A politician is a representative of the people and requires exceptional oratory skills to engage and effectively communicate his ideas. More often than not, politicians have to deal with dry but important subjects such as economics, laws, and policies, which acts as a repellent for any audience.
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, has built a reputation of being a master communicator and regularly uses catchy acronyms to enthrall his audience.
He is always in campaign mode and gives a couple of speeches every week, there are two tools that he uses regularly that give us an example of what a good communicator can do.
He has made policy interesting and easy to understand where the name of the policy itself indicates its objective. Here are some examples:
Ministry of AYUSH (Stands for Ayurveda Unani, Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy – Government ministry tasked with strengthening India’s traditional medical knowledge systems
Ayushman Bharat (Ayushman is a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to “long live”) – A medical insurance scheme for the poor which the media repeatedly tried to rename as ModiCare, inspired by Obamacare
Obamacare is named after the man who doesn’t even know why he got the Nobel peace prize; maybe for shutting up Hillary Clinton by defeating her in 2008
I never figured out why the Indian media picked this name for this scheme, did they expect everyone in India to remember a scheme launched in America or were they mistaken that they live in India, not America? Most probably, its a result of their inferiority complex that makes them run to the US for validation and be assured of a scheme’s merits.
NITI Aayog (National Institute for Transforming India) – Niti means policy in Hindi is the Indian government’s premier think tank. It was created by re-branding and reconstituting the Planning Commission, which was a souvenir from the good old days when we looked up to the Soviets for economic advice and philosophy.
Thank God, days of centralised planning are gone as that model was a drastic failure with government control over everything
UDAN (Udey Desh Ka Aam Naagrik translates to “Let the common man fly”) – Regional airport development policy to connect different regions in India
JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity – Linking Jan Dhan accounts, mobile numbers and Aadhar cards to plug subsidy leakages for public services that have resulted in massive savings
AIM (Atal Innovation Mission) – Initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in schools and is named after Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP’s first Prime Minister
BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) – A new mechanism for money transfer that is unique to India and does transactions worth trillions of rupees. It is named after Dr. BR Ambedkar, the man who drafted our constitution
SWAYAM (Hindi word for Self) – Online learning portal featuring courses from India’ best professors
PRAGATI (Hindi word for Progress) – Dashboard created to bring all stakeholders of a long-stuck project to be reviewed by the PM and his team
Jal Shakti Ministry (Power of Water) – All ministries related to water were clubbed and given a name that conveyed the message clearly
Now, have a look at acronyms used during political campaigning convey his message in an easy to remember and simple words
NaMo (Sanskrit word for venerated and is used for God Shiva) – Narendra Modi became NaMo during his campaign in 2014
SCAM (for SP, Congress, Akhilesh, and Mulayam) and ABCD (Adarsh, Bofors, Coalgate, Damaad) to sum up the opposition’s corruption
RSVP (Rahul, Sonia, Vadra, and Priyanka) and OROP (Only Rahul and Only Priyanka) to sum the reduction of Congress party into a family enterprise; the second one summed up a long unmet demand of the armed forces with Congress’s dynastic politics
AK-49 for Arvind Kejriwal’s 49-day stint as Delhi CM in 2014
No wonder Modi has won a bigger mandate in 2019 compared to 2014, probably the last time such a phenomenon occurred was in 1957.
First published on Medium.
Comments