Take with pinch of salt when Governments and Corporations engages you in public discourse
Some argue that we need more corporations to engage in public discourse in India. I would like to highlight what I think here is a policy paradox. Just as governments may not know what is in the best interest of its citizens, and end up implementing regulations, restrictions, incentives which may backfire, similarly, the corporates are no holy cows for a separate reason. The campaigns they wish to launch and promote to raise the level of public conscience, let’s not kid ourselves, those will be to further their hidden agendas more often than not. Private corporations are not expected to be engaging the common citizen, you and me for the larger societal good, unless it has inherent growth and profits for itself. Take for instance Patanjali, who have been doing massive campaigning to highlight benefits of ayurveda, medicinal herbs, vegetables and various indigenous methods. It is also going full frontal against the established multinationals and their practices. I am not judging which is better for us, but let’s not make a mistake thinking a Yogi’s transition from nothingness to multi thousand crore empires is ONLY for the larger societal good. Yes, it may have its hidden beneficial consequence for us, but same is the case with government intentions, which will also result in some positivity.
Going back to the example of Facebook Free Basics campaign and its attempt at raising the public discourse around a policy issue, though the campaign itself was later banned. There was lot of anxiety around the campaign when it was launched in some emerging countries in Asia and Africa, where the social media giant thought poor people on the fringes of economy, may not be able to afford data charges and should be given free access for basic internet services, which also included its own websites and applications. Facebook was not only accused back then about its discriminatory role in leaving out some of its competitor’s websites, but also cherry picking some others. It was also found to be violating the net neutrality rules and selectively choosing some mobile operators. On the other hand the argument around net neutrality as operators argued they are the ones who have invested billions of dollars in data network infrastructure and upgrade over the years, through cycles of economic turmoil, cannot be sidelined by such selective marketing campaigns by companies such as Facebook. So that it can be seen as working overtime for altruistic reasons to bring public discourse on a key public policy issue to the forefront. Mobile operators on other hand were not ok to be merely seen as dumb pipes for data transfer, so dumb that now Facebook, which enjoys ridership of billions of subscribers, wants access to sites including its own as a birth right and a “free basic” service for everyone to enjoy. Is it not clear by now, who stands to benefit from it more?
So coming back to the point I was trying to make around the policy paradox, we have to be careful about both the governments as well as private / public corporations sacred role to engage us in the public policy discourse, for what they want us to believe is for the larger societal good. As Ajay Shah says Government is not your mother, and if I may add, Corporations are not your siblings either. We should be prepared to take it with a pinch of salt.
