Our Tech Futures: Digital Diplomacy, A Practitoner's View

Digital Diplomacy: A Practitioner's View

Diplomacy has two essential dimensions, each feeding into and complimenting the other. The first is to achieve the Foreign Policy goals of a country. In India’s case it is to facilitate the internal transformation of India by leveraging the external environment. The vehicles of India's transformation are the people and resources within India, India’s foreign partners and the Indian diaspora. We as Indian diplomats have to link and connect the last two to the first and vice versa. The second dimension is Public Diplomacy which basically means reacting and responding substantively with the operating environment, both within the country and outside the country and also obtaining feedback from it. It needs to operate in an incessant and virtuous loop.

Diplomacy has changed in the 20th century and even more so in the 21st century. In a conventional sense, diplomacy comprised of communication between governments, not direct communication between a foreign government and population of another. It could have been regarded as a breach of sovereignty. Between the invention of the radio and social media, the meaning has totally changed with a strong element of Public Diplomacy, a term first heard in the 1920-30s featuring in the diplomatic tool box. If we refer to the radio age then BBC, VOA were and still are tools of Public Diplomacy of these powers. 

When we talk about Digital Diplomacy, there are various aspects that need to be considered. Does it only affect Public Diplomacy or does it also make and influence the craft and practice of Diplomacy. There seem to be two schools of thought regarding Digital Diplomacy. The first claims that it is a new tool in the conduct of Public Diplomacy. The second maintains that it increases the ability to interact with both domestic and foreign public and actively engage with them thereby enabling the transition from monologue to dialogue and thereby influences diplomacy as a whole. So perhaps the best definition of Digital Diplomacy would incorporate both perspectives and state that: Digital Diplomacy is the growing use of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and social media platforms by a country in order to achieve its Foreign Policy goals and practice Public Diplomacy.

Digital Diplomacy is thus the use of ICTs to help achieve diplomatic objectives. I would not restrict digital diplomacy to only Public Diplomacy. I would like to posit that it is the use of digital technologies in and by the Foreign offices, be it for internal management, consular work or reaching out to people. 

Prime Minister Modi has placed "Digital India” at the heart of India’s development strategy. The objective is to create a digitally empowered society and infuse technology into government, healthcare and education. The Ministry of External Affairs (Indian Foreign Office) have taken a lead in implementing the Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India. 

Digital technologies have changed the way how we work within the Indian Foreign Office. And here one is not referring to computerisation, data storage and use of email and the internet. We are increasingly using several next generation digital technologies to change the way we work and communicate. Notable among them is eSamikhsa, an online application for data collection and analysis and very recently launched online dashboard of MEA which allows to communicate to people on a real time basis what we are doing. Here are some ways in which we are using digital technologies: 

A: Digital tools have helped in improving internal management and communications:
(i) Better internal management, MEA dashboard, Online Collaboration Sheets (OCS) sheets, Intranet, eSamiksha; 
(ii) Grievance redress- Twitter has emerged as an important tool for this. With no intermediaries, even a common citizen can reach out to the senior most functionaries. The use of digital tools has strengthened democracy; 
(iii) New opportunities for external engagement: in these times it is impossible to convey what we do and what we think without the use of the new tools. Emails are dinosaurs. They come in waves and if you miss checking your mails one day, you are drowned. So dashboard based monitoring and responding is the only sure way of communicating. At the Consulate level we have developed Pramit or Pravasi Mitra. Pramit is a dashboard based web application/response management system which assures 100% response within one business day. No query is missed, no one is left behind; 
(iv) Consular emergencies, both at personal level and at a national/international level, we are just a tweet away. One just tweets tagging us with a personal inconvenience and we respond within minutes and 
(v) Use of Twitter and Facebook during the evacuations that we did, most recently in Yemen. These help in sharing information and bringing people together by mobilizing people for common action. 

B. Public Diplomacy: Use of Social Media gives us enormous power in communication. Countries such as India who do not have a BBC or VOA or Russia Today have these social media tools available to us and we also have been able to develop enormous outreach similar to other leading powers of the world. Digital Diplomacy through Social Media has made dialogue possible replacing monologue of the earlier avatar of Public Diplomacy. Such two way communication offers more opportunities for engagement with foreign public and domestic stakeholders. 

But Public Diplomacy is more than just having Social Media tools at one’s disposal. A modern diplomat has to be well versed in writing both telegrams and tweets. In some ways the luxuries of the past i.e. the telegram and the diplomatic bag have all but disappeared. Now it is instant communication. We have to show nimbleness in communication, reading and digesting social media and making sense of it is a continuous task. In Digital Diplomacy Content is the key. Also staying on the message, positive messaging and never to get involved in spats, negativity and criticism of others is the hallmark of the Indian digital diplomacy.  Our Foreign Office has been very fortunate as it has been led from the top. Our leaders have shown us the path. 

