HVK Archives: Atal has a PR problem
Atal has a PR problem - India Today
Tavleen Singh
()
December 14, 1998
Title: Atal has a PR problem
Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: India Today
Date: December 14, 1998
In politics, reality is not half as important as the public
perception of it. This is even more true of countries like India
where the average voter is either Illiterate or semi-literate and
thereby less likely to go looking for realities. The BJP appears
to have lost Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to the Congress
because of a series of perceptions. When shock subsides and
introspection begins we can only hope for the prime minister's
sake that someone in his inner circle discovers the elections
were lost because of perceptions-and attempts to rectify things.
Otherwise Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Government will rind it hard to
survive.
Let's look at some perceptions and their reality. In actuality,
despite the price of onions, the Vajpayee Government has not done
badly on the economic front. It even got a certificate from
Claude Smadja, the World Economic Forum's managing director. At
the India summit this past week, Smadja said, "On the positive
side, it is quite true that despite all the converging signs of a
continued economic slowdown and despite all the anxiety of
corporate India, the country seems set to register a growth rate
of between 5 and 5. 5 per cent for the fiscal year ending next
March.
"This is significantly below the 6.5 to 7 per cent target that
the Government had set, but it looks considerably brighter than
almost all emerging or developed economics in the present global
context. In fact, India's performance this year puts it in the
top world league."
The BJP is infested with swadeshi economists who believe, as
Nehruvian socialists do, that the economy is best handled by
bureaucrats and ideologues rather than businessmen. Vajpayee has
ignored them and gone ahead with formulating laws that will make
private investment easier in insurance, telecom, power, roads.
Even better is his Government's declared intention to privatise
the public sector.
This is not a bad record for eight months. But it means nothing
because the price of onions created the overwhelming perception
that Vajpayee's Government could not manage the economy. Onions
have became the symbol of economic incompetence.
Let's look at another perception. Muslims voted overwhelmingly
for the Congress this time because of the perception that the BJP
is communal and fascist. Few people have noticed that there have
been no communal riots in India since Vajpayee became prime
minister. Remember the Congress' record of one major communal
riot every few months? Meerut, Maliana, Bhagalpur, Moradabad,
Mumbai.
Riot after riot after riot. Nobody punished. No action taken
against policemen and officials guilty of criminal administrative
failure. So the absence of communal violence should have gone in
Vajpayee favour. It did not-again because perceptions have been
more important than reality.
Perceptions so powerful that Muslim preachers got away with a
fatwa that orders Muslim children out of schools in Uttar Pradesh
on the grounds that compulsory singing of Vande Mataram is
against the tenets of Islam. Nobody bothered to rind out whether
the state Government had in fact made Vande Mataram compulsory.
It had not. But the perception persists. As does the perception
that Saraswati Vandana at the start of the state education
ministers' conference was another insidious attempt to offend
Muslim sensibilities.
Christians share the perception that Vajpayee's Government is
very communal. This perception is based mainly on the horrific
rape of four nuns at a convent in Jhabua. Madhya Pradesh had a
"secular" Congress government at the time and some reports
indicate that one of the criminals was a member of the Congress.
But the incident was blamed on the BJP Government in Delhi
because a former BJP MP announced proudly that such incidents
were indicative of people's anger against attempts to convert
Hindus to Christianity. It was an offensive, ugly statement which
should have been disowned by the prime minister and the home
minister. But nobody did this strongly enough.
When it comes to communalism, Vajpayee's Government is
particularly vulnerable because ofthe many slimy, venomous
creatures that hide in the Sangh Parivar's underbelly. These
creatures should have been put down or silenced when the BJP came
to power. But since nothing like this was attempted, the Congress
manages to portray itself as secular-despite patronising the
likes of H.K.L. Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar, despite its policies in
Punjab and Kashmir.
If Vajpayee is currently wallowing in the gloomy introspection
that electoral defeats usually bring, he needs to ask himself why
he has failed in projecting his Government's achievements. One
reason is his puzzling inability to rid himself of bureaucrats
who have spent years in loyal service to "secular" forces. Most
of them are as much victims of the general perception of the BJP
(as communal and incompetent). Yet they remain in high office and
in some cases are directly responsible for projecting the
Government's achievements.
Ironically, just the fact that they remain where they are
confirms the most dangerous perception of all: that Atal Bihari
Vajpayee is a decent, honourable man but not a leader. If the
reality is different then it is time that the prime minister made
a serious effort to show us that it is. Otherwise perceptions
will continue to be more important than reality-and the BJP's
first chance to rule India could also be its last.
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