A report of the committee on defence coverage, Press Council of India published in Oct 1994, focused among several other recommendations, the importance of people's support for the national cause; acknowledged the role of media in creating an interface between the armed forces and the society and established the need for strengthening the public information mechanism of union government, state governments and in the armed forces. It also demanded a complete revamp of information and publicity in terrorism affected areas.To be more specific in the context of Indian Armed Forces, the media believes that our Services lack the accessibility and responsiveness towards information dissemination. It is not technology savvy and does not understand the timings of information and also the implications for delay in the same. It feels that the service's claim of confidentiality is highly exaggerated and is more focused on avoiding embarrassments due to public scrutiny of its acts. It also feels that the armed forces are too, engrossed in their own shell and are not ready for any kind of debate which is the soul of any democratic machinery.
The forces must understand the seriousness of these concerns rather than avoiding it, as a, not so important issue. It is in fact, a very serious one. A military organisation which lack the basic connect with society can not claim to be the representative of her aspirations. This is an era of information warfare, where modern military organisations run their own publications, websites, TV channels and even the FM Stations. Indian case is a matter of great concern even after 15 years of this report.
Clearly, our Services needs to work on war footing, if at all they expect people to value their sacrifices. They really need to revamp their entire PR machinery which hardly arouse any public attention; and create a common inter-services PR Agency employing only professionals from the field. A concept of Indian Citizens' Army should be put into action for this purpose and professionals should be granted Territorial Army commission on part - time basis. This PR body should be capable of writing and dissemination of all kinds of information through various modes.
(Photo: Major Pratul Thaplial, Indian Territorial Army)
i could not agree more; the armed forces somehow believe that the current society is a negative prototype of the ideal society we will possibly inherit someday; nothing can be farther from the truth. what u mentioned about the media is one such facet. the armed forces, incidentally, have just one interface with the civil society - the media; we seem to seldom get it right there.
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