Why is it alright to lobby for corporate clients by PR professionals?

Lobbying is an advocacy towards certain point of view. Being in a democratic and capitalist economy, there should not be two ways of interpreting of “freedom of speech.” Lobbying is a natural expression of opinions and desires of organized groups such as businesses, advocacy groups, unions etc. Whether it’s an ethical practice or not will depend entirely on the cause. It will be hypocrisy if we say that it is alright to take out processions for the tribal rights of forest dwellers and lobby to pave way for Forest Rights Act and at the same time oppose to lobbying interests of the mining companies whose business interest in some area of the forest may be at stake. The latter should have an equal right to be heard about its reasons just like the former. The reason may be ethical or unethical but lobbying is not unethical. It is alright for PR companies to lobby for corporate clients to influence government policy as long as the cause is ethical or at least it believes in.

Everyone has a say, even if no body listens to anyone. It’s the right of the people which every one will enjoy irrespective of his social stature or his assets market capitalization. But to make yourself heard, you have to make loudest noise. Whether we like it or not, there is clamour of voices out there. You have to make a loud noise to make yourself heard. To employ lobbying to make them heard you are no wrong. With the same logic, we should not have any biased opinion if someone uses North Indian political lobby to become Prime Minister of India or a corporate lobbying with sound reasoning to amend policies that will help its business interest. When we allow caste lobbies to amend policies or women parliamentarians lobbying for women reservation bill or certain bodies lobbying against Narmada dams, I don’t see any reason why we should castigate the corporate lobbying who are trying to defend their business interest. If we have problems with lobbying, why don’t we ask our government to stop lobbying for expansion of UN Security Council and for permanent membership in it? It may or may not be ethical but India has every right as a free nation to lobby for this. And so does every man, institution and corporation to lobby for its interest. For PR firms to lobby for a particular company to influence government policy is fine as long as it believes that the cause for which it is lobbying is ethical. Had it not been lobbied by corporate to relax “license raj”, the Indian economy would have been plagued by red tapism. Not every lobbyist is a Jack Abramoff just like not every politician is a Mahatma Gandhi and not every soldier is a Field Marshall Sam Maneckshaw. There are black sheep every where and it does not make sense to categorize all lobbyist as corrupt.

It is an interesting fact that world’s only super power, USA, who has a successful model of democracy and capitalism, has made legal provision of lobbying in its First Amendment of the Constitution. Today, it has more than 35000 registered lobbyists who lobby anything between caskets to defence deal. Professional lobbyists know their territory. They make very efficient use of their client's time. They can find out where the problem lies, who to talk to, and what questions to ask. They can tell what information one need to have, and what questions one will have to answer. You will find out who you have to convince and why. Essentially, they guide you through the jungle of government and public opinion. Even a PR professional are lobbying on behalf of a corporate to influence media in its perception or lobby in a manner that will build a positive image of the company even if it is not right or ethical. Corporate lobbying is fine, so is the practice of PR firm lobbying in government, an institution of democracy as it is anyway lobbying the another institution of democracy; i.e. the media. It is a subjective interpretation whether the reason for which one is lobbying is ethical or not.

A Walk through the Old Corridor

It turned out to be a fantasy. A dream would run down to the last drop of life and sweat out of me. Never I had this thought that at a ripe age for banging my head against the raging machine of oldness, then I realized that my neck was aching like an ageing trooper who have seen enough of blood and sweat yet yeans for the next. No, it was not me who was biting the dust and decided to lay down his friend to this inglorious cruel world. The beginning of this was, however, not a work of wizards. We have to sit tight and watched the tired sun go down at the hand of an unjustified guerilla ambush. Soon the mighty day, tired of being at disarray with the options of daylight saving and heat of global warming or just being lost in the smog, retired and let the blues to take control of the things. Now, that the stage is all set and the pristine whiff of blues sweeping across, there was a sudden death. People from that part of the world, who were happy when they never exist, knocked at the door and banged with some TNT Dynamite. The result was cataclysmic. The madness became an epidemic and everybody was jumping on to the wagon that read Highway to Hell. Within lesser than sixty ticks away from clock of the origin of the disease, all of us went back to black. Was it a rescue mission by the devils of Oz Land or Land of Thunderbolt from the ferocious clutches a God Bless You band that was out to do no good? It seemed I was actually acting hysterical to the fact that we still had an edge. Thank god for sending the devils! But, there is one question that is still haunting me. Who was their Daddy?

