The need to rethink press conferences

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Norway, last week, journalist Helle Lyng (from the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen) had asked him why he never took questions from the press. Modi had walked away without responding. He is seen here with Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre (right). PIC/PTI

I don't see the point of press conferences. I used to when I was young, but it's been so long since I attended one that I don't think we need them anymore. I suspect this is now the way most Indians think about the rest of the world, too: If something doesn't affect us directly, and our lives are unchanged by its presence or absence, we probably don't need it at all. It's a pretty good way to look at things, so I see the merit of adopting this ‘head in the sand' approach more often. It's increasingly obvious that this is already India's official government policy, too.

The thought about press conferences came to mind because of what occurred a few weeks ago in Norway, when the honourable Prime Minister was asked a question by a journalist from that country.

Someone at the Indian embassy must have failed to send the journalist a memo, so I didn't think too much about her blunder. And yet, it was undeniably strange to see someone asking an Indian politician an unscripted question, given how rare the occurrence has become in recent years. Everyone in India knows that unscripted questions are only for politicians who aren't actually in power, so the lack of tact on display in that room came as a bit of a shock. For a while, I even wondered if she would lose her job, until I remembered that she wasn't employed by an Indian newspaper and would therefore be safe from any professional damage.

What do we need press conferences for these days anyway? Everything done by the government of India is explained and accounted for all the time, and full-page advertisements in newspapers every other week fill in any possible gaps in our knowledge, so what possible questions can anyone have for these elected representatives? All I can think of are queries about their personal preferences, like what their favourite fruit is or how they consume it.

It sometimes feels like something we collectively imagined. Did we really have these gatherings where journalists could ask politicians to explain their actions? I know we did, even if young Indians will struggle with the concept. We had a great many of them, too, at the state and national level, and I remember some of them as being quite aggressive. Of course, this was when journalists weren't paid salaries by industrialists and when the profession was still treated as a respectable one.

The one good thing that came out of Norway was how the Indian embassy handled everything with grace and intelligence. That's another thing we have grown accustomed to in recent years: the acumen of Indians in the foreign service. When asked about irrelevant issues such as trust and transparency, embassy officials responded with a short history of yoga and an explanation of how magnificently we handled the COVID crisis that killed just 5,33,849 Indians. The ease with which they provided answers to questions that weren't even asked was a masterclass in a long line of masterclasses we now routinely have access to. I won't be surprised if those erudite men and women are promoted any day now, because they deserve it.

Watching that one-sided conversation also revealed a path forward for how press conferences should evolve in coming years, if they continue to exist at all. Indian ambassadors everywhere can transform these events from something utterly pointless into a potential marketing campaign for the country. I propose the creation of government-approved talking points for all Indian embassies around the world.
These could include not just the obvious examples of yoga and ayurveda, but other things such as Paneer Tikka, Bollywood, Bengal Tigers, the Taj Mahal, and Vegetable Samosas. Officials can then toggle between these subjects whenever they are asked about India's human rights record, why it has dropped in the World Press Freedom Index, or anything else that has the potential to tarnish the Make in India PR campaign that has been underway for over a decade now.

We are moving towards a future where transparency is unnecessary and irrelevant, because we finally have politicians who are working tirelessly for our good. It's why we are living longer and healthier lives, why our children have more job opportunities than ever, and why poverty, as well as homelessness, have almost been eradicated, along with the gap between rich and poor. Anyone who doesn't accept these official facts and figures is either an enemy of this country or another Norwegian journalist.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He can be contacted at www.lindsaypereira.com
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.