Mumeninaz Zaman
With the emanation of corporate sectors, PSUs as well as the use of Public Relations (PR) in governance, the profession has also emerged in leaps and bounds.
Often dubbed as a glamorous profession, PR is not only confined to drafting press releases, talking to media personnel or organizing events. Rather, it is the building of relationships with the audience and the transmitter of messages, thereby building the image of an entity.
Eventually, PR has also paved its way towards the Northeastern region. Given the backdrop of infrequent, negative or inadequate coverage of northeast, PR as a profession plays a prominent role to be a forerunner in a new genre of publicity venture for the region in the country as a whole. Despite the fact that Northeast has a late entry of PR as a profession and discipline, it is only in the recent years that we see an upsurge in the number of PR departments and officers in the state governments, PSUs, hotels, hospitals, banks, telecom companies and educational institutions operating from the region.
NET gets in touch with some of the exceptional PR persons of the region to comment on the emergence of PR in Northeast, its challenges and the way ahead.
Nurul Islam Laskar has been a media person, banker, mentor, and have worked with various organizations on the PR front. He has seen the emergence of PR in NE from scratch. Having joined as a Probationary Officer in State Bank of India in 1972, he used to carry out PR activities despite the fact that there was no proper department assigned. Later, SBI became one of the first public sector organisations of the country to start full-fledged PR departments at all their strategic locations. In 1994, he was appointed as the Chief Manager (PR & Community Services Banking) at SBI Local Head Office, NE Circle, in Guwahati. Around the same time, the oil companies, defence sector and many government departments also set up their own PR units in the North East. Even though late compared to mainland India, PR practice had struck its roots in the North East region too.
Comments: People are not much comprehensive about PR in NE. Awareness is low. So, the first challenge is to educate the top officials as well as the masses about PR and its utility in image building and how a good image enhances one’s business in the society. Secondly, sustained PR activity needs the support of big industries. As long as we don’t have enough of big business in the region, PR here will remain at a low ebb. Lastly, not a single educational institution in the region offers a full-fledged graduate/post graduate course in PR. One university had started a PG course in PR but it was discontinued after one year for reasons best known to them.
I have been teaching PR, as a visiting faculty, at different educational institutions and universities of the region for more than ten years now. I have also founded a platform named “LeaP-PR” (Learning & Promoting Public Relations) that organises crash courses in PR for students and young professionals. We will be launching the Guwahati Chapter of the Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) very soon for providing a platform to PR practitioners for enhancing their professional skills and to young graduates to get groomed as good communicators and image builders.
L R Sailo was appointed as District Information and Public Relations Officer in the Government of Mizoram in 1973. He served as Press Information Officer and Press Secretary to all the Chief Ministers of Mizoram till his promotion to Director of Information and Public Relations in 1992.
He had served during the most critical years of insurgency in Mizoram when violence was prevalent and the public was sandwiched between the Indian Army and the Mizo National Army (then outlawed). Sailo’s name was entered in the PR Hall of Fame by the PRCI in 2008 in recognition of his lifelong contribution to the PR profession. He played a great role in the establishment of the Aizawl Centre of Indian Institute of Mass Communication in 2011 and remains associated with it as a Regional Director.
Comments: One of the main highlights of Public relations’ role is the promotion of good governance by informing and influencing opinion, attitude, and behavioural change among political leaders and policymakers, bureaucrats and the public. The public relations process links citizens, civil society, the media, and government, forming a framework for inclusive dialogue through which informed public opinion is shaped.
PR as a field of work began late in the North-East while it had long been practised in the country. The upsurge of public relations as an industry, however, began much later. Adding to the inherent obstacles of public relations functioning, there is a persistent hurdle encountered by the North-East which is specific to the region. This has resulted in instances of a feeling of alienation on the part of the people and misunderstanding about the place, people and culture from outside.
It is also obvious that the negligible quantity of news from the region tends to be negative, leading to misinformation and optimistic news from the region rarely has space in the mainstream media. Such manipulation of facts affects the credibility of media and misleads the entire society.
There is a tendency to club the 8 states which all has its own unique identity and culture together under the umbrella of North-East India, thereby portraying it as one State. While the media mainly focuses on insurgencies of the region, it subtly depicts the region as infested by conflicts or insurgencies. In reality, only a small pocket of the region faced insurgency problems and states like Mizoram has been peaceful for the past few decades without any form of conflicts.
As more people consume information online, the use of digital media will be able to compensate the under representation in the national arena and boost constructive information flowing out from the region and bring about a balanced flow of information. At the same time, strengthening local, state to state and people to people communication within the North-East region is important.
In spite of the many more opportunities that PR practices is offering in the wake of digital media, the state run PR directorates in the North-East are still engaging themselves too much on the coverage and preparation of official events particularly the Ministers’ press releases as a sole routine work. The corporate and private enterprises are comparatively taking proactive approaches which transcend an optimistic future. It is high time for practitioners in all sectors to tap the potentials of PR strategy in promoting good governance, catering the specific needs of the public and to accelerate and foster development initiatives while building a positive image about the region to the rest of the country and the world at large.
Biswendu Bhattacharjee is a correspondent with the Times Of India. A Post Graduate with Doctorate in Journalism and Mass Communication, he is the Chairperson of Public Relations Council of India, PRCI, Agartala Chapter. It was during the initial days of his professional life, he realized the importance of communication.
According to Bhattacharjee, it is important to develop the habit of listening and memorizing information by practising memory retention tactics while collecting information. As with the advent of technology, there has been a sea change in the methods of communication. He rather considers interaction either in person or short chatting over the digital platform on important issues very effective. It makes the persons articulate, interactive and prepared for discussions, which ultimately makes one, a PR professional.
Comments: When it comes to PR ethics words like- manipulation, propaganda, etc depends on one’s perspective. Humans, as well as the society at large, believes in a constructed reality with a certain factor of influence. In the world of PR, these are considered as a concept to reach out the reality. Ideological one may reject the tool that influences the human mind, but in day to day life when products (no matter social or industrial) dominates our development significantly – unknowingly the society becomes dependent on the market. It’s not proper for anyone to believe that PR ethics is either an unreal possibility or a method to hide deception where absolute reality is unknown.
Northeast has an enormous potential of hospitality, business and natural resource, based industries. We have enough human resources, but not trained, motivated and oriented. This is where PR professional can take the lead role to streamline the development. Policy makers, bureaucrats and common people need to be synchronized to achieve the development goals and it is the job of PR professionals to scale up budding opinion leaders in Northeast.
However, despite being the first chapter of PRCI in Northeast, Tripura could not do much so far. It needs a team to make people understand how PR is different from advertising and marketing.
Anjuli Chittaranjan is a communications professional with an accumulated work experience of over 27 years- 2 years in the field of academics and 25 years in the corporate sector and for 8 months she headed the Assam CII (Confederation of Indian Industries). She has worked with corporate giants like- Bharti Airtel and Vinay Cements. Currently, she is working as the communication head of the Northeastern Region, with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, based in Guwahati Assam since 2015. Over the past few years, she has gained extensive knowledge on the technological advancements and has been a part of the changing Telecom story. She has been one of the 101 women of the Reliance group to be featured in the recently released Coffee table book on the occasion of International Women’s day 2020.
Comment: Public Relations has always played a key role in society and Corporate Communications is critical in maintaining good Public Relations on a sustained basis. For successful PR the dissemination of messages through Corporate Communications and keeping abreast of developments is very important for growth. PR is important for all parts of our country and more so for the Northeast since geographically we are strategically placed. Over the years, PR has grown at a rapid rate in this part of the country and had created a wonderful web through networking and the use of social media.
