Media, Public, National Interest in India: Emerging Trends

The past couple of months have witnessed intense discussion of India’s foreign policy in the country’s media. From the status of India’s nuclear weapon capacity to how pacifist India was ignoring the looming Chinese threat, the media has played an activist role. This is not something entirely new; who can forget the coverage of the Kargil War, dubbed as the war in ‘our living rooms’! The media religiously follows our leaders to General Assembly sessions and other regional Summits, every visit by a Head of State or Government from any part of the world receives extensive coverage in the media. The Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal had flooded the media for months.
But the recent trend that I am referring to is somewhat different and relatively new for India. Reporting on foreign policy developments is one thing; directing public discourse on foreign policy is completely different. Ex post facto coverage of issues relating to foreign policy has been the traditional domain of the country’s media but rarely, if ever, has the Indian media attempted to prioritize national interests through reporting and newspaper columns. It is interesting to analyze how and to what extent has the Indian media assumed this new role.
Traditionally, the Government of India has involved (rather I should say informed) the public on the aspirational dimensions of the country’s foreign policy. The aspirational goals of India’s foreign policy include a regional/global power status, peace and stability in the neighborhood, economic self-reliance and strategic prowess to safeguard national interests. As for the foreign policy on the operational level i.e. actual policies and strategies, a veil of secrecy is maintained to keep distance between the public and the South Block. Rather than defining national interests in concrete terms the Government merely defends every policy decision in the language of vague aspirational goals. The rationale of this approach is simple, asserted by Walter Lippmann in Phantom Public:
“Only the insider can make decisions not because he is inherently a better man but because he is so placed that is can understand and act. The outsider is necessarily ignorant, usually irrelevant and often meddlesome, because he is trying to navigate the ship from dry land…The public must be put in its place so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.”
In India this bewildered herd, prompted by the new activism of the media, has begun to voice concerns and exert pressures on Government officials dealing with foreign policy. Earlier commentaries on policy recommendations and critical evaluations with regard to foreign policy were limited to editorial columns in leading Indian newspapers. Anyone with some degree of interest in foreign affairs must have read pieces by C. Raja Mohan, Siddhartha Varadarajan, Brahma Chellaney, G. Parthasarthy and a host of other regular contributors. But never was foreign policy discussion ‘news’ in Indian media. Events rather than policy were covered by the media.
This is changing. Speeches by the Prime Minister and statements of the MEA are no longer the only avenues communicating the salience of different national interests. The media coverage with regard to the Sino-Indian boundary dispute in the past months bears testimony to the above fact. The media painted a scary picture of the situation on the ground at the LAC. The TOI article was titled, “Is the Red Dragon snarling again?”, NDTV referred to “India’s big China Worry” and speculated on whether “China plans to dominate India?”  As a response to these media reports, the P.M., National Security Adviser, Foreign Secretary and Army Chief provided explanations to clarify the situation along the Indo-China LAC and cool public anxieties. The Government also requested the media to exercise constraint and not blow the Chinese threat out of proportion.
The media can be charged with sensationalizing the tensions for serving the 24×7 news feeds but the reports cannot be dispelled as mere rumors.  For example, the Army has confirmed to mobilizing troops along the LAC as part of Operation Alert. Moreover, if Sino-India relations are as cordial as the Government claims then why have the ‘hand-in-hand’ bilateral military exercises called off this year? Reports of Chinese incursions have even found place in international media outlets: The Christian Science Monitor runs an article in today’s edition titled “Growing number of Chinese incursions into India lead to Strategy Change”.
Even if the media reports were not wholly correct, as alleged by the Government, the episode has created public awareness about one of the primary national interests of India: territorial integrity. After three decades of discussion on the boundary dispute with China, a taken-for-granted attitude had over-powered the government of India. The border talks were approached as a routine gesture with no political will and diplomatic preparation towards arriving at a resolution. The media reports have prioritized resolution of the Sino-Indian boundary question and the Government is under pressure to perform better at the next meeting.�
Coverage of Indo-China border tensions are merely an indication of the emerging trend: the media can be expected to play a larger role in prioritizing national interests. The culture of publicly discussing dissenting views on how India should conduct foreign relations has not taken roots in the country. In comparison to Western countries, the think-tanks in India have little role in proposing policy alternatives to the Government. The new role of the media is expected to fill in this gap. India’s strategic, diplomatic and scholarly community has begun taking advantage of this new media avatar. K. Santhanam, DRDO representative at Pokhran II, recently let the gene out of the bottle when he claimed that the 1998 tests were a fizzle. Santhanam must have been fully aware of the media frenzy resulting from his comments made during a discussion at India’s leading think-tank, IDSA. Similarly Address by  Admiral Sureesh Mehta at the India Habitat Center in August this year was an attempt at dissemination of information to the public through the media. Admiral Mehta’s comments that it ‘would be foolhardy to compare India and China’ were realistic though not in complete sync with the official version.
The caveat however remains that on issues of national defense and foreign policy the media cannot be blindly trusted. The ‘news-hunt’ character of the media can project a concern as a crisis. For example, General Deepak Kapoor’s remarks on Pakistan’s fast-expanding nuclear arsenal were blown out of proportion by the media. A Times News Network (TNN) headline in the TOI said that India “(may) have to revisit nuclear no-first use policy: Army chief” but the accompanying report did not quote him as having said that. The media can play the role of a watchdog but it is susceptible to the competitive dynamics of the industry.
The precise impact of the new media role will be greater and open communication by the Government with regard to informing the public on issues of foreign policy. The Government would consider it opportune to inform the people through official statements rather than clarify media reports. Thus the fact that the media can exercise this role is in itself a check and pressure on the Government. The Government will have to pre-empt the media frenzy on issues of national concern and provide sufficient and timely information to the public. Directly or indirectly, the media will play an important role in keeping the public better informed on matter of national importance. As rightly pointed by K. Subrahmanyam “Regrettably, in our Parliament national security issues do not receive the attention they merit and therefore greater the need for informed public debate.’