Tag: Arundhati Roy

  • Speech Disorders

    Arundhati Roy’s ‘God of Small Things’ is a book I found underwhelming. It could’ve been my maturity as a reader, or the hype that surrounded the book then, but all said and done, Ms.Roy was not an author who influenced me. Unlike a certain Mr.Tharoor, an author I deeply admire, and whose books (mostly) have given a lot of perspective, even the works of fiction.

    But when he had this to say about Roy – commenting that she’d gone too far to the left and her writing about Gandhians with guns, I wasn’t sure whether I could agree, and I asked on Twitter (not to him) whether his stance is necessitated by his political affiliations. A feeling that was mirrored when I read this post by Anil Thakraney. To give you a background on Anil, I think his insightful (inciteful isn’t a word, or it would’ve fitted well too) articles and interviews are amazing, and his posts often find resonance with me, because the issues he talks about and the way he talks about them gives  abundant perspective. I don’t think Anil is compelled by any external force, a possibility that can’t be ruled out in the case of Tharoor. And so I wondered, why I wasn’t in agreement.

    Could I’ve been possibly influenced by her articles on tribals that were written a year back – Outlook (which caused the first wave of outrage) and Washington Post (about the outrage) or even this excellent post titled “The Economics, Politics and Ethics of non violence” or just the history. It was human, and I could identify with the view on  the human sacrifices that are made for the sake of progress. A purely bystander perspective.

    Or did it only play a marginal role when I considered Roy’s latest remarks on Kashmir? How can you be objective when on one side, she writes a moving article on why young boys are pelting stones and on the other side, you have almost an entire nation outraged? It doesn’t help that its fashionable to hate Roy, and even more fashionable to support her.

    So in the end, I’d go beyond the freedom of speech debates and the notional boundaries. I only say notional because, if we look at a larger timeframe, the transience of these boundaries will be more evident. Empires of the past, in their time, would have thought that their boundaries were unassailable, even by time. But they are history. One of the ideas that have remained unchallenged for long is that of the nation state, maybe its time that came up for an overhaul.

    A mass of humanity that make up a nation state makes laws that are agreeable to the majority. That’s the way civil societies have been built. The fun part is that, in most cases, the majority are mere bystanders with a notional stake. So at some point, the minority is pushed to such an edge that they’re forced to retaliate. What is only an inconvenience to the majority is a matter of survival and basic rights for the minority.

    And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

    (Alice’s restaurant by Arlo Guthrie)

    Meanwhile, for some, these boundaries might be sacrosanct, some might believe that Roy is doing it just for the popularity. But, even from the armchair, the hurt sentiments of the first and the (alleged wrong) intention of the second pale when compared to the human condition.

    until next time, longish posts are charged with sedation? 😉

    PS: Found later that Shoma Choudhury has articulated this well

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuXFIfb7cnY

  • PR – Public Relationship

    The control a brand has, or rather the lack of it, was evident in two examples I saw recently. Both became viral, one at a very small level, and the other, a huge global one. You must’ve guessed the second one easily enough. Meanwhile, the first was ‘Bros Icing Bros‘ and linked to the Smirnoff brand, unofficially. You can read the details here. The way the game worked – “a person presents a friend (err, “bro”) with a Smirnoff Ice which they must then and there – regardless of time, location or context – take on bended knee and chug the entire bottle. The exception is if that friend himself (or herself) is carrying a Smirnoff Ice – in that case, the original presenter must chug both “Ices””  A case of user generated brand buzz, which perhaps did good for the product and was relatively non-detrimental to the brand.

    And there’s the first example, which is easily becoming THE example now, for bad PR. BP – if the spill wasn’t bad enough, there was the spillage – the fake PR account – advice on what/why BP should or should not do with it, the tweet billboards, an old (fake) ad, the ironic sign, the ghastly, ghastly images, the user created logos, a coffee parody, and the post from the man who created BPGlobalPR. BP’s losses as a brand (intangible?) is much more than the real $costs that have been speculated. Meanwhile, it has finally reached out to the @BPGlobalPR account. (While on the topic, do check out Rob Cottingham’s excellent take on the subject)

    The only commonality I’m looking at is the user generated content (or discontent). I don’t think this is an area which can be gamed easily. Sure, you can try to manipulate events and people, and search engines, try some good old PR, but there are no guarantees that it won’t boomerang. And I think it holds true across the spectrum – the two cases are polar opposites in terms of magnitude of the event, what the crowd did to it, and what the brand tried to do.

    Deviating a bit. I read “Arundhati Roy on ‘War of People‘”, where she took the scope of the Naxal issue into corporate boardrooms, and was immediately reminded of Umair Haque’s latest post titled “Ethical Capital is Capitalism’s new cornerstone“. He defines Ethical capital as “the stock of techniques, tools, and practices not just for creating value, but for defining and refining values, that an economy possesses”, and CSR, social investment, social entrepreneurship etc as the baby steps towards building it. But the corporate world still doesn’t understand the rewiring, as he himself notes. And here’s where we loop back, I don’t think this building of ethical capital can be gamed either.

    I can spot an increasing number of efforts – Pepsi’s Refresh Project, their efforts for production sustainability, Nokia’s eco profile for new products, their bicycle charger kit, to name a few. While the cynic in me sometimes disses official CSR, I realise its perhaps a level that has to be crossed before we reach out for bigger things. I also see efforts from the consumer side  –  CarrotMob (via Surekha)

    I see all of this as a trend where users are linking the brands they use, and their consumption, to the larger context of their lives and the even larger context of the world they inhabit, and the culture they consume and create. The ‘badges’ have changed, they’d like to associate themselves with brands that accommodate or at least work towards these badges.  In the foreseeable future, I think that brands which understand this will not only align more people on their side, but also have inherent features and processes which would allow them to be transparent, reduce these costly mistakes, and admit to their mistakes without the PR approaches that are drawing flak now.

    until next time, PR pressure?