Amid growing anger in Kashmir, PDP-BJP govt releases 'draconian' social media gag-order for its employees

In their seminal 1988 book, ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media’, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote that the smart way to keep “people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” Having failed in delivering on the promises made in the ‘Agenda of the Alliance’, and consequently being shaken by the barrage of criticism on all sides due to the political turmoil last year, the PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir has turned the nozzle on its own employees, who have been asked to either toe the line or face the music. [caption id=“attachment_4277079” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Jammu and Kashmir government has barred its employees from using social networking sites. PTI[/caption] In a bizarre 16-page order titled “Social Media Usage Policy for Government Employees” issued by the state’s general administration department on Tuesday, new ‘guidelines’ have been made into law by Governor NN Vohra, specifying how over 4.8 lakh government employees in the state must behave on social media. The order warns the employees “not to engage in discussions on social media by way of tweets, status updates, posts or blogs which are political in nature” or on “contentious issues violative of applicable service conduct rules and have potential to create governance or law and order issues or are seen to propagate anything which is anti-social, anti-national or illegal.” The employees “shall not use their personal social media accounts for any political activity or be endorsing the posts or tweets or blogs of any political figure”, it says. They should “not share public information on matters related to their work or the work of the department. They shall not tweet, re-tweet or share any electronic transmission”, the order says. Interestingly, the ‘dependents’ of the employees have also been asked to follow these guidelines. ‘Dependents’ can be defined as parents, spouse, children or even a shopkeeper from whom the employee may be making daily household purchases. Think about it. How does one control the itch of a Facebook update in a shopkeeper who just sold you a bathing soap? How can be a woman be held responsible for her husband’s ‘anti-social’ acts? And why should a father face the consequences of his son’s ‘anti-national’ Twitter update? Officially, the trigger of the bizarre order was a video made by a state government employee who was recently travelling to Punjab with his family and got allegedly beaten by Punjab police who called him “Kashmiri stone-pelter” and “terrorist”. The video, circulated virally on social media, showed the man chastising the government and the chief minister for their “failure to protect the citizens outside the state”. However, there are other plausible reasons too. Of the lakhs of men and women employed in various departments of Jammu and Kashmir government, thousands are active on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, etc. Hundreds of professionals such as doctors, engineers, teachers and bureaucrats interact on social media regularly. In a volatile atmosphere, especially in Kashmir, many of these conversations naturally revolve around the political upheaval, which then end up making the elected government the prime accused. This could be the second trigger. Also, many members of the ruling coalition have faced the wrath of people, including employees, on their social media feeds. For instance, the official Twitter account of the chief minister is spammed by volatile and hateful comments which border on abuse. A cabinet minister was confronted by a doctor working in a government-run hospital just a few days ago on his Facebook page. He blamed the minister and politicians like “Muftis and Abdullahs” for the situation in Kashmir. “The gag is an acknowledgement of the widespread popularity of the anti-India insurgency. People on the payroll of the government lost no time in expressing their genuine concerns about the murder of innocent people and crushing oppression. This has unnerved the government,” Hilal Mir, a senior editor based in Kashmir, wrote on his Facebook wall.

The new rules are draconian. They are dangerous because they give sweeping powers to the government to crack the whip on any sign of criticism, be it in any form, positive or negative.

The employees can face premature retirement, demotion or their due employment benefits can be stopped. But the employees must not stay silent. They must speak out in one voice and demand a rollback. There’s no wisdom in promoting herd-mentality in governance and administration. We learn from each other. Openness flowers transparency and diversity in opinion enrich thought process that positively influences our way of life. Controlling opinion, on the other hand, is a practice associated with fascist regimes. Kashmir is known for its tolerance and diversity. But it seems that the coalition government is hell-bent on destroying the last vestiges of the state’s rich cultural heritage. As ‘Manufacturing Consent’ notes, “… if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all”. It seems that the Jammu and Kashmir government believes in the latter.