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As the one-year party came to a close and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime became busy with real politics, it is once again a challenge for the media to access government information.
Things had brightened for journalists in the wake of the government’s celebrations of one year in office, after months of tracking the social media to extract news of any relevance. With every minister wanting to talk about his or her achievement in the run-up to the first anniversary of the Narendra Modi government, the media’s access to ministers and bureaucrats had suddenly improved. But that lasted only for a short while.
A circular from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) last week confirmed the government’s strategy on the media. It said the media would not be allowed to speak to any official in the ministry other than the designated spokesperson. M A Ganapathy, joint secretary (internal security), being the official spokesperson of the ministry, would brief the media “on a need-to-do basis,” it said. Reporters covering the home ministry protested, calling it a gag order. There is no official word yet on withdrawal of the circular.
The home ministry guideline was almost a reminder of what M Venkaiah Naidu, urban development and parliamentary affairs minister, had said more than a year ago. Government spokespersons would keep the media informed about the workings of ministries and “all they need to know,” Naidu had said in June 2014.
The home ministry diktat is not the solitary example of a love-hate relationship between the government and the media. Only last month, the finance ministry issued a statement telling journalists not to speculate on the names of chairmen of public sector banks as this was creating “unnecessary confusion” among the candidates and the public at large.
The finance ministry came out with yet another unusual directive last week, saying the media was not to be allowed in the North Block building for some time. The reason being the A P Shah Committee report on Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) was being released. It is a different matter that immediately after the report was presented, top officials of the finance ministry held a press conference. Contents of the report were not disclosed as a case was on, in the Supreme Court.
A source in the government told Business Standard that while official statements, besides Twitter handles and Facebook posts, of ministers might help in information dissemination, these were not enough. “The government must strengthen its communication strategy. Without communicating effectively, how will you send the message across?” he asked.
Then there is another view that an overactive media, especially television channels, need to be managed through “controlled communication”. Another official said restricted access to the media might not be in the interests of the government.
But former Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar told Business Standard that “civil servants, by and large, are not expected to communicate with the media unless they have some work-related message to convey”. The political executive was generally expected to carry out that function, he said. Although joint secretaries and above are allowed to interact with the media, Chandrasekhar cited the example of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC), among others, where communication with the media has been through official spokespersons.
“Gossip with the media without full knowledge of all the facts has always been discouraged,” said Chandrasekhar, who was Cabinet secretary from 2007 to 2011 during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule. “I am of the view that communication with the media should be systematised through the designation of official spokespersons in all ministries and other government organisations so that they can provide correct and timely information,” said the former civil servant.
It has been 14 months since the NDA government took over, and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) still does not have an official spokesperson for the media. It is generally understood that no word should go out of the PMO through any conversation or meeting with officials at the South Block office where Prime Minister Narendra Modi sits.
That, however, does not mean no information about the prime minister’s activities goes out to the media. On the contrary, there is an overload of such information. Many of his official meetings are tweeted, along with pictures of the visitors, whether it is a foreign dignitary, a governor of an Indian state, or a business honcho.
That Modi joined the Chinese networking site, Sina Weibo, was also duly tweeted on the PM handle. So was his interview to a Seychelles newspaper, Today , in which Modi spoke of his interest in cooking, among other things. As an official said, the advantage of such information flow was that it could be unilateral and did not run the risk of being subjected to questioning by the media as it took place during a press conference.
The prime minister’s official engagements for the day are known to few, unless tweeted.
Communication and brand consultant Samit Sinha said, “I don’t think the prime minister is as comfortable interacting with the media and fielding questions as he is with giving speeches.” While he may be conscious of his image portrayed by the media, “in the ultimate analysis, his public image will depend much more on what he does than what he says.”
But Sinha, managing partner at Alchemist Brand Consulting, pointed out that “in a democracy, it is important for a leader to maintain two-way dialogue with the public through the media, and he needs to respect that institution if he wants to appear to the world as a modern, progressive leader of the free world.”
That said, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too, had a poor record of interacting with the media. He held just three press conferences in nine-and-a-half years. Also, there have been instances of media restrictions during the UPA rule as well.
However, in the current government, Cabinet notes are circulated in a much more guarded way, with little room for any leaks to the media. Following the alleged corporate espionage case at the oil ministry, all ministries have been told to be on their guard to prevent any confidential paper from going out.
Also, Cabinet meetings are held any time between Tuesday and Thursday, though officially these are scheduled for Wednesday. This, too, helps check speculative reporting.
While South Block offices have always been rigid in how meetings and briefing should be conducted for the media, now the trend is spilling over to the many Bhavans which are not on the Raisina Hill. At the Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry, for instance, there is an unwritten code to bar bureaucrats from speaking to the media. All queries have been directed to the designated Press Information Bureau (PIB) officer ever since Smriti Irani took over as the minister.
In fact, she had asked reporters to come into her room without their cell phones during her first media interaction. The aviation ministry, again not a part of the Raisina Hill establishment, has been restricting media entry and meetings with officials.
Ashish Nandy, political psychologist, thinks the media strategy of the current government will boomerang. “It is gradually becoming more closed to the media, similar to many countries in south-east Asia,” said Nandy, likening it to a “kind of Emergency”.
(With inputs from Sanjeeb Mukherjee & Kavita Chowdhury)
