By Sanjay Raman Sinha
At a glittering function at Vigyan Bhavan, the fourth edition of the Swadesh Conclave and Samman 2023 took off with great elan. The annual event, organised by Balaji Foundation in association with APN News, was themed “Influential India”. It was a meeting ground for influencers who had engaged with policymakers and shared their transformative content. Over 300 social media influencers were felicitated for their achievements at the event.
The growth vision of the country was also discussed in the Swadesh Conclave. Well-known personalities such as Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare SP Singh Baghel, BJP MP Rajyavardhan Rathore, BJP MP and well-known singer-actor Manoj Tiwari, Senior Supreme Court Advocate and ILRF Chairman Pradeep Rai, famous singer Udit Narayan, singers Mame Khan and Madhushree and other celebrities attended the event.
The Conclave was inaugurated by the lighting of lamps by Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri. Ganesh Vandana was mellifluously sung by Madhushree. After the inauguration, Puri addressed the gathering and lauded the impact of real and reel influencers on India’s growth story in Amrit Kaal or golden age.
Singh said: “Influencers, you all are changemakers. I am a student of change. If you look at history, kings employed chroniclers to record history and it was written according to their likings. Our understanding of history is based on the account of chroniclers. Later on when the printing press came, the writing became more democratised. However, the media is still influenced by its owner. The owner’s influence shapes news and biases creep in. In a good demo cracy we are able to reconcile all these things. You influencers have brought about a sea change in the news content and cycle. News is no longer a 12 hour or 18 hour cycle. It is a continuous flow and news which is underplayed by traditional media can be played up by social media. An ever increasing social media subscriber base ensures that influencers will have a powerful reach and penetration. Don’t underestimate your influence. You have an influence to inform, mould opinion and create alternative narratives. Most importantly, because of the demographic and age advantage you enjoy, you will mould the real Amrit Kaal. Not only because you have an age advantage, but because you have an understanding advantage. An interaction between influencers and TV channels and other forms of traditional media will enhance the channels and give a sense of belonging, participation and contribution to the influencers.”
As India walks down the growth path, a new crop of people called Influencers has emerged. They are shaping public opinion related to nation building and societal issues and are role model in themselves. Swadesh Conclave recognised their contribution and commended, complimented and felicitated them.
Addressing the influencers, Rajshri Rai, Chairperson of Balaji Foundation and Managing Director, APN News and India Legal, said: “We organised the Swadesh Conclave with the purpose of channelising your strength for the good of the people. There is a value to each of your posts, there is an effect of each of your posts. The question is: how to use your posts and content for the betterment of the nation. India is changing and to hasten this change, there is a need for strong voices, popular voices, sincere voices. These are your voices. If there is someone who can bring a change in the nation and youth, it is you all. It is not by flaunting your million followers that this change can be brought about, but by speaking out. Today though we are witnessing growth, much more needs to be done. All is not well. Much positive action needs to be initiated. That is why we organised this Conclave—to deliberate what good can be done and how it can be done. We seek your contribution in this noble mission.”
Influencers have a positive role to play in nation building as well. Information about government policies and pro-people development work should reach the people at large. By close coordination between the government and influencers, a network is developed which can be used to disseminate government policies. Swadesh Conclave has provided a platform to social innovators who mould public opinion and helped them interface with government ministries. In fact, the ministers present at the Conclave gave their nod to a meet with influencers and to use their subscriber base to promote governmental policies.
Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare SP Singh Baghel gave a detailed report card of the government and projected India as the world’s top economy by 2047. He urged influencers to promote government schemes for the larger benefit. He said: “I am honoured to be present amidst celebrated influencers. At a time when social media is crossing the boundaries of nations and influencing billions, I find this interaction of great importance. You all are influencers whose voice reaches millions. I propose to enumerate some achievement of our government so that the words spread through you as well. The Ayushman card scheme is, in my opinion, the best of social welfare schemes. Our prime minister has experienced poverty and tribulations first hand and thus has taken welfare schemes seriously. Take, for example, the problem of open defecation. Women were the worst sufferers. Now subsidised toilets are built at a nominal cost. Cooking with wood was a health hazard. Womenfolk again faced the brunt. The government gave nine crore subsidised gas cylinders. I believe that Direct Benefit Transfer or DBT is the best abbreviation of the century. People who never saw the face of a bank opened zero balance accounts and received social benefit payments directly from the government. The middleman was cut out entirely. The widow pension scheme restored the honour of widowed women in the household. Ayushman Yojana is the biggest social welfare scheme of the country. It has saved the poor from the clutches of doctors and expensive medical treatment and 45 crore people benefitted from it. A network of primary health centres provides medical support to the local populace. Before 2014, there were seven All India Institute of Medical Sciences, now there are 22. Through the Jal Jeevan Mission, we have provided treated water and prevented the spread of many diseases. Our government has stressed the use for generic medicines. I ask you all to appeal to people to go for generic drugs in their local Jan Aushadhi Kendra. In the last nine years, we have made 700 medical colleges and are constantly increasing the seat capacity at medical colleges so that the shortage of doctors can be done away with. I salute all the achievers and prophesy that if you keep up the good social work, you will either embrace politics as a fruitful career or be awarded at the Rashtrapati Bhawan and all this will happen in Modi Raj.’’
