Communication Needs Imagination

Sri P.V. Narasimha Rao
(A speech delivered by the  former Prime Minister of India)

I WANTED TO know how effectively the units are functioning; how much is the intimate connection between the field officers, those who are incharge of disserminating information and the people at large. So, I thought your interaction amongst yourselves will bring out certain things which may be useful to us also. The Government profits in the sense that if there is a feedback, this feedback can become useful as an input in the policy as well as in it implement action. 

It is not easy to explain a policy. It is even more difficult to explain the changes in a policy when the changes are complex. The person who is supposed to explain has to educate himself first. I am not sure whether this has been done in the case of change of policy that has taken place about six or seven months ago. If that has not been done, that needs to be done. Having done that, the rest is left to you to translate one language into another, not from English to Hindi, but from the language of the Government to the language of the people. Are you able to communicate with the people in the idiom which they understand and use? That is what you have to ask yourself. If you are able to do that, you are effective. Otherwise, you are just a human parrot. 

Feedback is important because if they say this is not right, this doesn't appear to be right or if they say in this area this is not working for the following reason, that feedback can come only from you. It may come through other media also. But the point is that you are the link between the Governement and the people and if that is so then the feedback has to come through you and by you. You will have to be absolutely honest in telling us what the people are saying. So, it is a kind of two-way traffic which needs to be established. If you have been able to do that, your usefulness is established. 

The policy which has been adumbrated is complex because the earlier policy was also not clear to many people; it came to us as a tradition, as a heritage; we inherited from Panditji, Indiraji, Rajivji and other leaders. But at every point, there was a change. It was not a carbon copy of one another. But the changes came in a natural way and people could understand. Today what has to be understood is that there is no reversal of the policy, there is a reorientation of the policy. It is very dificult to understand unless one explains these things. 

I find that most of the programmes, most of the material here in front of me is a reproduction. Yes, it should be a reproduction but should it stop with reproduction ? Now, who is annotating it? Who is explaining it? Who is giving the kind of commentary that is needed, because every law needs a commentator. In our Dharmashstras the commentators were better known than the law givers themselves and the commentators did such a fine job that they took the law to every home, they explained how a particular Sutra applies to a particular situation. So these Prabandhkaras, the commentators, were the real mainstay of the legal system, of the moral system, of the cultural heritage in India. But in explaining something, it is not just the reproduction of the policy that will help, but the explanation of the policy, the comment on the policy in order to make it understood by the common man, in the language of the common man, in the idiom of the common man, and in the figures that the common man can understand. 

If you are talking to a farmer,if you have to give an example, you can't give an example which the farmer cannot understand. You will have to find figures of speech, words, idioms and also what you call the drishtantas of the farmer. If you are talking to someone else, you will have to think of what language he understands. 

Communication is essentially a very difficult job, a job which needs great imagination. Can you do it in the case of a Public Distribution System? There are lot of people in the villages in India - go to Rajasthan, go to Andhra Pradesh, go to Tamil nadu; anywhere, you will find people who are instataneous poets. Their poetry may not be exactly according to Panini or any other master, but he can immediately relate with the people. We have got the Bhats, and so many people, who have been for ages, for centuries, contacting the people, relating with the people, communicating; they are great communicators; they may not be scholars. Can we take a leaf out of these people? In every language we have these forms, different forms. There is a Burrakatha, there is Nautanki, there is a Tamasha and so on. Now, can we really make use of them? 

So, I wanted to know whom you evaluate your Division, your units. It is not my evaluation, it is your own. It is the kind of self-assessment which you will have to do. Throughout your careers you will have to do it; only then you will be able to communicate properly. 

There is no text book by which you can become a communicator. Some principles will be there. There is no text book to tell a person how he can become a great poet. There is no text book for poety. Yes, some rules, but how can one poet relate with the people and create a revolution with ten songs? And this is what happened during our freedom struggle. We give very great credit to our leaders of those days. Yes, they did a great job, but there are people who did a greater job and they are not very well known. I remember in some languages just half a dozen songs created a revolution during the freedom struggle. Leaders gave the leadership but the communicator was somebody different. 

In this multi-lingual country, it is not easy even for a speech to be properly conveyed. If somebody comes and talks in English, in the translation itself 70 per cent of the effect will go. Therefore, you have to have an original communicator. He understands and commnicates originally with the people in his own language, in his own way and his genius is what really counts. An interpreter is in fact much more important. I used to interpret for Panditji. Invariably he used to come after the meeting and thank me. Very peculiar thing ! Such a great man ! I was a nobody in those times, just a MLA or not even that. But only when people heard me, they started clapping; when they heard Panditji they didn't undertstand. So, he could see that only after it was communicated, the effect came. 

It is necessary to communicate with the people today, more necessary than ever before because there are certain changes which are rather sharp. They are not routine changes, and therefore they need to be explained properly, understood properly first, and then explained properly to the people. Therefore, this is the time when I wanted to meet all of you. I wanted you to meet amongst yourselves because we are at that stage where certain sharp cahnges in the implementational aspects, and other aspects have come about, have had to come about, and, therefore, the 'why' and the 'where' and 'how' of all these changes need to be explained very clearly. 

So many things need to be explained and I don't think the electronic media alone will be able to do that. That's why I want the human agency, if it is good. Now that is the big'if'. You please prove your usefulness, let the people understand your usefulness. Equip yourselves. You have to be a student, you have to be a learner. I always consider myself a learner - always, aajeevan. And this has to be the motto of a person who is a communicator. The motto of a communicator is that he is a perpetual learner. If he is not a learner, he cannot communicate. 

I know everyone cannot make a very big success of it. But at least a reasonable succes you will have to achieve because so much depends on what you do. I realise how difficult it has been for us to communicate with the people and how much more necessary. It is for the communicators under us to be doing their job well.