Public relations over people

YouTubers who are complimentary of the Uttar Pradesh government can earn as much as R8 lakh per month as per the state’s digital media policy. Representation Pic/istock

If there is one thing I can say about the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet - and there usually isn't much, to be honest - it is that I can never fault that honourable and erudite group of people for not possessing the right priorities. They are the ones we should all turn to, time and again, for consistent signs of intelligence, morality, and integrity. It's too bad they don't advertise these qualities as vigorously as they ought to. The reason I mention them this week is a new policy that proved their understanding of what genuinely matters in this country.

Someone naïve like myself would imagine more attention being paid to issues like child mortality, health infrastructure, or poor nutrition in the state. It's probably why I will never be Chief Minister of anything. What they spent a lot of time talking about, instead, was a new social media policy.

Let me get straight to the point and declare that there is nothing ordinary about this policy. It is bold, in the way that tearing down Rajpath and replacing it with something that looks like a mall can be called bold. It is path-breaking, the way demonetisation was supposed to be, at least for an hour or so. The word ‘draconian' has also cropped up a few times during discussions about the policy, but I believe the whole point of the policy is to prevent anything related to the government from being associated with the word ‘draconian', so I must leave it at that.

For those of us in Bombay who haven't been paying attention to Uttar Pradesh because we have never had reason to, its Digital Media Policy 2024 has been designed to regulate content on platforms that are still allowed to operate within India's borders. That list may shrink by the weekend, but it's what the focus is on for now. The big announcement has to do with ‘anti-national material' which now empowers the government to put an offender away for life. To break this down into simpler terms, saying something that the government doesn't like now allows the government to lock you away. One can only hope this seriousness trickles down to other criminal activities, even milder ones like murder or rape. After all, if godmen can get parole after being caught assaulting women, people posting on Facebook ought to be given some leniency as well.

While I applaud this policy, I admit to struggling with specifics. For a start, I am still in the dark about what ‘anti-national' means, especially given how the term has been trotted out more over the past decade than at any other time since we won independence from the British. I imagine the implication is that, for the first time in our history as a country, we have a government that is concerned with the delicate fabric of society and how nothing can be allowed to damage it. It feels like the kind of government that would never do or say anything to pit one group of Indians against another by virtue of what they eat or whom they pray to. To do that sort of thing would be decidedly anti-national, after all.

The policy doesn't provide examples of what is or isn't anti-national content, which leaves room for misinterpretation. For example, I wonder if we are allowed to criticise a minister for holding a fake degree in Entire Political Science. Are we allowed to wonder why a minister's son is in charge of a national sporting body despite never having been photographed near a bat or ball? Will it be an issue if we ask why bridges built in some parts of India fall faster than anything else built elsewhere in the country? What about criminal cases against elected representatives, or questions about whether these men should be allowed to enter Parliament? Are these anti-national questions?

I expect clarifications over the coming weeks, because it's not as if our governments announce policies and make them up as they go along. Here's the best part: payments for influencers, account holders and operators who say the right thing and are complimentary of the government. Apparently, these lucky individuals can earn as much as R4 lakh per lakh on Facebook, and double that amount on YouTube.

This may be naïve of me but, once upon a time, that sort of quid pro quo arrangement would have been referred to as a bribe. This is a new and improved India though, where corruption no longer exists.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.