Foreign visits and the headlines

As recent European visits showed, public diplomacy is a struggle during bilateral summits

Be it Europe or the US, it is extremely difficult for a typical foreign leader on a bilateral visit to get space in the media; the local print media may give a short inside page report, while their electronic cousins will usually ignore the event. The exceptions are leaders of high international standing, or those facing major issues or controversies; occasionally, someone else may catch public fancy. Consider how little TV news or column space an Indian prime minister marshals in the print media in Berlin, London or Paris, barring the odd interview. Our media give similar short shrift to most international visitors.

A related phenomenon is that within countries local issues, home controversies and issues dominate the news. In Delhi one hears from foreign ambassadors that they simply cannot get either the print or the electronic media to take interest in their countries, unless they represent Pakistan, China or the US. Our electronic media — we now have around 140 all-news, 24-hour channels across the country, about 50 in English and the rest in Indian languages — is particularly insular and disinterested in foreign affairs, unless it is those same three countries. A comparable situation exists elsewhere. For instance, in Mexico is it not the case that besides the US, there is little public interest in other foreign countries?

It is against this background that visits to India in the past two weeks by French President Hollande and UK PM Cameron furnish a stark contrast. Consider:

• The French president’s two days in New Delhi and Mumbai drew low notice in the media. On February 19, the Times of India carried a slightly apologetic report by its Francophile former editor Dilip Padgaonkar. His main point was in the headline: ‘…Low in Style but High in Substance’. He argued that Mr Hollande “does not fancy himself as a salesman for French businesses”. That is strange, to say the least, because hard-selling major deals has very much been the French diplomatic style. Yes, the ministers that accompanied Mr Hollande did pursue important cooperation segments, including joint research, film production, and select business segments. The reality is that around the world, leaders invest much effort in promoting business interests; big-ticket deals are a priority, both for their intrinsic value, and home public impact.
   
• Mr Cameron came for three full days, visiting Mumbai, Delhi and Amritsar. He flattered Indians with the announcement that the 100+ businessmen, educationists and public figures he brought was the largest such accompanying delegation to leave Britain. The marketing of education was astute. Currently 40,000 Indian students are in the UK; Cameron declared that there would be no ceiling applied on numbers. In fact no country, to the best of my knowledge, imposes a limit on the number of students from India, though visa scrutiny is tight, to weed out bogus students who are illegal migrants. The US has over 100,000 Indian students, and Australia about 25,000 now, a fall from the recent past (between 2007 and 2011, the demand for student visas fell by 71 per cent). In each of France and Germany, we have less than 10,000 students. One should also consider that a year in a master’s programme in the UK costs at least the equivalent of Rs 10-25 lakh as tuition fee, whereas the tuition charges in France for example are barely Rs 3 or 4 lakh (living costs are comparable).
   
• The UK’s language advantage affects its drawing power, e.g., as an education destination. But a language advantage does not explain the failure of President Hollande to reach out to India; language does not matter with the print media, and even on TV, voice-overs and subtitles effectively overcome translation problems.
   
• As a former ambassador I was intrigued by the “concession” offered to Indian businessmen of a “same-day” visa — with no cost figure mentioned. In Germany in 1992-95, we gave same-day visas to all applicants, as long as applications were lodged by 12 noon. A 45-minute “rapid visa” operated at the princely additional cost of DM10 (Rs 220). Here in Delhi, years back an Indian journalist paid Rs 20,000 for an urgent Schengen visa, delivered in two days. True, 9/11 and its aftermath has changed things now, but the high cost of visas is a burden today for all travellers.
   
• Where Mr Cameron scored decisively was in exposure in the Indian media. Please note that on a foreign visit, a leader’s real priority is almost always the home media — that is where the voters are. Diplomats know that when leaders go abroad, their embassies must treat home journalists with kid gloves. This time, the British PM gave much time to Indian TV channels, for example appearing on Shekhar Gupta’s popular ‘Walk the Talk’ programme that has high viewership: He also made himself available to other Indian TV interviewers, and spent much time with the BBC. Mr Cameron blended sharp communication skill, with fluid mastery over his India brief.
   
• Mr Cameron grasped the public diplomacy nettle with his visit to Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. The only high-level British visit there had been by Queen Elizabeth in October 1996, on a tour marked by glitches (see my ‘Bilateral Diplomacy’, 2002); she — badly advised by an inept UK high commissioner at the time — had simply signed the visitor’s book, without comment. I had called it a lesson in how not to organise a state visit. Mr Cameron kneeled down; he then wrote: “This was a deeply shameful act in British history, one that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as monstrous…” Some have parsed this to mean that Cameron’s was not a “complete apology”, but consider: never before has Britain expressed to independent India any regret over this egregious atrocity. Churchill’s July 1920 speech was in a distinct UK political context; he had called Jallianwala “a monstrous event…which stands in singular and sinister isolation …without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire… (it was) ‘frightfulness’…I mean…the inflicting of great slaughter or massacre upon a particular crowd of people, with the intention of terrorising not merely the rest of the crowd, but the whole district or the whole country.” [Alas, that was Churchill’s last public expression of sympathy for India; in 1929 he became a “diehard” opponent of political evolution in India, holding his jaundiced views right up to Indian Independence. That story is for another time.]

As a footnote to the above public diplomacy discourse, let me add a word on economic issues, which also impact on publics. Up to the mid-1990s, economic exchanges with Germany were the strongest in Europe; it was the partner of choice for Indian companies, as business surveys showed. Thereafter the UK pulled ahead slightly, helped partly by a focused business promotion programme, ‘Indo-British Partnership’, between the UK’s CBI and India’s CII, under the sponsorship of the two prime ministers. Right now, our two-way trade exchanges are roughly: Germany, $25 billion; UK, $16 billion; France $8 billion. UK is the biggest European investor in India, plus the largest recipient of Indian investments. The shortfall in economic links with France is an old legacy. We should remember that up 1990 to all these three countries were in a comparable situation in Europe, though after German unification, with its larger population, Germany has pulled ahead (82 million people, against about 60 million each in the other two). Seen another way, that relative shortfall, with France in particular, holds promise of what can be done, with determined effort on both sides.

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The writer, a former ambassador is professor emeritus, DiploFoundation and a honorary fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.

 

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