Ever wondered how our politicians come up with such glib and pat responses in public to aggressive and searching questioning by an eager media? I gleaned the answer the other day from a politico who was once a college classmate. He was reluctant and evasive about it but then, for old friendship’s sake, revealed the source of his training. It was the Institute of Political Speech and Hearing, located somewhere between Bengaluru and Mysuru. The director of the institute, a grizzled political veteran well past his seventy summers, at first feigned ignorance of the special training to politicos but opened up after I mentioned my friend’s name.
“Ours is a neutral training ground, in that interns from all political parties are sent here. You see, the problems they face are similar, although their ideologies may differ.” “What do you mean ?” “Whether they belong to this party or that, most of the questions posed to them will relate to differences within the party, corruption charges, calamities, civil disturbances, policy issues, morality charges and so on.” “I get your point.” “Now, in this country, crises emerge by the hour and there is little time for the politician to prepare for meeting an impatient media.
The responses have to be usually limited to quick sound bytes and public memory is very short. Therefore, our training centres on properties like banality, fungibility, ease of being forgotten, deflection, obviousness and non-commitance. The idea is that the response should seem to be informative without revealing anything.” “Give me an example.” “Well, we have the classic ‘Let the law take its own course’ response by a politician indicted for corruption.
Another version of this is ‘I have full faith in the judiciary’. The accused politician is very safe in these responses since he knows that by the time the law takes its course in this country, he would have been able to fight three elections and the public would forget his original misdemeanour. Another popular response to criminal allegations utilises deflection and runs like this: This is a conspiracy hatched by the Opposition.” “What about other situations?”
“We have some standard ones for calamities. For natural disasters the mainstay is ‘My heart goes out to the victims’. If it is due to departmental bungling (this is popular with Railway ministers) then there is ‘Let us await the report of the Enquiry Committee’. By the time the committee releases its report, umpteen more accidents will have occurred. “Have you ever had any problem trainee?” “We had a tough time with the former PM.” “Why?” “He wouldn’t speak at all!”