Govt operating on the belief that needs to listen to anybody
Congressional Senior Leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that the BJP-led Center has “closed the feedback loop” that was there to measure and feel people’s response and reaction on various governance issues, and claimed that the government is operating on the belief that it does not need to listen to anyone as it controls the media space and narrative.
Gandhi made the remarks during an interaction with former American diplomat Nicholas Burns, who now works at Harvard Kennedy School.
Gandhi said that many people are unhappy with the way the BJP is behaving. “It is happening very quickly. So the opportunity for us is huge. However, we have to redefine ourselves, ”he said, without elaborating on how he plans to redefine Congress.
He said that Congress, when in power, would receive “constant feedback” on “a pressure that is attacking us,” be it from farmers, workers, or big business. “There was a feedback loop… What surprised me was how fast, how effective and how powerful it was. It was right in our face. We could hardly help it. And that feedback loop is now closed.
“The ability to get your message across so strongly when you control the media automatically prevents you from listening…. And it puts you in a mindset … ‘I control the media space, I control the narrative … so I don’t really need to listen to anyone and that’s how you operate, ”he said.
“… It is a style of governance … It comes from a centralization of power and the belief that centralized power understands everything,” he said.
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