With India riding the rising graph of economic development, the role of influencers has become critical. Influencers are catalysts in promoting and fostering development. They can be institutions, persons or a state.
Notably, most of the influencers gathered at the event were quite young. ILRF Chairman and Senior Advocate Pradeep Rai had a message for them: “I call these influencers young superstars. They have made their mark in diverse sectors like education, health, finance and many others. We are recognising and appreciating their contribution in nation building. These influencers have replaced mainstream media. I call them the brainstream media. They are impacting areas which are untouched and unexplored. Need based content is being generated by young minds and being disseminated far and wide by millions of their followers. The concept of influencers is based on the ancient Indian concept so aptly summed in the Sanskrit: Everywhere you go, make friends. All your followers are not only friends, but they also comment on your work. In other forms of media, you can’t directly comment on content originators, but in this case, you can directly put across your views and suggestions. This helps the influencers improve the content. You all are welcomed and appreciated by each and every section of society. Today some influencers make silly mistakes, and these attract punitive actions by the government. Legal action is also initiated as the IPC or IT Act provisions are slapped. I agree that if some wayward action is indulged in, some rectification is needed. I also believe that you all are fulfilling your jobs with full responsibility. If India has to become Vishwa Guru, you all gurus’ contribution has also to be appreciated and acknowledged.”
Incidentally, influencers, hailing from various sectors, collectively reach over 300 million people across the country. Hence their contribution to building a new India and advancing the government’s welfare schemes and projects can’t be overlooked.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, MP from Jaipur Rural and Olympic medallist at Double Trap Shooting, also graced the occasion. He applauded the effort to felicitate these young achievers and said: “I congratulate Pradeepji and Rajshriji and their full team for bringing all the glittering stars of new media under one roof. I appreciate the fact that you all took the initiative to felicitate those who connect with the hearts of the people. These people have the connect and connect means everything. All of you have faced challenges and difficulties and fought them with a never-say-die attitude. You achieved your dreams. This makes you a champion, this is the Olympics of life. I have also faced challenges in my life, faced tests and humiliations, but overcame everything to triumph at the Olympics.”
Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways, stressed the role of personal transformation in the overall nation building process. With a sizeable youth participation, Gadkari’s note struck a chord.
The Conclave also saw individuals and organisations who contributed to the growth of the country and helped in uplifting the society being honoured. The Swadesh Lifetime Achievement Award was given to industrialist Ratan Naval Tata and posthumously to Sulabh International founder Dr Bindeshwar Pathak. Swadesh Samman awardees also included Udit Narayan and Dr Ajay Chaudhary, the visionary pioneer who co-founded HCL in 1976 with five others and transformed the world with the microprocessor and computer.
Dr Chaudhary stressed the importance of technology and upskilling. “This is a parallel media which is democratising news and views dissemination. Now with the advent of artificial intelligence we can customise skill training. This is an important development. People need upskilling. What we have learned has become obsolete. We need to upgrade ourselves. Online training can be gainfully done to upgrade our skills,” he said.
Leading educationist Dr Craig Cook, principal of Woodstock School, Mussoorie, was also awarded Swadesh Samman for his contribution to the field of education. Dr Cook had spent 31 years in Asia and five years in India. He spoke about synergy of technology for school education for global harmony. He said: “Technology is the great disruptor. As technology grows by leaps and bounds, the challenge to remain ethical becomes paramount. In order to become more ethical, education must also look into the future. The why and how of knowledge should gain primacy over the what. Our responsibility is to create ethical students for society. The rise of artificial intelligence gives us the opportunity to engage with students with the ethics of knowing, ethics of knowledge production and the ethics of creation of a better world order.”
Udit Narayan, the golden voice of playback singing, sent the gathering into a frenzy as he belted out golden hits and foot tapping numbers from bygone decades. Visionary film producer and distributor Jayantilal Gada was also felicitated with Swadesh Samman. Gada is the distributor and presenter of the Hindi version of RRR, the Oscar winning film.
The Conclave concluded with a soul stirring rendition of nationalistic tunes, affirming the spirit of national unity.