Sir,
While the creation of news vacuum may have worked in the past, it is unlikely to do it in future. The article by Lt Gen SA Hasnain clearly brings out the important issue of truth becoming causality in psychological war environment because of the existing arrangements in information sharing in Jammu and Kashmir. The (DPR) Directorate of Public Relations(MOD) do not have the mandate for psychological operations and propaganda. The regional PRO of MOD follows the guidelines issued by DPR, whereas, Additional Director General Public Information (ADGPI) and Additional Director General Information Warfare follow the media policy of 2005.
The issue can be well understood, if you read the article by Maj Gen Harsha Kakar-“Employing Army for others role’’ published on the same page of the newspaper. The author has brought out certain issues which might not be MOD’s stand. There are hundreds of defence correspondents covering defence beats in J&K and they understand the issue of psychological and propaganda related aspects. There is no doubt, few Army officials do not have fair knowledge to balance between the right to know and thus there is a creation of misunderstanding and misinformation in the environment, it has happened in the past many a times. The existing set up in the Army is just a reactive force and lacks knowledge of identifying incidents which might have potential of tarnishing image of the Army. Media digs more when news is not forthcoming from officials authorised to share information on incidents, then the semi-reliable sources puts a spin to the news .
There are many issues related to psychological and propaganda aspects which cannot be dealt in isolation by an organisation as it may not be in sync with the Govt policy.Recently an Army official deployed on LOC made a statement ‘Pakistan cannot be trusted for taking forward the CBM”. Army cannot build an opinion in the unofficial domain.Army do not manufacture consent.
Bringing in attitudinal changes on dealing with media, managing bad and controversial news, perception management and counter propaganda should be handled cautiously. Presently, Army is facing the problem of not meeting the deadlines of the media. It is a personality oriented Army and existing media policy is not a comprehensive one. The only solution to the problem is to have a common media policy.
Yours etc….
SS Jamwal
Gandhi Nagar, Jammu
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