The Phonegate transcripts saw the media roundly — and rightly — censured for the evidence of collusion with corporate groups and lobbyists that they clearly revealed. But little has been said about the role of the public relations (PR) industry in this controversy. In her sometimes fevered conversations with journalists and others in the transcripts that are in the public domain, Ms Niira Radia of Vaishnavi Communications, with clients like Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani, can be said to have done her job efficiently. But as any public relations professional will attest, there is a difference between the practice of lobbying, on the one hand, and advocacy on the other and Ms Radia was certainly talking the thin line between the two. Indeed, if Phonegate revealed anything, it is the urgent need to create the conditions for transparency and accountability in the public relations business.
In terms of sheer size and reach, the business certainly warrants some sort of regulation. From being a tiny offshoot of corporate activity some two decades ago, the public relations business is now very much part of the business landscape. It has developed in tandem with the expansion of private business and industry, not just in numbers — there is a handful of large Indian and multinational firms but thousands of small ones — but also in terms of the sophistication of the services. PR firms are no longer purveyors of press releases and organisers of press conferences, essentially low-value functions. Image-building and crisis management have become major high-yielding standalone businesses within the industry that require considerable intellectual input.
But even as these activities are gaining critical mass, it is the advocacy and lobbying part of the industry that is acquiring traction, and this opens the way for potential problems. To be sure, lobbying and advocacy are legitimate, even fundamental, activities in any open business milieu; corporations should have a right to have their say in policy-making that will impact their functioning. It is another thing when corporations pay PR representatives to transcend these functions, such as openly pushing for the appointment of a minister favourable to the group and so on. That is why it might be in the PR industry’s interests to advocate disclosure-based regulation on, say, the lines of the Lobbying Act in the US. It requires anyone who accepts payment for “attempting to influence the passage or defeat of any legislation by the Congress of the United States” to register with specified functionaries in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The requirements are detailed: they include, among other things, who the person concerned is working for and how much he is paid and for what expenses. These declarations are not just given in writing but also under oath. There are, of course, weaknesses in this legislation — it doesn’t, for instance, prevent venal Colombian and Iraqi politicians from hiring US firms to lobby their cause on the Hill — but the virtue of disclosure-based information is that it introduces a modicum of transparency and allows the rules to be tightened from time to time.Warts and all, such a law would, at the very least, represent a reasonably open engagement model between government and corporate India and its lobbyists. In the current climate of corruption and accusations of crony capitalism, a disclosure law would do wonders for the reputation of both India Inc and PR Ltd.