In 2009, a revolution took shape. A black man with mixed heritage ascended to
the most powerful position in the world by being elected as President of the
United States, beating all odds. His message of change was not spread by
gunshots, but by telephone and cable lines across the 50 states of the US. The
medium became almost as powerful as the message itself.
Over April and May 2009, this Obama template was put to its most rigorous
test in the largest democratic election of the world: the 15th Lok Sabha
elections that took place amidst much rancor and pain. With over eight lakh
polling stations and around 400 million people casting their votes, this was the
mother of all elections across the world.
Coming of cyber politics
It is not as if the political parties suddenly discovered the Internet as a
medium, both the Congress and the BJP have had online presence for a long time.
For instance, years ago, Congress leader Jagdish Tytler had launched an online
forum while for BJP it was their tech savvy leader Pramod Mahajan. In fact, BJP
had launched its own website and formed an IT cell way back in 1997. The rest,
like the Communist Party of India (CPI), Telugu Desam Party, Shiv Sena,
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and the rest, all have a web presence.
Nonetheless, the parties this time moved to the next stage, from static
website to interactive Internet strategies. Again, the Obama template comes into
play. According to reports, the biggest game changer for Obama was his community
building exercise, which included an impressive 13 million e-mail addresses and
some two million friends on his social networking site. Not surprisingly,
parties are trying to emulate the same in India by actively using technology to
reach out to the electorate.
The Saffron Winner
In this cyber race, without an iota of doubt, it was the saffron party that
took the lead over its competitors. Numerous announcements emanated from the IT
cell headquarters in Delhi, like the revamping of its party website (bjp.org)
and the launch of a blog by the prime ministerial candidate LK Advani (blogs.lkadvani.in).
Going by the figures, septuagenarian Advani was the most tech-active leader
right now in India, posting blogs, chatting online, videos, images, and the
works. Not only that there was a user group named 'Friends of the BJP', that
religiously updated videos and blogs on different websites like YouTube and
Orkut. According to BJP, its website www.lkadvani.com which was launched on
November 8, 2008, was getting 20,000 unique hits everyday during the election
campaign. The site boasted of some 150 archives, 300 photos, and some 700 pages
of textual content.
The 'Cyber Chanakya for BJP' was Prodyut Bora, the convener of the party's IT
cell. The IIM-Ahemedabad alumni had a robust gameplan for the party and tied up
the Advani website with social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, etc.
Waking giant
Congress (I) was initially slow to respond to the online onslaught but soon
it woke up to the challenge. After initiali hibernation, the party portal
projected a clean and revamped look.
The party launched an online video community on YouTube, and there were
scores and scores of Rahul fanclubs on Facebook and Orkut. Yet, the party never
launched an individual blog or website for its biggest face in the election,
Rahul Gandhi.
And the followers
So, where were the rest of the political parties when it came to cyberspace,
one might wonder. Another technocrat who expectedly did well was Chandrababu
Naidu and his Telugu Desam Party.
The comrades too belatedly woke up to the power of the web. They launched a
video community on YouTube to spread their message; and their website (cpim.org)
was updated regularly. But even so there is still some amount of scepticism in
the minds of the comrades when it comes to using technology. “In a poor land
like ours, canvassing and public meetings will be the mainstay for political
parties. Such online campaigns can be a successful model for the US where
Internet penetration is 100 percent; I have my doubts about India,” said
Prasanjeet Bose, Convenor-Research Unit, CPM.
Beyond that, there was not much action in terms of political parties. Though
prime ministerial candidate, Mayawati was supposedly going to launch her own
blog, the party website itself (bahujansamajp.com) was not updated for a long
long time. The last time it was done was in August 2008. Samajwadi Party (samajwadipartyindia.com)
and RJD also seem to be oblivious to the power of the Internet, having
rudimentary websites put up. That is much the case with the rest of the regional
parties like Shiv Sena, NCP, etc. In fact, firebrand Mamata Banerjee's website (trinamoolcongress.com)
did not work at all.
In conclusion
What these elections taught was that there are a lot of advantages that the
parties can draw from the Internet. For instance, the election code of conduct
is still not clear, on how the promotion on the Internet can be effected. For
instance, all campaigning in other mediums has to end 24 hours before the
polling, but candidates can still reach out to their communities through online
websites even at the last minute. This advantage can be exploited by the parties
in future till there is an explicit direction given by the Election Commission.
But whether this entire web push resulted in gains on the ground is still
debatable. It did work in the US, but whether it really worked in India this
time is still a far-fetched question. The Obama template had little relevance to
the bulk of the 400 million voters that actually elected 543 MPs in India on the
basis of caste, creed and Rs 2 per kg rice promises. Nonetheless, this was a
preliminary round and surely by 2014, the Internet will be a powerful medium
without doubt. As more and more Indians log on to the Internet it is inevitable.
So while gunpowder brought revolutions and power till some decades back; it will
be copper in the future. And this year's election might just give an indication
of the same.
Shashwat DC
(Courtesy: DQ)