The reportage on India’s foreign policy engagement is now limited to coverage of events and that too from the Government’s rosy perspective only. Event Management is what the Ministry of External Affairs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government specializes in. Our foreign policy has been reduced to tailor-made events across cities in foreign locales with the Prime Minister performing in front of NRIs. Unfortunately the reportage has more or less been limited to this as well.
Last week we saw an event happen in New Delhi where the India Africa Forum Summit took place. Coverage of the event was breathless and limited at the same time. Limited in what was reported. We have seen puff pieces after puff pieces being produced with the MEA beat reporters going to great lengths to ignore what actually happened at the summit. Take a look at this report in today’s Indian Express for example which offers the minutest of the details on how the summit was being micromanaged by the Ministry of External Affairs. After reading the piece I was left pondering whether the MEA is a private limited company into event management business. I had this thought, because only event management companies are promoted with such ‘advertisements’ of minutest detail despite poorly managing the events with no information on ‘customer’ (the delegates of the visiting countries) satisfaction.
Because our papers and our TV channels won’t tell you, so here is what actually happened:
The Africa summit at Indira Gandhi was to conclude at 5.30 PM, but so badly managed was the event that the speeches were unreasonably extended beyond schedule. So much so, that the guests left for the Presidential dinner at Rashtrapati Bhawan hours later than the scheduled arrival time of 7 PM. The presence of the guests at dinner had shrunk noticeably since most of the Indian guests had already left by the time the delegates arrived with the delay thrusted upon them due to the mismanagement. 18 Heads of State too left early as they were not too keen to wait for a few more hours. The repercussions on India’s image & relations can be understandable.
The dinner when proceeded then had a few Foreign Ministers (of what were left) skip it, since the seating arrangements were not appropriate. The extended wait was a bad news for the Presidential horses too as some of them collapsed and the planned ceremonial reception had to therefore be cancelled.
That African leaders were not at all pleased by Prime Minister Narendra Modi using the summit to indulge into domestic politics as all of them were left shocked to find no mention of former Prime Ministers Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi in his speeches. Then many of the African leaders spoke highly about the Indian stalwarts and their contribution in building up Indo-Africa relationship.
The Ministry of External Affairs is responsible for the conduct of India’s relations with foreign countries. If the Government wants people to believe that nurturing relations is all about event management then unfortunately there too the Government has failed. The Government does not seem willing to learn from PR disasters. It does not realize that even if a fawning media does not report your inept handling of events or situations, the results will still show. Take the example of how the situation in Nepal has been handled. The papers and TV channels are not reporting about this disaster thanks to the MEA’s diktats.
A few months ago when Nepal faced an earthquake, the Indian Govt’s PR ruined whatever chance there was of earning some goodwill. Through its crass self-promotion India earned the ire of the Nepalese people. It got so bad that the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams were asked to leave by Nepalese authorities.
Just wish this disaster of a foreign policy had more critical and fair coverage.
Alter Ego 