IF you wish to see fatuous self-importance on display, watch our foreign officemandarins (with a few honourable exceptions) on a prime ministerial visit abroad.Arrogance is matched by incompetence, certitude by indecision, knowledge by banalities.
By a series of gaffes, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) managed to alienatealmost the entire press corps travelling with the prime minister. However, even moreserious were the professional lapses they committed. Left to themselves, they would haveensured the PM got little or no coverage for a visit which the Americans at least weredescribing as a "watershed".
With the exception of our permanent representative in the UN, Kamlesh Sharma, no one inour foreign office has the vaguest notion on how to brief the media. Leave giving spin toa story, these gentlemen see their primary task as ensuring that no story appears. In thistask the juniors encourage the seniors. After a particularly pathetic briefing, thespokesman praised the performance of his boss!
In Rome we were briefed by a senior secretary. After having informed usthat Mr and Mrs Gujral met His Holiness the Pope in the Vatican, he moved on. When someoneasked what transpired during the Gujral-Pope encounter, the secretary said he was notpresent at the meeting, therefore he did not know. "If he does not know, why is hewasting our time?" retorted one editor.
As a result, a meeting of great media interest, which took place wellin time to catch local deadlines, received virtually no play in the press. Inder KumarGujral was the loser.
In New York we were briefed on the prime ministers speech to the generalassembly. The person doing the briefing took a copy of the speech and read it top tobottom. No emphasis, no interpretation, no background, no hint of what aspect of thespeech from the Indian point of view was critical.
Then, of course, there was the Gujral-Clinton encounter. Had the Indian media team notgone to a briefing by a senior American official, we would not have any idea of the gainsIndia had scored. The American official came well prepared. He was both candid andexpansive. He conveyed the tone and tenor of the talks and even mentioned body language.He provided context and interpretation.바카라 웹사이트
Soon afterwards, we were briefed by our own official. It was as if ourguys were talking about an entirely different meeting. The same was true of the NawazSharif-Gujral encounter. "Routine", "Nothing special", "Cordialand constructive" were the meaningless words thrown at us.
Indian foreign office officials, besides having a deep-seated animusagainst editors, believe all journalists are irresponsible and perverse. The less you tellthem the better.
Questions are fobbed off with evasions. This minimalist approachfrequently leads to suppressing the truth.
I detect another attitude. The MEA feels that Indian foreign policy issafe only in their hands. Journalists will only muck things up and interfere in theirgrand, self-imposed mission. While the Americans were eager to share information with themedia, our officials were paranoid.
All this, when we have the most media-savvy prime minister India hasknown, one who loves talking to the press and reads too many newspapers, too minutely. MrGujral should organise a crash course on media relations for the MEA. My professor forthis tutoring would be former foreign secretary J.N. Dixit.
