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In my early childhood my grandfather
usually use to narrate fairy tales before we sleeps. These tales,
some times, includes that of the Kings and Queens, Czars, Sultan,
Nawabs and Maharaja's and that of brave Queens of Rajputana. We
all were very demanding about the tales of the pomp of Queen
Elizabeth I and the Nizam's of Hyderabad and that of the bravery
of Rani of Jhansi. Being expert in 'dastangoie' - story telling,
he enthralls us with the bravery and pomp of the royals of
different parts of the world.
On being confronted why the royalty from across the world is fast
vanishing from the scene he would philosophically console us that
in the emerging democracies only five Kings/Queens would survives,
four of the playing cards and fifth of the royals of Britain. The
last century had seen the downfall of many great royals and the
emergence of the dictators who had overthrown the royals in the
name of democracies.
Thirty years back, as a school student, I was amongst one of the
approximate 750 million viewers from across the globe who had seen
the TV coverage of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady
Diana Spencer and being in obsession of the British royalty, after
toring had carried home the central pages of a prominent weekly,
from my school library, which had carried the fascinating pictures
of the royal wedding.
The words of my grandfather, whom we all calls 'Abbu', about the
survival of the British royals haunts my mind off and on. What I
had understood about the reason of their survival is their art of
adjusting with the trends of the time. The only known gloomy days
on the British royalty was during their strain relations with
Diana and in the aftermath of untimely death of Diana, the
people's princess, in a car accident in France because of the
chase by paparazzi.
Being smart and perfect in surviving in the era of onslaught of
the democratic storms, the British royals had always kept
themselves a step ahenad of the changing times. Before the wedding
of Prince William, the eldest son of Diana, the Princess of Wales,
with Kate Middleton a commoner, the royals and the groom had used
all modern technologies to reach to the people in every hook and
corner of the world by using all social means from Face Book to
YouTube and from Official website to twitter account and Flicker
Pages to their advantage in publicising the royal wedding and
creating an environment of curiosity amongst the world community.
Son of a socialite princess who was patron or head of around 100
charities during her marriage time, Prince William had tried his
best to walk on the foot steps of his charming mother and himself
is President of England Football Association apart from
successfully organising, along with his younger brother, Prince
Harry, a star studded Charity Concert on what would have been the
46th birthday of Princess Diana in 2007 at Wembley Stadium and
again another Charity Concert to mark the 10 anniversary of the
death of their mother in the year 2008.
The royals had chosen the announcement of the engagement of Prince
William and Catherine Middleton on the twitter account of Prince
Charles, six months before the wedding, with the sole purpose to
encourage social media to become part of the royal hullabaloo.
The official website for the royal wedding had carried the eye
catching photo of the engaged couple clicked by renowned
photographer Mario Testino, who had got the privilege to shoot
some of the remarkable and historic snaps of Princess Diana, the
mother of Prince William. On twitter account the curious were
daily updated with the wedding preparations with accompanying
photos.
The royal wedding had become the first in releasing its music
online on iTunes within hours of the wedding and the vowes of the
wedding couple would be released in CD's by the end of the first
week of May 2011. On the desire of Prince William, YouTube had
telecasted the live streams of the wedding along with the Royal
Channel and the viewership had crossed more than a billion across
the globe.
Middle East being in storm of the democratic movements was also
used by the royals for their advantage. In spite of the British PM
David Cameroon magnanimity in accepting the error on part of the
British Government in believing that Muslims can not manage
democracy during his visit to Cairo, after the downfall of Hosni
Mobarak, the royals first issued and than withdrew their invite to
the ambassador of Syria citing the repressive measures by the
Assad's regime to quell the democratic movement, after sensing the
high rate of criticism in human rights watchers in UK and its
coverage in media.
With their clever moves, the royal family which has been known for
its traditional moves since time immemorial has decided to follow
the principle of 'if you cant beat them, join them' perfectly in
consonance of the demand and necessity of becoming part of the new
media and that makes them to survive with changing times.
(The writer is
Secretary, South Asian Council for Minorities (SACM) and can be
reached at navaidhamid@gmail.com)
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