to bring this to Rao’s  notice ,he would  tell me with a smile: ‘last week so  and so met me from this paper. You wait for the next meeting of FIPB, they will print some libel against me’. When it became known that the next meeting of FIPB had not considered the proposal from this particular publication, there would be more than one negative story on PMO prominently displayed in the  group’s publications.

Jumbo junkets:  A media contingent used to accompany the Prime Minister on his foreign tours. When Narasimha Rao assumed office, the international economic and political order was changing and India had to readjust its external relations to this new situation. In addition, India itself was undergoing far reaching changes. On my suggestion it was decided to enlarge the media contingent accompanying the PM and we began to give representation to language media as well. The purpose was to expose more media persons, especially those critical of the reforms, to countries like Vietnam, China, former Soviet Union republics that were undergoing remarkable changes. We used to arrange special briefings for the media accompanying the PM by officials of host countries about their experience in reforms. During some visits the media contingent exceeded fifty persons. As we were keen to give more representation to language and non-Delhi based media, it reduced the representation of high profile, Delhi journalists. This did cause some flutter and problems for me.  

In 1990s, information flow from one region of India to another was slow and, therefore, people of one state could not compare the socio-economic development with even a neighbouring state. In order to facilitate cross–border flow of development information and comparisons, there was a practice of arranging visits of media persons of one region to another for facilitating  flow of  cross-border development experience. We tried to arrange visits of such media parties from states that were lagging in development and not hooked onto reforms to states that were not only more developed but early adopters of reforms like Karnataka, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu. Such visits made the media raise questions about the state of affairs in their home states in comparison. This caused some disquiet in states like West Bengal, North eastern states that began to discourage such visits. With the advent of satellite TV and media proliferations now, information flows freely and instantly and there is no  need for such officially sponsored  tours. Moreover, media houses like India Today have begun to publish ‘State of States’, comparing the socio-economic performance of various States

The Author

       (sunarendra@gmail.com) 

www.https//Spokesperson.blogspot

One of the purposes of economic reforms was to make India an attractive destination for FDI. The government had to show that it was not engaged in business as usual and therefore, it set up the Foreign Investment Proposal Board under the principal secretary to PM to serve as a single window. As mentioned before, FDI as an idea was somewhat foreign to Indian minds and was viewed with suspicion both by the business community as well as in political circles. The media reflected such suspicions. I had highlighted to FIPB one of prevailing concerns among the media and the public related to possible loss of Indian ownership to FDI as well as drain on foreign reserves. This was a hangover from the past history of foreign exchange shortages and import-substitution policy induced mindset. Initially, FIPB had to deal with a trickle but the future flow of FDI proposals would largely depend upon how this trickle was treated by government and also how the media projected FIPB action to Indian audiences. We had a special meeting with the principal secretary for discussing the release of information to media about FIPB deliberations of such proposals. It was decided that every proposal will be scrutinised from the point of how to play it for Indian audience before being finally put through FIPB. For example, for assuring that FDI will not eat into foreign reserves, we coined the term ‘dividend balancing’. That meant the firm investing will earn more than what it could remit abroad as dividend. We also repeatedly had to explain to media that FDI was not like hot money coming through FII and the assets created from FDI will remain within our borders. The PM himself had to reiterate this point even at political rallies.

This may sound elementary now but not in 1990s, especially to language and regional media immersed in political news.