Social Media and 2014 Elections in India

In the campaigning for the 2014 Assembly Elections in India, Social Media surely is neck and neck with the mainstream media (MSM). There are dedicated IT cells of every major party and especially of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, who have been steadily building up the social media offensive over the past several months. And now with just a few more weeks before the election process comes to a close on 16 May, it's an all out blitzkrieg, with ad agencies, party workers, loyal supporters and volunteers providing equal amount of firepower. And all this for building up favourable opinion among friends, family, followers and the occasional passer-by (page visitor), who form a large chunk of the Indian electorate.

Even MSM has jumped on to the Social Media bandwagon, for airing and publishing election stories and debates. Hashtag wars on Twitter are being used by MSM during debates and interviews, as well as for providing bytes of viewers' opinions during these programs. Facebook is being used for promoting articles, hashtags playing a lesser role here. Facebook is also being used for organizing and promoting interviews by MSM channels. Then there are Hangouts on Google+ which are being used for interviewing party candidates or for interaction with the voters, which are aired live.

Besides the major three SM networks, there are the usual blogs, YouTube videos, ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions and several more ways in which the interwebs is influencing the 2014 mandate in India.

One important message everyone is airing is for the voters to go out and vote. Polling numbers have been encouraging in the first 3 phases, and is expected to be a lot better than earlier elections in the remaining 6 phases.

This election in India is being fought as much online as it is being fought in the minds of the voter, and in the real world!

How many deaths, will it take?

As crops rot, millions go hungry in India, screams one among many of today's gloomy headlines. This scream is heard far too often, questions are raised but, as with any matter of development of the country, the UPA government puts up a political gimmickry - forming another panel, laying out another plan, and the cycle continues. Next, more people will die, more grains would rot.

Any sane person (most politicos do not qualify) would say: "Wouldn't the situation go towards being better, if you'd have spent some time and money on developing infrastructure of the country - building half decent food storage facilities, building roads, building ports? I mean, spend perhaps a fraction of your time that you spend in defending those corrupt scumbags of your ministry. Hey, the last decent major infrastructure project I remember was more than 10 years ago during NDA reign, when you scumbags were cooling your heels in the opposition."

Government of India says: "No can do. You see, 5 years is too short a time to be even planning and managing to get the next term. We hardly manage to sneak in. And that's what we'd spend our time on - we'd launch (and not work on) populist projects just prior to re-election, we'd dole out goodies to the poor and buy their support."

The same person: "And what do you do during the rest of your tenure, ignoble Sir?"

Government of India says: "As you rightly said, we spend time defending our corrupt compatriots in arm. The Rajas, the Pawars, the Karunanidhis, the Mayawatis, the Laloos, the Reddys of the world needs to be protected from the vulgars - you. Only then would they get my back (read pelf) during re-elections. What? 3000 children are dying daily. They don't vote."

The vulgar: "But what about your promises? About development, about roads, about electricity, about water, about food, about keeping prices in check?"

Government of India says: "Did we say that? I guess something needs to be done. What about making these trickle through to some disgruntled populace during our re-election bid? You see, it all boils down to staying in power and coming back to power. What if we have millions of hands to do it, why would we do it now when we are losing nothing with the status quo? You see, development will open people's mind. Development in transportation, development in telecommunication, development in education - these would all make people connected. The vulgars would start opining on matters - all and sundry. We don't want that. Hush now. You want that Internet of yours to remain connected or not?"

And, that, my friend, is the flip side of the growth story that India is.

"Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?" - Bob Dylan

~ MT

** Minor edits for brevity **