It just can’t get any better than this. They call themselves Skinny Alley and I was called myself as moonstruck hoodlum. Out there to catch and earn the prize of watching the God making love to his beauty, I regrouped and briefed my senses to remain at bay as they have resigned long ago. The beauty was a real princess with her mellifluous beautiful neck yearning for the magical caressing by God himself. As he walked in, God looked at her and touched with romance while allowing the wind to blew heavy and carry the blue to paint the sky. Mama came along too with her Vanity Closet where she would have heaps of magical wonders lethal enough to make you good for nothing. She would drag those moments out from the cold storage of my mind to the fore so that it can breathe some blue. Mama! You said it right. Sweet Jesus does not seem to see the blind man. Who are you? It was a question that Mama asked God who was still in romance with her. Junkie! Said the God. And he never turned around to look who is what. Because he knew this creatures use to be mine. Still he knew that these mortals still love to die at a single stroke of God’s hand. Off he goes along with Mama to break a wall that was built long and thick. All the bricks, from where pigs might have flown some day and night ago, are still building the old question thick and strong. Can we do it someday? To break it apart and move on to the other side? Some people thought we have the valour to catch a sleep, while I was walking on a dream, in the presence of the God and Mama.

But Hey Mama! Don’t put your guns on the ground as yet and pull the trigger to that intelligentsia of rationality. Hey Mama! You Rock!!!

What was next in the array of excellence? Well, I excused myself for a brief while some Yankee Indiana Jones yelled and banged without any real fun in it, apart from her. People went mad with the new found Desi Avataar of Shakira. And then the blue eyed boys of Indian Rock came on board. However, there is something that lacked from it for what it is known as. Probably since they were trotting the globe without a snitch for some time now, the energy in their performance was not optimal or that is what I felt. I have seen enough of them and I know they can o much better than what they have done. Yet, it was not a bad day at the office at all for then. They still got their fair share of credit for being sport and performing even when they are not exactly at a better position. The Whisky Blue just let me off the hook and I unleashed myself once we were vaporized. And, there was still room for another shot at the ecstatic feeling. We were already high with the excellence of music at a venue which is equally wondrous. All of like true troopers of rock and rolling on the highway to hell kept cried our heart out to pierce the sky apart. Hey now! All you sinners, Put your lights on now. Make the Parikrama.

Musings II

Imagine how it would be to be alone in a land that is far away from earth, the sun and devil. There is no one other than you and your God who is no one but you. It would be a fantastic experience to be lost and never even bother to find your way out as you would know that it is where you have always wanted to be. Walking along the roadside with your shadow as your company! How about a guitar and marijuana on your mind and you keep on humming your favourite tunes, and words that are just straight from heart. Perhaps sometimes Mr Marley and Mr Dylan can join in the road party along with you and your shadow!! Listen to the mystery that is waft around a phenomenon that is known as the life. Something so fantastic about life is that it is absolutely unpredictable. You never know that whether we will leave enough air to see the morning sun. But still we dream, dream about a day that is shiny and beautiful. I guess this is what keeps us going. The essence of a man to keep on dreaming about life that is absolute. But life is a good teacher. Next morning when you see the young sun, you feel good enough to take on the earth. But as the sun ripe and so the energy, you heat the hard stone on the road and it starts to pain. Then you realise that it is not like the same dream that you dreamt last night. It is life which is different completely from a dream. So I don’t want to get into the complicacy and just get lost into the oblivion and the unknown. A place where there is no room for either reality or the dream. It is just pure vacuum and you keep on float mode never being bothered by anything. Happy Floating!!! And you just don’t have anything to complain about anything to cheer about anything to be stoic about. You just let yourself be who you really are. No strings attached. Nothing about to change and nothing is everything. So, how does it feel? Its all about sex, drugs and rock n roll. Phew!!! Do I ever want to come out of this? No, if I had an option. Only if I had an option. Alas!! There is something about being no one. Oh!! The feeling is absolutely wonderful. Oh Lord!! If I can live like a no one. Bless me!!

Musings 1

There is something so stupid that goes around in this world. While we let ourselves to free fall without letting anything to bother ourselves, then this sweet whiff of air that travels along with you swept your mind to such a place from where you will refuse to return. Sometime, it is impossible to learn that why at all you allowed yourself to unwind and swam with the flow. Impossible is a word that gets counted and well when you are lost in that jungle without knowing any clue about it how to get out of it. Should I keep my candle of hope burning or should I let the storm take care of it? The dark clouds that came from nowhere the other day flounced everything in my dream land. A land that I have so meticulously weaved around someone, where we would indulge ourselves in the some of the most wonderful dreams. People say it is good to dream and I wonder if I could ever live it anymore. The harsh realty that has ruthlessly crushed my mind and bruised my soul for no fault of mine will keep on haunting me until a time when nothing will matter. Today, I believe what Bob Dylan has sung “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose”. True, if I had nothing to lose some days ago, I would not have been a loser. The lost has been realized. It is cruel and hard but it is the truth. I have to believe in it even if I don’t want to. The reality rules, the truth rules and I have to honour. In today’s hard life, it is not only about how much love and emotions you can invest, but how much you can spend and how profitable can be the venture. It is all about money and it is only about money. Make no mistake about this, it is only and only about money. What if you love so much, what if you care for so much, what if you want to live forever for, what if you stand tall and nothing to bother, and you are still a loser just because I do not have any more left to spend. So, "don’t think twice it’s alright".

