Having a proper communications policy and a proper communication environment encourage transparency and good governance.Senator Sandrea Falconer, Information Minister of Jamaica
This is what Falconer said on launching the country’s first ever communication policy, on 10 December 2015.
The importance of government communication in the governance agenda is now a settled question. Effective communication supports government’s priorities and helps deliver its programmes to the people. It keeps the government and the people connected to each other — an imperative of responsible and responsive governance. It serves to engage citizens as active contributors in governance and nation building. It is thus an essential empowering tool in inclusive development.
In recent times, there has been a palpable rise in both the demand for and the supply of government communication. This enhanced urge on the part of both state and civil society to communicate with each other bodes well, particularly in strengthening democracy. Their wider and deeper involvement in the communication process will foster mutual trust and understanding, the very values on which the system of indirect democracy is founded.
Need of the Hour
The role of communication in the governance process will only become more, not less, crucial in the times to come. All governments in the future would communicate more and more with people, and that too directly. Citizens’ demand for such communication will also continue to rise manifold, fuelled by the increasing connectedness of the digital age and the increasing value of information in improving our lives.
Effective government communication is thus no longer a nice-to-have feature, but an imperative as well as driver of good governance. Excellence in this priority area is not only a sacred responsibility of a democratic state, but also an inalienable right of modern citizens. As such, it is central and fundamental to a democracy such as India.
This changing communication dynamic begs the following questions (at least). How effective is our government communication? What constitutes effective government communication? And what mechanisms does India have in place to ensure the effectiveness of its government communication? We realise that communication is – and always has to be – a work in progress. That notwithstanding, it is striking that the world’s largest democracy and country with the longest written Constitution in the world does not have a national communications policy. Let us hence deliberate the utility of such a policy for communication between the government and its citizens.
Principled Guidance
It may be recalled that public policy is the principled guide to action for the administrative and executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. A communications policy would thus provide principled guidance for all departments and functionaries of the government regarding all aspects of government communication they perform, in a manner consistent with national and international law and customs.
Does the Indian executive machinery need such principled guidance? We need to appreciate that though communication is something that all of us do all the time, effective mass and interpersonal communication that can address the myriad social and developmental issues of our billion-plus population is an art and science that demands skill, training, creativity and wisdom.
This is important since even officials who are not communication professionals (district collectors, for instance) are called upon to communicate with the public during the discharge of their duties. Besides, even communication experts are often called upon to navigate totally novel situations — like natural disasters — where their previous experience may not suffice. In such circumstances, a clear and wise guidance in the form of a policy could be of immense help.
A clear policy would also lessen the scope and the need for the exercise of executive discretion in communication decisions, leading to a more efficient, effective and equitable governance outcomes.
Coherence in Communication
A well-articulated national policy would lead to much more coherence in the communication of different government departments which today have either their own communications policy or no policy at all. Departments that need a tailored communications policy shall be guided by the umbrella policy in formulating the same. Further, a comprehensive national policy would be able to plug the gaps in department-level policies.
Besides thus equipping each department to communicate in an internally consistent manner, a national policy may also mandate the development and implementation of an annual national communications plan. This would encourage and institutionalise a purposive, strategic and coordinated communication approach by the government, in pursuit of national development goals.
A communications policy can thus lead to a seamless handshake between service delivery and communication, yielding potentially huge dividends. An integrated approach to development and communication can improve by leaps and bounds the effectiveness of both development and communication programmes.
New Roles
A communications policy may prescribe new communication roles for the government or put renewed emphasis on current ones. For instance, public opinion research and feedback mechanisms, communication evaluation, social media and internal communication within government departments are potential areas that could benefit from policy inputs.
Having examined some of the reasons that call for the framing of a national communications policy for India, we now reflect on the broad normative contours of such a policy. For this purpose, inspiration has been drawn from the national communications policies of Canada and Norway.
Mapping the Policy
The policy would
be defined by its goals. The goals should be citizen-centric and should contribute
to overall national developmental goals. For example, responsiveness to the
diverse information needs of the public could be one goal. Just a discourse on what
these broad goals should be, would lend a lot of clarity and direction to government
communicators with regard to the communication responsibilities of the state.
The policy
should lay down the principles that inform good government communication. For
example, the Norwegian communication policy states that in its communication
with citizens, the government shall adopt a participatory approach, taking
advice from affected citizens and involving them in the formulation of policies
and services. The principles should be elaborated in sufficient detail to
provide guidance in specific areas.
The policy
should provide guidance for action in various specific communication situations. For example, the Canadian policy talks about risk communication,
stating that institutions must respond to public perceptions and provide
factual information to address misconceptions or misunderstandings about risk.
The policy should also spell out the roles and tasks expected of each government official for which he/she may be held accountable. Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms should also be clearly delineated. Evaluations will be conducted to assess the effectiveness of institutions in meeting the policy requirements and to assess the effectiveness of the communications policy in helping the government to meet its objectives.
Driven by Policy
The need of the hour is thus to make government communication in India policy-driven. A national communications policy, along with requisite changes to the legislative and administrative framework for its effective implementation, would transform government communication.
Done well, this would be a big game-changer for the nation, since it can have a salutary ripple effect on the formulation and implementation of all government policies and programmes. It would enable the government to meet its goals more effectively, thus bringing the fruits of democracy and development to many more citizens.
(The writer is Assistant Director (Media & Communication), PIB, and can be reached at @DheepJoy. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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