The past week hasn't been a good one for Tony Blair. Even for someone used to getting hauled over the coals on a regular basis, the past week has seen his own loyalists closing ranks with the Brownians (Brown-ites?) and baying for his head - Blair must go, the refrain has been in Labour circles.
Add to this more recent conflagrations in Iraq, strengthening Taliban forces in Afghanistan, George Bush's admission that CIA has been using "secret" prisons in the war on terror, and you have to agree that things haven't been good for Mr Blair.
It's therefore not unusual that most mainstream media commentators in the UK have managed to gloss over a rather interesting event concerning the UK & India - the recent trip made by Conservative leader and Leader of Opposition David Cameron to India over the past week.
Normally, Mr Cameron is not that different from his contemporaries in UK politics (or indeed global politics). He has however, shown slightly quirky behaviour in the recent past, which makes him a little more interesting than the usual ilk of dull as dirty dishwater Charlie Brown-esque characters that make up UK politics. His election to the head of the Tories was accompanied by widespread media speculation around his choice of underwear, which you could argue shouldn't have been of that much importance, though I guess given how critical the issue of "support" is in a democratic setup, this should not be totally unsurprising. I shudder to think of the day when Indian journalists speculate on the choice of our national leader's underwear... it conjures images that just don't need to enter my head! Cameron has also been known to make some rather unexpected remarks - such as how antisocial elements just needed to be loved (leading to the popular "Hug a Hoodie" refrain around England; "hoodies" here referring to the unruly masses that tend to lurk in inner city hell holes wearing sweats with hood pulled up)
Cameron is, despite these incongruencies, a fairly charismatic politician. He almost reminds me of Blair when he was younger, less supercilious and definitely less enamoured of the US and its troubling worldview. Cameron has that eager, fresh-faced "I'm here for the greater good" that most young Oxfam volunteers display while on gap year projects spent helping struggling communities in Africa build solar heaters. He is young, dynamic, educated and also quite erudite. You hear him speak and come away with the niggling feeling that you weren't watching the leader of a national party speak, but rather a sophomoric foppy haired Englishman at St. something College in Oxford/Cambridge participating in some major debating competition. Interestingly, that clipped English accent lends a sense of old world to his general aura.
So from this rather jumbled old-world-new-world melee that is the head of "new" Tory, it was to be expected that a political trip to visit the global hub of IT services would be met with a complimentary blog. For that is indeed what Mr Cameron chose to do - maintain a blog to share his experiences of a foreign land with an electorate back home.
The blog, pointedly titled "David Cameron in India" carried brief passages explaining the purpose behind the blog. Most of the content is in video format, with Google videos covering different facets of the MP's visit to India. These included discussions of a more abstract nature around how factory inaugurations in India tend to be different from those in the UK, random rides in a CNG auto rickshaw (somewhat misleadingly called a "tuk-tuk" on several occasions) through Lutyen's Delhi, and general interactions with local Indian passersby who seemed more bemused than impressed (perhaps they might have thought that he was thinking of marrying into Indian politics as well.) Cameron did goof up when he insisted on referring to Rashtrapati Bhawan as the "Viceroy's Palace" - he could have softened the legacy with an appropriately placed "former", but alas, his foppish Oxbridge debating style didn't allow that. The final post from India covered his visit to the Delhi metro, his discussions with university students on their way to North Campus, and the comforts of air conditioning on an underground (obviously a reference to London's Tube, which has sweltered for three months as temperatures soared above ground)
There are two key points to take away from this event. First, we are seeing a sudden resurgence in general interest in India from the UK. Government & industry are both recognising the need to engage with India more proactively than they have been doing in the past, if they are to be able to capitalise on India's predicted economic growth. For an economy that has plateaued in recent years, the urgency to be able to somehow get a share of India's predicted astronomical growth is critical. Cameron is only being pragmatic when he speaks of building on a past heritage to strengthen current relations. His visit to India, even as only Leader of Opposition, is an important statement of British foreign policy to build on relations with India.
However, what is more interesting, at least for me personally, is how Cameron has chosen to utilise a fairly new medium to spread a political message. By using a blog to communicate with his electorate, Cameron is adding a political seal of approval to a growing international phenomenon. Blogging has in a very short span of time managed to present a significant alternative to millions of readers and internet users out there. It has taken the power of communication, and thereby the power to control what is being communicated, out of the hands of big media conglomerates & publishing houses, and has allowed individuals to seize the narrative. Perhaps I am being too post-modernist, but blogging has allowed the individual to deconstruct the meta-narrative of mainstream media and present an alternative that is comprised of millions of infinitesimal micro-narratives.
So has Cameron managed to alter the way in which politicians will communicate with their electorates? I doubt that - blogging still has a long way to go before it will be able to overtake its mainstream, corporate counterparts. More importantly, blogging is only as good as the penetration of the internet - and internet connectivity remains an issue in many parts of the world (You can take a newspaper onto a plane, but can't log onto a website on most aircraft!) Similarly, in developing countries, internet connectivity remains a challenge.
This is not to say that I think Cameron's gesture to use a blog to speak "directly" to his voters will fall by the wayside, especially in the UK. He has managed to capture a very direct forum of communication, and rival British politicians would be very short sighted to let him, and the Tory's, claim that turf for their own without a challenge. It won't be long before we hear of a Blair blog or a Brown blog (a brog?) a green Blog (a grog?) and a French blog, which could most appropriately be called a frog...
And what of India? I struggle to believe that many Indian politicians would bother with using a blog to communicate with voters - can you imagine La senora choosing to write a blog? (Maybe she'd call it Just Janpath) The only Indian politician I could have imagined setting up a blog would have been Pramod Mahajan, but we all know that he's been a victim of fratricide quite recently. And I doubt the bambino Gandhi would either. However, this is a great opportunity for any political party out there that is looking to work its way into the minds of a younger, educated electorate. Unlike the UK, India's population is incredibly young, and any political establishment that can be seen to embrace new technology would go a long way in shedding the ageing, out of touch image that characterises the political class.
Check out David Cameron's blog here
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