This piece was first published in September 2012.
Has the byte-consuming and headline hunting newsroom/studio democracy put measured, relevant and good old-fashioned communication at serious disadvantage? Why has the Indian media contributed to the perception (not necessarily fact) that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has been functioning with a communication deficit? Perceptions and reputations have a knack of concealing the facts. I may not like the neo-liberal thrust of Dr Singh’s economic policies (you may not like him for your own reasons), but that should not entitle us to a fact holiday.
For starters, let us give facts a chance and eat this factual pie – Dr Singh has been one of the most articulate and communicative prime ministers. And I am not talking of the gift of the gab, but core policy-oriented and governance-centric communication and discourse without frills from the political head of the country.
For those who have cared to listen, Dr Singh has been audible. And it has been difficult for his dignified vocal chords to be so in the cacophony of a street farce staged for the urban middle class Lokpal trophy, and in the din of Opposition fireworks in the Parliament. Straining your ears to hear him in such bedlam gives credence to Plato’s central problem with democracy – it has too many voices, but only a few frank and reasoned ones. Unfortunately, this could imply that shrill demagogy is intertwined with democracy. To his credit, Dr Singh hasn’t joined the chorus.
But what has led the Indian media to have and then feed the perception that the prime minister hasn’t been communicating enough (or lacks accessibility) and thus, is short on democratic response? The catch is that by confining the leadership credentials to such flow charts of communication, the media has not been probing the deeper questions of representative democracy and public policy that emerge from Dr Singh’s political communication. First, let us have some good reasons to believe that the prime minister has been one of the most prolific communicators of governmental policies and concerns.
One, we should start asking – have we really been taking note of the range and frequency of the speeches, addresses and policy assessments and statements that the prime minister has been making from public platforms?
The fact is, from economy to science and technology, and from agriculture to rural development, and from internal security to foreign policy (and you may keep adding to the range – education, defence, public accountability, environment, etc) – Dr Manmohan Singh has been rigorous in articulating the policy concerns, programmes and priorities of the government in public domain.
In April this year, I had a realisation of the wide range of the prime minister’s public articulation of governmental policies. While searching for some current policy inputs to give to Civil Services aspirants who were appearing for interviews (after clearing their written examination), I was looking for some authentic governmental sources. I found that on most of the policy issues and governance related concerns, the source had a voluminous existence at the apex itself – in the prime minister’s numerous speeches in public functions/seminars/conferences, replies and interventions in Parliament, addresses to the nation on the national broadcaster, media interactions, etc.
In fact, if you dig into the archives, you would find that after Pandit Nehru, it has been Dr Singh’s tenures that have witnessed such wide ranging public communication coming from the prime minister. You name an issue of governance and public policy concern, and the prime minister has spoken on it – and that too with remarkable homework. A latest case in point is his address at the NAM summit in Tehran and his on-board press conferences (a kind of media engagement which the prime minister has made a regularity, apart from his interactions with editors of media houses).
Two, the PM’s presence in Parliament has witnessed some of the most profound engagements with issues of national and international importance. And it’s noteworthy that the frequency of his Parliamentary interventions has increased during the course of his two consecutive tenures in UPA-1 and UPA-2 regimes. A study done by Zee Research Group and published in DNA (May 22, 2012) will lead you to the following tabulation:
Just do a little exercise. Try comparing his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s record on this count. Another exercise could be a case on a common theme – compare the comprehensive scale with which Dr Manmohan Singh explained and defended the Indo-US civil nuclear deal in Parliament with that of Mr Vajpayee’s rhetorical obfuscations in Parliament on the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998.
Three, the perception that the prime minister hasn’t been speaking to the nation on crucial issues and in critical moments is based on fallacious assumptions of “crucial”, “critical moments” and “speaking to nation”. Since when did the high decibel street theatrics of the self-appointed conscience-keepers of the country become “crucial” or “critical” moments? Wasn’t the prime minister’s silence on such footnotes a sign of his dignified engagement with the leitmotif of country’s policy concerns?
And as far as “speaking” to the nation is concerned, the prime minister has been doing so with as much regularity as normal times warrant. History hasn’t presented him with the exigencies of national life that could be on the footing of the 1971 War and Emergency (1975) for Indira Gandhi, or Kargil (1999) and Gujarat communal carnage (2002) for AB Vajpayee. So why should a no-nonsense political head address the country at the drop of a hat?
And there is a certain degree of hypocrisy too when media questions Dr Singh on this count. In fact, there is a question for media to introspect: How much column space and airtime has the media been giving to analysis and critical reflection on the prime minister’s addresses to the nation (for instance, his Independence Day speeches)?
In fact, in media imagination, accessibility is getting defined by a tyranny of characters who indulge in I-had-water kind of update feeds. Dr Singh has sought to engage the media with issues beyond rhetorical flourishes and vacuous sweet-nothings. This demands an information base, analytical rigour and understanding from journalists. No wonder the headline-hunters have been disappointed, and the worse part for them is that the PM doesn’t provide gaffe moments.
In the changing dynamics of an information society, political communication would find new terrains to negotiate. However, it’s sobering to find that the Prime Minister has been a repository of good old-fashioned credible communication based on rigour of information and perspective, not on polemical diatribe. Charisma has never been his claim to political stewardship. Rational-legal poise has served that purpose. He knows one thing for sure – campaign and mobilisation can be poetic, but governance is prosaic.
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