By Vishwamithra –

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” ~ Noam Chomsky

Limiting oneself to a political platform and appearance, every now and then, in the House of Parliament does not promise to be a strategy that any government, new or well-entrenched, could adopt for the long run. In the interest of the dissemination of policies and broad principles of any current situation, it always demands instant communication; it could be through the mainstream media or the social media. Whichever way one decides, what should be the central focus of the effort ought to be the desire and intention on the part of the government or its main executive branch, the Presidential Secretariat, to allow the public to know what the government is engaged in, in the service of its subject people.

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The twentieth century has provided us with the fastest means of communication, providing for instant fact-checking, immediate response, either contra or pro, and facilitating the quickest way of arriving at decisions regarding the subject that the particular news item or the story it tells. With such sophisticated tools at hand, an enlightened political organization like the National People’s Power (NPP), should find no excuse or reason for lackadaisical approach to information dissemination. Depending totally upon addresses to the people on highly organized political or other public events is a clumsy and outdated means of political communication.

When the public comes home at the end of the day, they are hardly interested in digesting political information; the breadwinner is tired and is looking forward to spending the rest of the hours before bed with his children and spouse so that the slumber that is calling is too alluring for him to engage in exchange of communication meted out by either the government or the social media outlets. A well-oiled communication system would ideally be seeking to attract the tired and weary customer to engage him or her in a more relaxing psychological cocoon. The advertising masters are excellent at such methods of enticing them to a more comfortable setting by sitcoms on the television; the government has lost that customer forever.

I am sure the communication experts in the NPP do know about this daily dynamics of urban and rural life. Then why is the NPP not making a more conscious effort to communicate with the would-be voter in a more customer-friendly means. It’s either sheer ignorance of the whole exercise of political dialog or not wanting to do so because they stipulate that it is not ‘necessary’ in the context of the prevailing conditions. But the government and its leaders must realize that ‘there is nothing called bad publicity’. Taken in an all-encompassing circumstance, all publicity is good publicity, provided the substance that is being transmitted captures the imagination of the listener or the observer.

That, in fact, is regarding what could be channeled through the mainstream and unconventional media. Building a more polished and refined ‘information-dissemination platform’ is not an effortless task. It needs extraordinary talent and dedication; such individuals are plentiful in the private sector. Those who are thoroughly conversant in the craft yet apolitical in outlook and public conduct are the ideal men and women who should be hired for a sensitive operation such as public information dissemination.

Will the NPP be interested in launching a savvy organization like what was described above? During an election campaign, the NPP had at its hand a very talented and gifted group of men and women who were engaged as rapidly-deployable volunteers. That operation is over now. They are in power and a real and sincere and dedicated effort to sustain the same campaign-style publicity campaign is essential for the sustenance of their very regime.

On the other hand, the NPP and the government have the added advantage of being opposed by a set of men and women politicians who are totally bereft of talent and devotion to the tasks and ideals of their respective leaders. The weakness of the opposition is no excuse or a legitimate reason for their being equally or even more fragile in the exercise of political messaging.

In the same strain, one must always remember as to what the preceding governments did under similar conditions and whether they succeeded in retaining their voting bloc after being voted into power by massive majorities. SWRD Bandaranaike is our first example. SWRD came to power by promising on a Sinhala in twenty five hours and a place in the sun for the common man. In fairness to him, the MEP coalition government did deliver on their promises. But the Sinhala in twenty hour policy caused friction and planted the poisonous seeds of narrow Sinhalese chauvinism and resulted in a thirty year war and the long-term destruction of all mutually friendly relationships between the two major ethnic groups of our community, Sinhalese and Tamils.

Bandaranaike himself did not last more than three short years. Yes, he was assassinated by Somarama, a fellow-traveler of his own Party, but considering the degree of unpopularity of his handling of the state affairs of the time, Bandaranaike would have suffered a humiliating defeat at the next parliamentary elections which were due in 1960. His widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, largely contributed to the worsening of the long term coexistence between Tamils and Sinhalese. Her extremely shortsighted and politically polarizing University admission and language policies kept  Tamils at bay and in the fullness of time, an extraordinarily caste-conscious Northern Tamils opted to be led by a Valvettithurai-born Velupillai Prabhakaran who led his own people and Southern Sinhalese to death and immeasurable property damage, keeping the two communities wider apart than ever before.

Bandaranaike had a very powerful slogan: Sinhala only and a place in the sun for the common man. All his polices and governing principles were given massive publicity through the mainstream media outlets. At the time the tools for news dissemination were limited to daily and weekly news papers and broadcasting by Radio Ceylon. At that time, the people did not ask to buy a newspaper; they asked for either the Daily News or Dinamina. No social media and neither was television available. Yet the public was fairly informed and the shelf-life of a news story was much more protracted than it is now. The cohesive family structure existed totally independent of the modern-day communication tools. Every day, the family sat together to listen to the Radio Ceylon programs such as Vinoda Samaya, Muvan Pelessa or the haunting renderings of Latha Walpola and Rukmini Devi. But Bandaranaike’s strategy for publicity eventually failed.    

The other example is R Premadasa, the hero of the real common man. He met his death at the hands of a Tamil militant or an LTTE terrorist, whichever name one gives him; it was a suicide bomber, another creation of the Tamil-Sinhalese war. Premadasa’s regime too did not see its fourth year in power. And his party, headed by DB Wijetunga, was defeated by Chandrika Kumaratunga Bandaranaike (CBK). Where did Premadasa’s massive publicity campaign lead him? Premadasa was present in all media outlets. Be it radio, television or newspapers, one could not avoid being bombarded by the Premadasa media crusade. There again, R Premadasa’s strategy crashed.

It is in this historical context that we need to examine and scrutinize the media policies and strategies Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his NPP-led government have carried through to date. Unlike the times of Bandaranaike and Premadasa, AKD’s time is wholly different. Dissemination of information has become instant. The radical transformation in dispersion and circulation of information, stories and news items has accelerated the process to such an insane extent, the average shelf-life of any story, whether slanderous of benign, hardly exceeds one single hour or at most, a day.

Not that, during the last few decades had too few stories; there were too few tools available to cover the stories that would have captivated the attention of the viewer or the listener. On the other hand, the social media has revolutionized the whole scope and spectrum of information and its dissemination. In such demanding circumstances, could AKD and his government adopt a blueprint that followed a plan of action that is different from those of Bandaranaike and Premadasa?

Both Bandaranaike and Premadasa were precise in the expression of their respective policies and principles. On the contrary, AKD’s approach seems to be, not vague or lacking of details, but in a large aspect, imprecise. That alone speaks volumes of AKD’s understanding of the media tools and the life of a given story. By being imprecise and yet forceful, AKD not only gains time and space for a better and more remunerative explanation of a given story or lack thereof, he manages to deflect the attention of the ultimate customer, the public.

But AKD and the NPP must avoid one single strand of the fabric of publicity; he must devolve and delegate the the whole exercise. In parliament, of course, Bimal Ratnayake is doing a remarkable job of defending the NPP policies, he is forceful and ideologically sound. Bimal may well be a veritable successor to AKD as the leader of the NPP; but the NPP has to adopt a blueprint that is more people-friendly platform. Parliament and public platforms would not do a performance of a well-oiled and craftily managed media campaign that could sustain itself without the incursions of the party’s men and women. If the current policy of media campaign continues, the eventual results could be either mediocre or brilliant. It can;t be either or. It must the reach the degree of brilliant.

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com