However, one cannot afford being carried away in Social Media interactions. We are not soldiers in a trolling army. We cannot always be reactive to the environment. As diplomats we have to find time and space for contemplation and analysis. We are not only reporters. We are also creators of news. Just retweeting tweets doesn’t make one a digital diplomat. Just having a Twitter or  a Facebook account doesn’t mean that an organization is digitally savvy or is digital in its outreach and approach. 

There are also many challenges and limitations to Digital Diplomacy as well: Getting the digital code in the DNA of foreign office is the key. The fear, resistance, apprehension has to mitigate. Also at the end of it all Digital Public Diplomacy can only be practiced with members of the digital society. Are those who are not digitally literate beyond the purview of the Digital Diplomacy? That is the question that all practitioners of Digital Diplomacy have to deal with.  

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Moving from the general to the specific, I here narrate some personal experiences of being a 'digital diplomat', both using it for internal management and for Public Diplomacy. I must confess that I have transformed from being wary of Tweeter to now being tweeple. In the late 2000s I was wary as my former boss, was a pioneer in the use of Twitter for political messaging but was always getting into trouble with his bosses because of his tweets. So I’d advise him to refrain from tweeting. But he was certainly ahead of his times and was confident that people would get used to his tweets. I understand now what he had meant.

Presently, in the Consulate , we are active on a frequently updated Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn. We have brought about uniformity in our addresses: all our platforms have the same handle, simple and easy to remember, use and communicate- @indiainnewyork.  A confession is also in order. In a bid to reach out to young people, we tried to be on Snapchat. But we haven't been able keep pace with it as it is just too fast and ephemeral for us. Another advice that we have been getting from media consultants worth sharing is that Facebook is a more reliable Social Media platform than Twitter. This is because it is much more difficult to open a Facebook account than a Twitter account. So the genuineness of the person interacting with us is better established on Facebook. On Twitter we frequently encounter nameless and faceless persons who troll us or are abusive and make unreasonable demands. 

Our Website is the most visited platform. Since we revamped it in June 2018, it has registered almost 1.7 million hits, more than 100,000 hits a month. Hosting of our web application Pramit on the website encourages people to visit our website. This makes our web application serve a dual purpose- it forces a behavioral change in the applicant as he/she use the app to reach out to us. As the app is located on our website, the applicant is obliged to visit the website and then see for himself/herself what is happening at the Consulate. 

Being posted to New York where we use Social Media extensively in our daily diplomatic duties, I can cite several cases of timely and effective use of Social Media to help to contain and manage tricky and difficult situations. In October 2017 there was a terror attack in Manhattan. The news spread like wildfire in India. From the very beginning the question on our mind was about Indian victims. We reached out to our NYPD friends and were able to find out that there were no victims of Indian origin. This news was promptly put out on Twitter and helped in calming anxiety. Another case of effective use of Twitter which comes readily to mind is the attack on an Indian Swamiji (monk) in Queens, New York. I immediately reached out to him, met him and tweeted a picture with him conveying that he was well and police had arrested the assailant. This was picked up by the Indian media and effectively dealt with rising concerns in India. Another example was the murder of members of a Sikh family in Ohio. I immediately spoke to the Police and family members and could determine that it was not a hate crime. This view was promptly tweeted and once again we were able to deal with a potentially explosive situation. 

Another example of constructive use of Social Media comes to mind. After the Pulwana terror attack, Viveik Patel, a young man from Virginia, started a drive on Facebook to collect funds for the victims. I was one of the first to endorse him and many people reached out to me about the authenticity of the person. I asked him and some of the persons who had doubts to come and see me in the Consulate. They all came and we had a meeting where Viveik explained his model and said that there was no way he could misuse the funds. We agreed to send the money to the Bharat ke Veer account operated by the Ministry of Home Affairs. We took a picture and posted on Facebook and Twitter which was shared widely. Our endorsement removed doubts and this fund on Facebook went on to raise more than a million dollars. Later on we worked with the American India Foundation to transfer the money to Bharat ke Veer. A proactive role by us on Social Media allowed for raising funds for a worthwhile cause in India. These cases highlight the power of Social Media tools and the need to use them quickly and effectively when the situation arises. Today;s diplomats have to be Social Media Savvy.  Diplomats need to shun the stock phrase - I’m not Social Media or Tech savvy. If you are not Tech or Social Media savvy can you be savvy Diplomat? 

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