The Government officials need a lot of training as the area of Governance changes all the time due to technological disruptions. The training in publicity can be a part of the training the government officials, but then its purpose is to communicate important schemes and policies of the Government.

The communication officials in the Government were given training in Facebook and twitter, and recently on Instagram.

India is having 23 million houses and over 18 crore houses have television sets. Thus the electronic media is still relevant. The BJP/RSS government spent crores of taxpayers money for campaigning “Swatch Bharat”-Clean India campaign with Gandhi’s glasses adorning the campaigning material.

A lofty ideal that is to create clean India. It is laudable because it is accepted by the Government that India is dirty, and our Prime Minister also felt that Indians do not feel proud of India because of that. Fair enough. But there are many things in India that we should be ashamed of, and the Government has not done any campaign against it.

Why is the Government training government officials in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram?

Now let us look at how the Swatch Bharat campaign was turned into a celebrity event where the celebrities came out with their brooms and took photos to be displayed on their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. But it was eyewash.

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Modi wants to keep on showing that he is doing “something” and that “something” can mean “anything” and in order to show that “anything” is beneficial to India; he has to use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. No surprise. He is the most followed world leader on Instagram.

What Indians need not the officials who are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram savvy, but those who are people savvy. India is People’s Republic in a political and social sense because the people determine who will rule them through the ballot system. (or sometimes through EVM as happened in UP election 2017!)

It is pro-people government and not the pro-capitalists government. There is no objection to Indian capital made competitive to the Global capital; the problem arises when the Indian capital is created by cheating the taxpayers and directing their money to purposes which are not directly beneficial to them. Therefore, if the Government is really working for the people, it does not communication officials who are trained in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The government officials must be trained in understanding the caste system and fighting the monster of the caste. The officials must be trained in fighting communalism. This is important.

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Government officials’ job should be to control communalism and stop discrimination not fuel such things. The BJP/RSS is using the Government machinery to further its political gain including the government officials in the communication area and Prasar Bharati. The BJP/RSS want complete control of Indian political system and once in Government, it is doing everything to keep its hold on power through not only buying the leaders of other political parties but also using the Government machinery itself to perpetuate its vision and consolidate power.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist