“India Shining,” the two words that haunt the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are trending on twitter. That’s nine years after the campaign rolled out!
The “credit” for furious trolling (and some wows!) goes to Manish Tewari, the minister of state for information and broadcasting. Tewari’s caught a real political hot potato, hoping to convince us, the tax payer, that the Rs180-crore (some think it will add up to more) that will be spent, involving 18-odd clips made for TV, radio, online and print communication, aren’t about the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but the “actual story of India.”
It would be naïve to argue that a Government of the day wouldn’t throw the advertising gauntlet the best way it can. The NDA tried. So did Narendra Modi with Amitabh Bachchan in Gujarat. Tewari is doing the same. So, let’s not take moralistic positions here.
The bigger question therefore is beyond UPA vs NDA, or even India vs Bharat.
It is about the need to reconvince the world about the “India Story.”
For that how about convincing ourselves firstIJ Each time I talk to anyone in India Inc., I hear a loud sigh that everything is going phutt. “This isn’t happening…that isn’t working out,” people carp. But when I check out the car this person now owns, the one driving a scooter of 1999 has made way for four wheels. Even the PA rides a Maruti 800.
Similarly, doesn’t every other family we know seem to have children studying in the US or the UKIJ Aren’t hygienically packed chips available at arms length in the farthest corners of BharatIJ
Is it this tendency to moan and groan, and deny whatever we have done in 14 years, that is putting off the worldIJ I add 5 years of NDA plus 9 of the UPA as you can see, and please hear me out before dismissing cars, Ivy league degrees and lays chips as elitist! The truth is that amidst global slow down, India, at least parts of it, have progressed in all of 14 years.
It is equally true that millions haven’t; in fact, their gap with the prosperous has actually widened. Those who prefer to see the empty side of the cup rightly back Amartya Sen, demanding to know whatever happened to equity. But surely, as rival economists would put it, on the other hand, growth has indeed taken place. As Jagdish Bhagwati famously countered Sen, this growth alone is the sine qua non for equity and social justice.
Therein lies the power of Tewari’s campaign unveiled Monday. He does not paint the entire mass of 1.2 billion with the same brush.
Grudge it to the wisdom of hindsight, few should fault writer, Javed Akhtar, for the tag line: “Meelon hum aa gaye, meelon humein jaana hai.”
This isn’t the place to critique Akhtar for filching American poet Robert Frost’s lines, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have promises to keep; and miles to go before I sleep, etc.” Yes, there’s a Congressi angle to the thought (read Jawaharlal Nehru’s reported fascination for Frost’s lines). But how about seeing, “Meelon hum aa gaye, meelon humein jaana hai,” as a poet’s way of energizing a moribund national spirit; the team of Sunidhi Chauhan, Shaan and Pradeep Sarkar mixing some idiom.
It is important, therefore, if some of these videos, jingles and prints, are shared and viralled to the global community nervous about the India story.
For what it’s worth, I might do so to, say, Pierre Fattouch, owner of Karabakh Telecom. In a chat at Addis Ababa airport last month, the lebanese billionnaire had only horror stories about India. As I dived deeper, my nationalism goading me, Fattouch had had just one bad experience with one Indian affiliate serving Airtel many summers ago. Yet he vowed, “never, ever to do business in India!” Now, here was a man willing to put his dollar on the rudimentary regulatory environment in neighbouring South Sudan, illiterate and indifferent about UPA vs NDA, but unwilling to see any strides that India has made.
So, more power to Javed Akhtar’s message of optimism. In fact, if there’s an international version. let’s fire whatever must be told about the “India Story.”
Tail Piece: I share the last posting on Akhtar’s twitter time line: “Zanjeer was realised on 11th May 1973. Today is its 40th anniversary . Waqt kaisay guzar jata hai.” Touche!
(The columnist is CEO & Co-Founder, India Strategy Group, Hamuurabi & Solomon Consulting. Tweets @therohitbansal).