Had the government a modicum of understanding of how to manage strategic communications, it could have used the media to correct the false and politically motivated narrative being peddled by detractors of the government. All that was needed was to follow the Kargil template: provide regular briefings to the media, give them access to the frontlines, provide them with military satellite imagery and other information in a transparent manner without disclosing any operational details. – Sushant Sareen
For all the claims of the Modi government being on top of the game of managing public perceptions, these claims are true only to the extent of domestic politics. When it comes to strategic communications, the record of the Modi government is pretty dismal. Over the last two years, on at least three occasions—the Rafale controversy, the Balakot strike and the recent stand-off with China in Ladakh—the government’s strategic communications strategy has been notable in its absence. In each of these instances, instead of guiding, setting and controlling the narrative, the government has invariably been found itself behind the curve. Worse, when faced with a barrage of negative news (some real, a lot twisted, and some palpably fake) the government appears to be like a deer caught in the headlights.
Structural issues
Whenever faced with a situation of information assaults from adversaries (both local and foreign) the standard response is one of the following: ignore or dismiss with contempt without making any effort to refute what is being said with facts; if this doesn’t work (as it very often doesn’t in issues of war and peace, foreign and security policy, or even diplomatic tangles), then issue a bland press release or a statement that raises more questions than it answers; when even that fails, then party apparatchiks and followers start imputing base political and personal motives to detractors without really bothering to debunk them in a coherent manner.
Part of the problem is structural and organisational. Simply put, the government structure is not equipped or structured to handle the communication requirements of the 21st century. Just getting a Twitter handle, a Facebook page, or an Instagram account, means nothing if it isn’t used effectively. Part of the problem is also lack of professionalism of the people handling government communications. But a major part of the problem is the sheer inability to understand the transformation that has occurred in the information space where the press release is an anachronism.
Social media strategy
In an age in which Twitter is the new press release, by the time the press release is issued, whatever had to be said has already been said, the narrative has been shaped and the damage been done. The damage control that follows is by definition playing catch-up and not of setting the narrative. This is exactly what happened with the PM’s statement at the all parties meeting on the crisis with China. Within minutes of the PM’s statement, social media interpreted it quite differently from what the PM intended. For a government that monitors social media very carefully, a clarification should have come within minutes of the misinterpretation. And yet, the clarification came nearly 24 hours later by which time the game had already slipped away.
It wasn’t always like this. Two decades ago, the then NDA government used the electronic media (which was still in an adolescent stage) to telling effect during the Kargil conflict. The regular joint press briefings in Delhi by the military’s spokesperson and the MEA spokesperson, coupled with the free access given to media personnel to report right from the frontlines managed to set the agenda, capture the narrative of the war and destroy Pakistan’s factory of lies. It was quite clear at that time that the media can function as a force multiplier in conflict situations. Unfortunately, rather than build upon that success, India frittered it away.
The government’s recent strategic communication failures have been mitigated by independent analysts, who managed to pull things back for the government. This happened at the time of the Rafale controversy when, instead of government spokespersons, it was independent analysts who blew holes in the opposition’s narrative.
After Balakot again, it was independent analysts who used open-source intelligence and punctured the Pakistani propaganda. And now, during the standoff in Ladakh, it is these very same analysts who, using commercial satellite imagery, put a lie to claims that thousands of Chinese soldiers had entered and occupied Indian territory in multiple locations. So compelling was the evidence presented by these analysts that even those who called them ‘shadowy operators’ and ‘amateurs’ started to use their images in their own articles!
The Kargil template
Had the government a modicum of understanding of how to manage strategic communications, it could have used the media to correct the false and politically motivated narrative being peddled by detractors of the government. All that was needed was to follow the Kargil template: provide regular briefings to the media, give them access to the frontlines, provide them with military satellite imagery and other information in a transparent manner without disclosing any operational details. The best way to shut down fake news is to have a surfeit of genuine reportage.
This was a lesson that was also used in J&K in the 1990s when the place was opened up for both national and foreign journalists. As long as there were restrictions, there was no dearth of fake news. But the moment J&K was opened to the media, the fake news was swamped by real news, which helped in correcting the negative narrative on Kashmir internationally. Unless the government learns from its recent failures and past successes and revamps its communications systems and structures to keep in step with the times, it will be in a damage control mode. – Daily-O, 20 July 2020
› Sushant Sareen is a Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, an obsessive Pakistan watcher and a history buff who studied economics.
Filed under: china, india | Tagged: china intrudes ladakh, fake news, government communications, indian media, NDA government |
BHARATA BHARATI 
From Senkaku Islands to Ladakh, ‘bully’ China is on an overdrive – Shishir Gupta – MSN News – 21 July 2020
China complained to Japan early this month about its fishing boats moving in the vicinity of Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Beijing also wanted Japan to cancel the resolution passed by the Ishigaki city assembly last month to change the name of the southern Japan area from Tonoshiro to Tonoshiro Senkaku. Japan, as expected, has told off China.
Beijing’s latest complaint to Tokyo falls into a pattern and is part of its tactic to push the envelope with its neighbours – one step at a time. In the East China Sea, the demarche was designed to build its claim over the archipelago that includes five uninhabited islands and three barren rocks spread across 7 sq km. It wasn’t just the presence of Japanese military around the islands east of the Chinese mainland that Beijing was going to object to but fishing boats too.
To be sure, China has been attempting to expand its territories over the last two decades but it has only been after the latest round of steps, or mis-steps that Beijing has been called out for bullying its neighbours, first by the United States. For instance, it has been laying the ground for the Ladakh adventure nearly 20 years ago.
That is when teams of Indian and Chinese officials, in an effort to understand each other’s perceptions about the Line of Actual Control and narrow the differences, produced maps of the western sector at the meeting of the expert group of the two countries on 17 June 2002. But the Chinese side declined to exchange these maps that would have formalised their claims and perception about the LAC. China hadn’t, for example, made claims over Gogra, or the fingers overlooking the Pangong lake.
Over the next 18 years, China has been attempting to nibble away territories that it claimed as its own, and the ones that it traditionally hadn’t. Like parts of Galwan valley that China has discovered can be strategically useful after India scaled up its border infrastructure and brought the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie close to the LAC.
Indian officials concede that there had been this lurking suspicion about China for years. But there was a belief within Indian diplomatic and military community that with close interaction over the years, the mindset of Han Chinese would change. “This has been a singular big mistake,” a senior official said.
But the Indian government isn’t the only one to have gone wrong with its assessment of China.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has conceded that consecutive US administrations had gone horribly wrong with their policy that deepening ties with China could help democratize the country and the Trump administration was fixing this policy approach.
US Attorney General William Barr expanded on the administration’s approach last week, warning US business and academia that China means to co-opt, destroy and eventually replace them altogether.
The Trump administration has increasingly been focused on China bullying countries in the region, right from India and Japan to the smaller Southeast Asian countries.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea and the islands and reefs that dot it. As the world struggled with the virus that originated in its Wuhan, Beijing announced 2 districts to administer islands and reefs of Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands to strengthen its claim to sovereignty over the area.
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