As a matter of fact, Media Adviser/Press Secretary, though in the rank and pay of Secretary to the Government of India, has limitations. For all practical purposes, it is a contractual post of political patronage, personal glory and at that decorative one, with no connection, whatsoever, with the decision-making process and movement of files. A media manager, in fact, has nothing to do with policy making. He comes in the picture only when a policy is decided and that has to be made public as part of the Government’s responsiveness to the people in our system of the rule of law based democratic governance. He has to process and encapsulate that information for the media for information to the public. Added to this, how to deal with media in the crisis management or emergent situation is another role of media adviser for providing integrated coordinated approach. At times he may like to give some information unofficially with the approval of the Prime Minister to one news agency or so to gauge public reactions before taking a decision. He also functions as spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). He advises the PM regularly on media relations.

In addition, the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules read with the Manual of Office Procedure provides for modes of communications to the media in various formats. This proves beyond doubt that Media Adviser’s role is limited to media management, image building of the Government in the positive light, and generating public goodwill for the PMO/Government. This proves, in any case, Media Adviser has no role in policy making, which is a complex subject and lot of churnings go on in the process. This is the precise point Media Adviser cannot know modus operandi of movement of files. This brings home the point that the impugned book is based on conjecture, guess work, innuendos and untruth, guided solely by the crass commercial considerations of rank opportunism, malafide and at that is a work of pure fiction. Nothing more and nothing less!

Buru’s imputation that the ruling party President happened to be the super Prime Minister or supreme leader undermining the authority of the PM is absurd and politically motivated to embarrass the UPA Government and boost the adversary taking advantage of the gullibility of the people. He hardly knows the nitty gritty of the cobweb of the Government functioning. The Prime Minister, as Chief Executive, constitutes in himself the Government of India. This being the case, Prime Minister’s close coordination with the ruling party president or the leaders of coalition partners, as the case may be, cannot or must not be seen that the PM is subordinate to the ruling party president or coalition partners. For, in our system of governance, the Prime Minister has to implement ruling party’s manifestos or common agenda formulated by the joint consultative machinery of the coalition partners.

In fact, Sanjay Baru should thank his stars that he held a glorious decorative position in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), where he failed miserably to provide integrated coordinated approach to the official media heads in stemming the negative sentiments generated by the mushrooming private electronic and print media, thus creating adverse public perception against the Government, which did its exemplary best to create people’s rights based distributive justice system of governance and inclusive development model for the all round prosperity of the nation. Baru, in this regard, failed irretrievably to show his mettle by rising to the occasion and exhibited his rank incompetence. He proved himself a timeserver of the worst order making virtue of his privileged position to his pecuniary gains.

Whatever Baru has pontificated in the book is one hundred per cent untrue. I hold that a rank outsider, however intelligent, cannot fit in as media adviser to the Prime Minister. This proves undoubtedly that given the right kind of coordination among the official media units like PIB, AIR, Doordarshan, DAVP, Field Publicity and official interface in Social Media, the Government can do well in its publicity thrust. It has been seen that outsiders like Sanjay Baru can only embarrass the Government, while making a virtue necessarily of a timeserver.

As having been in the Indian Information Service as spokesman attached to different Ministries as also in the PMO in the initial stages, I can say with authority and conviction that Sanjay Baru’s work is a pure fiction that creates a make-believe model of governance, which is cent per cent bereft of truth and ground realities in the scheme of the Constitution of India and the rule of law based system of democratic governance. It’s deliberately mischievous and motivated. It is hereby dismissed and condemned.