Photo Caption : G S Bawa, Former General Manager (Public Relations) & Head of the Department , AAI
Communicate Fair Content Fearlessly : Not the Fake Content !
India
healthysoch.com
Chandigarh, October 02, 2019 :
How is that whatever we look far, we find in Gandhi. To me, it is only due to the fact that Gandhi was a complete person (ek sampuran vyakti thee) who lived his life fully; he played every ball as thrown to him with full vigour & Joy and left it to the comentators to judge him rather than self drum beating. Gandhi believed in adopting thing into his day to life rather than learning for the sake of learning, and this was true to Journalisim and Communication too. It was Gandhi only who even converted Silence into Mode of Communication (Gandhi nai Maunn Ko Hi Samvad Banaa Diya). His Completeness is a Bliss to the Humankind.
Mahatma Gandhi the ‘Father of Nation’; if we give him that title we will have to accept that he holds excellent communication skills that others accept him as father or as a leader. His movements had not only attracted thousands and lakhs of people from the motherland rather from across the globe that made him a global leader. This came through deployment of all the communication tools of that era, that we can think of. And we know there were not many tools at that time and ‘Social Media’ was certainly not there. At times, we are forced to confer that he enjoyed better communication response from masses than Anna even when there was no Social Media !
Mahatma Gandhi used Print and Mass Communication very extensively; his mass communication was through large public meetings that he used to address. Thus he deployed his Speeches as mode of communication with masses. But his silent and hidden mode of communication was influencing his ‘nears & dears’ and ’ right & left’ through demonstration of his principles by self adoption. Any one who will come in his contact once will be sold to him for ever. There are numerous examples that persons came to meet him for a purpose and stayed with him for ever. There are several instances where he resisted his reaction until he experienced himself; that is setting a personal example on whatever he preached or believed. This was a very big tool of ‘Convincing Communication’; probably known to him only. May be, this only was later on adopted by management schools as ‘Management By Demonstration’. Gandhi’s mighty pen was also equally powerful tool in his armoury of communication tools of that era. Gandhi diligently deployed his pen to any kind of misrepresentation of facts that came to his knowledge.
Gandhi believed in, that communication shall not be made for the purpose of communication rather it shall be other way around; that means every communication shall have a purpose and the same shall be pursued irrespective of fear or danger. Gandhi’s writing style was also unique and trendsetting at every stage. Thus its learning from his work; that be on your own, don’t copy others’ style, create your own style.
Gandhi’s communications were built upon his understanding about the feelings of the masses which he used to gather through his daily encounters with the masses; he used to articulate public feelings in his own expressions and sentiments that kindled hope and desire among the masses when he spoke about them. Gandhi had fearlessness in his communication as he was sure that whatever he is communicating is in the heart of masses and he is communicating on their behalf.
Gandhi was a persona who even adopted letter writing as an effective mode of communication. He wrote letters to numerous personalities on every subject that matters in nation building; on social front too he wrote letters addressing masses on subjects that matter in character building. Gandhi knew the importance of Press and Media very well. While he was in prison between 1942 to 1944, the ‘Harijan Press’ was completely destroyed and on his release the first thing he did was to revive it; and it took him nearly two years to revive it.
Thus, Gandhi was a complete personality who carried the aura of Truth & Honesty, Keep it Cool, Simplicity and shunning Violence and Materialism. Above all he demonstrated all these high morals through self adoption rather than just preaching.
Thus it’s a learning from Gandhi; Communicate Fair Content Fearlessely – Not the Fake Content.
The author of this article is G S Bawa, Former General Manager (Public Relations) & Head of the Department , AAI