If I Could

If I can only ask you

To stand when I’m falling

If I breathe your air

To live for another morning

If you want me to climb

Up the sky and catch a rainbow

If I can give you

A sky of stars and blue

If I pray to God

For your every desire

If I can only walk

And see the Sun arise

If I can only

Live for today

If I could only

Born yesterday.

The Struggle for Existence

Indeed. They, I guess, were safe when they did not exist. It was a time when they were content in their own timid yet beautiful world. No one bothered, nor did they care. But times they keep changing. The white men came and hence appeared the need to reshape their lifestyle in conformity with a culture so alien. Slowly they embarked upon a path of change but still holding on to some of their ethnic innate roots in them. They broke out form a zone of seclusion and to adventure into a land that identified itself as their country and gave it a modern nomenclature, the North-east. All was well until a time when they started demanding—as a constituent of a vivacious and vibrant democracy—political, economic and social recognition. Some of them are now recognized if not all of them. However, these swings of events broke their relative anonymity and put them on tenterhooks. The mainland Indian society would soon know about this part of the world and, hence, their existence.

The people of the mainland conceive a definition of the cultural identity of the North-east without even knowing about it. The people of this part, as per their definition, who were not long ago lived in the wilderness, whose dress code were nothing but the leaves of the trees, who ate all the "smelly dishes" that create a "ruckus" ,who do not possess any moral integrity to value. A sloppy picture was drawn that would incite an age old society that boast itself of purity, impeccability and finest of all that human has ever evolved. This proud bunch of people would declare that every other thing as mere fatuous and would still be proud even if they belong to a society where daughters-in-law are killed for dowry, where sati is glorified, where a father-in-law rapes his daughter-in-law and declares her as impure for her own husband, where daughters are killed even before they are born, where they swear by the caste system and untouchability. The other societies of the world still fall short of its greatness. Who are you? North-east? Get lost.

What happens eventually is that the hiatus between the two different societies engulfs the whole of the country. An arrogant society, who is more skeptical about their own cultures resilience, refuses to identify those who do not oblige their codes of culture. However, the free spirited souls of the paradise unexplored wont budge and respect their fundamental rights to which they are constitutionally eligible, even though they are issued warnings and threats time and again. The controversial dictum of enforcing a dress code only for the female students of north-east in one of the leading colleges of Delhi University has by now retired from the minds of majority. The recent work of issuance of a booklet "Security tips for North-east students/visitors in Delhi" by the high profile Delhi police has once again put the onus of securing their liberty on their own (as was identified by Kalpana Sharma in an earlier column). This is a pity reality of the capital of the most vibrant democracy—a place where the temples of democracy wield their sway, a place who aims to count itself among the top brass of the world, a place which personifies the great Indian tradition and its history. Do we have anyone from those corridors of power to stand out and speak for the people of north-east? I apologize that we have only persons capable of heading a central ministry, to speak in favour of a convicted criminal or that it does not surmount such weightage to manouever a discussion?

These oft repeated cordoning off a particular section of the larger Indian society; i.e.the north-east people, is nothing but the result of a clash of different cultures. It is the lack of a logical perception that results in confusion in the society. A manifestation of such confusion finds an expression through the idea of woman from north-east. People of the mainland thinks that they are "easy-going" mistaking it for something derogatory but never realizing the fact that women from north-east have the freedom to wear their mind and enjoy the liberty their social customs has endowed upon them. Most of the North-east families have strong affinities to their matriarchal lineage than to patriarchal lineage. But the heavily biased patriarchal mainland society finds it hard to swallow it. These results in cultural conflicts and the situational realities often leave people from the north-east at the receiving end, especially women, subjecting them to discrimination, humiliation and violent abuse.

Over the time, whatever slew of measures have been talked about is more of a slipshod considering the problem at hand. Such measures may only offer a short term preventive rather than curative solution. While some of the unobjectionable safeguards may be implemented to prepare a platform from where such a huge cultural gap can somewhat bridged.

The most important of all measures to find a longstanding way out has to be sought through education. This, however, cannot be rectified by a hypocritical education system which is more concerned about fetching marks than enriching their knowledge base. There is no dearth of such educated elites, produce of the contemporary education system, who are vociferous about their age old cultural ethos. What we really need is a system of education whereby the idea of cultural flow of a society is taught People should start to believe that culture and society is not a stock but a flow concept. They are susceptible to change and to borrow the better part of culture from other societies as well. This should help to develop an open mind. Apart from sociology , the history, culture and their identity form across the country, should also find a mention in that education. This would help the future generations to know their countrymen better, and hopefully, will give birth to a society where existence will not threaten their safety.

Until that day dawns, however, the people of the paradise unexplored, along with those persons who are educated in social logic and void the impeccability of a culture, have to volunteer to guard the identity of this beautiful region and vouch for its novelty.

Welcome note.

I welcome myself to this world of blogging. Am I alone?