Conflict Communication: Chronicles of a Communicator

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I. Ramamohan Rao is a widely respected name in media circles in India. He joined the Press Information Bureau in 1956, and was later inducted into the Indian Information Service when it was created and headed the organization for a little over seven years before he superannuated. Rao has been a communicator in various capacities, right from the times of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. He served with the United Nations Emergency Force in the Gaza Strip and edited the Sand Dune, the weekly magazine of the Force. Rao was involved in the communication facilities during the Chinese Aggression in 1962, the post war efforts to rebuild the defenses of the country, and reporting on conflict from the field as a Public Relations Officer during the India-Pakistan War of 1965, and the Defense Headquarters in Delhi during the 1971 India-Pakistan War, which saw the emergence of Bangladesh. Later, he served as the head of the Information Division of the Research and Analysis Wing, and Chief Editor of the Indian and Foreign Review. On return to the Defence Ministry as Director of Public Relations, Ramamohan Rao was actively involved in projecting events like the Asiad, the Non-Aligned Summit and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Delhi. He headed the News Services Division of the All India Radio during the turbulent years, which saw the Blue Star Operations and, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rao was the Principal Spokesman of the Government of India under four Prime Ministers: Rajiv Gandhi, V. P. Singh, Chandrashekar and Narasimha Rao. He was actively involved in counter propaganda in Sri Lanka, when India sent peacekeeping forces to that country. Later he played an effective role in countering a proxy-war promoted by Pakistan in Punjab and in Jammu and Kashmir. He was also involved in assisting communication efforts during and after the Kargil Operations. Ramamohan Rao was also a visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. For the last one decade, he has been actively involved in interacting with young journalists in the multi-media news agency, Asian News International. His experiences as a communicator would be useful to communicators, journalists, civil servants and academicians.