The Oldest Tweets (My Column in Sakal Newspaper)

 

By Dhiraj Singh

Emperor Ashok was perhaps the ‘Father of Mass Communication’ as he scattered across his empire stone edicts that conveyed his revolutionary ideas to the world. The stone edicts survive to this day and many facets about his style of governance and even his personality are known through them. For example, that he considered himself as the ‘Beloved of the gods’ or Devanampiya which in today’s day and age may seem too full of self-love but Ashok was trying to be different from those who had come before him.

The most effective communication is one that involves an urgency. Ashok’s urgency was that he wanted his new-found faith—the Buddhist ‘Dhamma’ to be known and accepted as the new way of life. We all know that the Kalinga war changed Ashok in a very significant way. Gone was the emperor who wanted to conquer every principality and kingdom in his neighbourhood and in its place had emerged a statesman who saw great virtue in compassion towards not just humans but all living beings.

We see this kind of urgent communication in modern democracies too where parties and leaders seeking to be elected by the people create slogans and manifestos that project them as the revolutionary change that everyone had been waiting for.

Many people wonder how a few words can change people’s hearts and minds forever, how words written on stone, or paper or spoken or written and spoken in digital space can alter people’s way of thinking. But with Ashok’s example we see that it is possible. What Ashok’s wars failed to achieve, his words resonating through the length and breadth of his empire as stone edicts, did far more effectively. His ideas about peace and justice and an end to violence spread way faster not just to modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka but travelled all the way up to China as Buddhist missionaries spread out in different directions. The stone edicts erected in busy public places were meant to be read by one and all. He was like a one-man Twitterverse of the ancient world, with millions of followers.

Ashok was a communication pioneer the likes of whom the world had never seen and his impact can still be felt as we look at our national flag or the currency notes that we use daily to buy goods and services. That is the true power of communication. And it was taught to us way before the invention of the internet or the television and radio or even the printing press.

Dhiraj Singh is a well-known journalist, author, artist and TV personality whose latest novel ‘MASTER O’ is a sci- fi political thriller. He is currently Director, School of Media & Communication & The Idea Lab, MIT-World Peace University, Pune

Dhiraj Singh is a well-known journalist, author, artist and TV personality whose latest novel ‘MASTER O’ is a sci-fi political thriller. He is currently Director, School of Media & Communication & The Idea Lab, MIT-World Peace University, Pune