Information

A recent television commercial apparently meant to popularize Chinese noodles, in fact, establishes the superiority of products made in China. Over the years, Indians have perceived that products made in China may be considerably cheaper but actually are of very inferior quality and do not last long. This commercial is aimed at manipulating this popular perception and plant seeds in the minds of Indian children about the desirability of Chinese goods being better. If the commercial was aimed at selling noodles, there was no need to project the mother as a Chinese woman wearing a Chinese dress. Perception management through mass communication has been in vogue for long. During the World Wars, all stakeholders used pamphlets to either demoralize enemy populations or to establish their superiority. Today, USA is the most effective strategic planner able to market its atrocities on people living outside its jurisdiction. At one point of time, the Soviet Union communicated the superiority of its Leftist ideology to the world effectively but failed miserably against the information onslaught of the West, including the USA.

China is a new entrant in the international information warfare. The example of Chinese noodles is only the tip of the iceberg. The manner in which China fed the Indian media about its justification of intruding into the Indian territory is another example. The Indian media, both print and television, gave extra space and time to project Chinese assertions along with what our own government was conveying. The gradual perception management of the Indian population about China is a planned communication strategy by our unfriendly neighbour. We in India appear to be using communication media in bits and pieces but certainly not as a sustained long term strategic effort. We hardly have a system of `feeding’ foreign media in New Delhi. Most western news and comments are based on reports from the Indian English media. In the process, both real India and the views of the government receive scanty representation resulting in incomplete and distorted perceptions about the country. In India, we may have a huge army of very able media persons, yet there is not one communication strategist worth mentioning. In his August 2008 paper, Robert Hastings Jr. described strategic communication as “the synchronization of images, actions and words to achieve a desired effect.” Steve Tathan of the UK Defence Academy argues that it is desirable to bind and coordinate communications together; it should be regarded in a much more fundamental manner than simply a process. This, according to him, is proper strategic communication.

In India, the longest information campaign is Ministry of Health’s population control measures. The campaign started in the early 1950s and continues even today but success in changing perceptions in favour of small family and fewer children has only been partial. About one fifth of the population, mainly the minorities, has not been targeted so far. The NDA government’s India Shining campaign of about Rs 200 crores is another example. Out of the blue, Indians were told that despite intense economic and social inequalities, India was shining. It failed to assess peoples’ perceptions when it was launched. UPA’s Bharat Nirman advertisement bonanza of Rs 600 crores seems to follow the same pattern. It has no connect with government advertisements of the recent past, neither is there any sign of strategic planning. A strategy unfolds gradually and adds on to the information and motivation step by step. But each ad of Bharat Nirman is a standalone and does not connect with the past. On the other hand, an effective campaign like that of Amul is a progressive journey from one point to another, both points well defined by planners. Long ago, the Steel Authority of India adopted a strategic communication campaign and over the years created an image for themselves as a company that is socially relevant despite producing steel. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) during the last decade or so has somehow managed to change public perception in the capital, from being a highly corrupt and inefficient organization to one with committed to transparency and public convenience.

Another failure of strategic communication is our war against Naxalites. We are not fighting them on the ideological front; no one is shouting that Maoism has failed elsewhere and it is bound to create more problems than it can solve. Deployment of uniformed personnel can be one part of strategy but psychological combat by way of information onslaught is hardly being planned. We do not know whether Mahatma Gandhi consciously planned his communication strategy for non-violent protest but there appears to be a shadow of consistent progressive effort to inform and mobilize the people. 
(Courtesy VIF)