What Happened
The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh launched a public campaign inviting citizens to share videos exposing poor conditions in government schools. Within days, the same government pivoted and ordered police cases against people who submitted videos deemed misleading. Officials were then sent to physically verify the complaints. A public invitation became a public prosecution.
The Communication Angle
Here is the core problem: you cannot open a door and then arrest people for walking through it.
The "School Thik Karo" campaign was, on paper, a strong move. Crowdsourcing accountability signals transparency. It tells citizens their voice matters. It generates real-time ground data that bureaucrats would never surface on their own. Done right, this is a masterclass in participatory governance communication. The government looked like it was listening.
Then came the FIRs. And everything collapsed.
What they did: They created a feedback channel with no defined rules of engagement. No criteria for what counted as a legitimate complaint. No process for flagging disputed content before escalating to criminal charges. No buffer between public submission and government response. The campaign was built like a megaphone with no filter. When some content turned out to be exaggerated or politically motivated (which happens in every open submission process, always), the government had no graceful exit. So they reached for the bluntest tool available: the police.
What they should have done: Define the rules before you open the gates. A simple public statement at launch, something like "Submitted videos will be reviewed by district officials within 14 days. Verified complaints trigger action. Unverifiable or fabricated content will be noted and rejected," would have done the job. That one sentence changes everything. It sets expectations. It gives the government a legitimate off-ramp. It tells bad-faith actors upfront that manipulation carries a cost. And critically, it lets good-faith citizens know their submissions have a real process behind them.
The FIR order did not just damage the campaign. It retroactively poisoned the original invitation. Now every person who submitted a genuine video is wondering if they are next. That is the communication catastrophe here: the government did not just lose credibility on schools. They lost credibility as a listener. And that is far harder to rebuild.
The comparison is simple. One approach says: "We invited you in and we have a system." The other says: "We invited you in and now we decide, after the fact, whether we approve of what you said." Only one of those builds long-term public trust. The other builds fear.
This is exactly the kind of scenario I break down in "Say It Right Every Time." The chapter on setting communication contracts covers how to establish expectations before a high-stakes conversation or campaign so that both sides know the rules. A communication contract is not legal language. It is a clear, upfront statement of process. It protects you and it respects the other person. The Uttar Pradesh government needed one badly.
Never Be Lost
for Words Again
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Never Be Lost
for Words Again
Get word‑for‑word scripts for the conversations that shape your life, from job interviews and negotiations to difficult talks with family and partners, so you always know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Key Takeaway
Before you launch any public feedback campaign, internal survey, or open-door initiative, write down one sentence that explains what happens to submissions you disagree with or cannot verify. Write it before you go public. If you cannot write that sentence clearly, you are not ready to open the channel. That single sentence is what separates a credibility-building initiative from a trap you set for yourself.
