Good public posture

Good public posture
Shailaja Bajpai

It didn't require a man of I.K.Gujral's seniority and experience, to tell us television has generously and (almost) gratuitously lent the Taliban a respectability it didn't previously possess. If the former Prime Minister's observation was a critical one, it is unfair criticism. What else could the electronic media have done when the hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft stood grounded in Kandahar for a week, with only the Taliban for company?

That Mr.Gujral spoke truly, however, is irrefutable: whether it was the ATC operator at Kandahar, the spokesman in New York or the militia men -- chins perched upon their rifles at the airport, the Taliban looked good, man, real good.

In their flowing costumes and beards, their turban headgear, they cut daredevil-may-care figures, the kind you read about in historical romances, the sort who belong on the sets of the film, Lawrence of Arabia, the type Ally McBeal would hang her tongue out for men to slide up and down (well...). Mmmmnnn. If this sounds almost carnal, itcould be because compared to the Indian politicians on view, these guys were slurp, slurp.'Twas not merely their physique. They spoke. English. Fluently. Eloquently.

Came as an electric chair shock: bhagvan ke liye, They are not supposed to be acquainted with the Queen's tongue; they were meant to be backward, uncivilised, ultra-conservative fundamentalists stuck in prehistoric times while the rest of us have (reportedly) reached the `end of history'.

Notwithstanding such handicaps, their spoken English was superior to our ministers: Civil Aviation's Sharad Yadav and Chaman Lal Gupta found angrezi mein kahte hain tough going. They strung words together as perhaps the blind do beads by feeling around for them. Which is super alright in multi-ling India, where you may barely (not) speak Hindi or English and still become Prime Minister (sorry Deve Gowda-ji), but is kinda unhelpful and uncommunicative when you're on international television or radio.

And then there was the moment: Taliban Foreign Ministerseen standing next to India's Foreign Minister at the hostage handing over ceremony on December 31. That tele-photo opportunity, flashed across the world, was better for the Taliban than being accorded the diplomatic recognition it has been denied. This may have been only `the first page of history' (as people are wont to call TV coverage), but it was historical. On television, the Taliban were credible, convincing, HUMAN.

Good public posture is as crucial as the physiological one. The Taliban, instinctively, seemed to appreciate this. So had BJP, the first party which understood that a sagging public image was chronic bad for its body politic. For two years, BJP has made tremendous efforts to bolster its public standing by becoming more media-literate and telly-friendly. Conjure up Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitely, Jaswant Singh, L.K. Advani, Pramod Mahahan and the Prime Minister himself: weren't they oodles more tele-communicative and telegenic than their Congress counterparts?

Sad to say, they've slumped.During the hijack crisis and its aftermath, their shoulders have drooped. We witnessed a tired, distant Prime Minister during his meetings with hostages' relatives and his television speech on New Year's Eve; a stony Foreign Minister throughout, a slightly hysterical Home Minister now pointing a finger at Pakistan, a Parliamentary Affairs Minister stumbling through explanations and a Minister of I&B who routinely doubled as the party/government spokesman, frequently missing to say nothing of a minister of state for civil aviation who couldn't contain his mirth while boasting to everyone watching Question Time India (BBC World) that Indian Airlines had been hijacked many times (25, think he said).

Maybe it's as Advani said: the hijack has cost BJP more dearly than the country. They're not robust, combative or sharp as they were. They seem to be floundering. As though they are wandering in the plains of Kandahar, lost. In reality they may have everything nicely under control, know precisely what they'redoing. But they don't look like they do.

A perfect opportunity for the Congress, you would have thought to improve its public posture. Instead, you have Mr.K.Natwar Singh, unforgettably, repeating every sentence of a pre-prepared written statement on the Opposition's point view during the crisis. Like he was giving dictation to his P.A. Terrible television. Then there's Ajit Jogi, neat in his bhandh gala coats but rather tongued-tied; Scindia is cool and urbane but insubstantial, Pranab Mukherjee is missing... Not a good showing.

As for Sonia Gandhi, she's either camera-coy or her media managers (if she has any), should return to kindergarten. If it's about appearances then hers is rather prettier than the men's. And she's had her opportunities, opportunities which require her to be `seen' in action not heard. One example should suffice. After the Orissa cyclone, Sonia made fleeting visits to the state. She should have stayed, set up camp in Bhubaneswar, not throughout but at the beginning and then nowand again; shown the entire world that she, as Congress President, spearheaded the Congress state government's relief efforts. Can you not imagine the photo opportunities, the television footage? Sonia, hugging bereft survivors, Sonia distributing food, Sonia holding a destitute baby, Sonia surveying the damage.

Had Priyanka accompanied her.. wow! Sonia would have been seen as a politician who acts because words fail her, a politician who doesn't mind wading into the deep end.Good public posture. Partly the name of the game.