It is a special privilege for any practitioner of public relations to have been involved in a situation of crisis. A crisis, is an exciting time of danger and stimulus, which force organisations to truly think strategically as so much depends on success or failure. This means that instead of having to address oneself to a large number of relatively minor tactical PR issues, there is a virtual "state of war". Here one has to study all aspects of the corporate and political environment and identify all one's friends and enemies in order to formulate a strategic or tactical plan. From such an analysis comes a course for aggressive action because action is the key element in public relations. What you say mainly depends on what you do.

Public relations is all about action. News stories can only flow from noteworthy action. No newspaper of influence will otherwise take it seriously. It is things that are done that make news stories. One of the finest exponents of public relations in action was Mahatma Gandhi, whose actions jolted the Congress party out of being a virtual debating society, that only made war with words, into a mass movement with a commitment for positive action. Satyagraha was exactly what it meant action for truth and it is action and truth, which are the very foundations of public relations.
Truth, like beauty, is unfortunately to be found in the eyes of the beholder. It is the task of the public relations practitioner, therefore, to remove the blinkers from the eyes of those who do not see the truth by building an irrefutable body of facts, which makes the truth unassailable. The true definition of opinion is the absence of facts. If there are facts, there is no need for opinion. The collection of significant facts and their proper presentation is the foundation for destroying ignorance and other obstructions to the path of progress, which one seeks to achieve.

Another important element in successful public relations is the importance of imagery. Of being able to reduce the facts to a few simple ideas which can graphically illustrate the issues which are sought to be promoted. In this dimension also, there are few practitioners, who can better Mahatma Gandhi, who made a handful of common salt into a symbol of colonial tyranny and with the symbolic burning of imported cloth was able to focus on the problems of India's textile industry and handicrafts.

After many years of involvement with the marketing of tractors and my earlier exposure to market research and advertising, I found myself thrust suddenly into the middle of the greatest corporate war ever to have hit the Indian business scene. It was a long drawn out, three year campaign, vigorously contested between Swraj Paul, a well-known non-resident raider and two Indian companies, The Delhi Cloth Mills (DCM) and Escorts, although it was eventually left to Escorts to bear the brunt of the battle.

In early 1983, Swraj Paul started quietly purchasing shares first in DCM and then in Escorts that went totally unnoticed till the 11th of April when his quiet raid on the two companies was discovered. The matter was taken up immediately with the government and with a large number of industrial associations like FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHDCCI. Then there was an immediate hue and cry in the press concerning the injustice being done by a non-resident with almost unlimited borrowing power available in a foreign country who was trying to take over and destabilize the well-run Indian companies.

My department had a great deal of work to do, organizing the press meetings and conferences, arranging that the press was provided with background notes of available material, public statements, copies of journalistic opinion, etc. There was at that time no clear strategy and all the issues were rather muddled. There was a lot of speculation and wild gossip but no building blocks for an effective counter attack.

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