It's no secret that Indians love their politics. Yet in the past few weeks the country seems to have had an overkill of the feverish run-up to the 2014 polls. With the government in New Delhi tottering in the aftermath of series of domestic and international stand-offs, poll pundits predicting early elections have set the nation abuzz. But something is different this year.
The hype of the hashtag wars
The campaign has always been aggressive, the media obsessed and drama aplenty. Yet it has not been the year of the sound-byte, but one of a sound-byte "seen to be driven" by hashtags. In an era of instant judgments, which television honchos are often criticized for orchestrating - this time the pressure seems to have doubled. The social media has changed not just the ecology of news production by taking the lead; it has also added a "googly" to the playing field in politics.
A widely quoted research report predicts that 160 of the Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 polls will be affected by social media, making a specific mention of tier two cities. Research on social media users in India predicts that by next year 80 million people will be hooked on to social networks and handheld devices may hold the key to beating technological barriers.
The numbers are astounding. Consequently the reactions are "trending".
"Of the 160 High Impact Constituencies, the study said Indian states- Maharashtra (21) and Gujarat (17) were high on the list followed by Uttar Pradesh (14), Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (12 each), Andhra Pradesh (11), Kerala (10) and Mahdya Pradesh (9) with the remaining being accounted by a few other states".
According to the report the High Impact Constituencies are those where the numbers of Facebook users are more than the margin of victory of the winner in the last Lok Sabha election, or where Facebook users account for over 10% of the voting population. In an era of coalition politics and fractured political fortunes, these numbers are like neon signs reading untapped potential. The young "debutante" voter is the fresh constituency that needs to be captured and so the gloves are off.
In the past few weeks, India has been overexposed to punditry by PR-specialists of both the (ruling) Congress party and the (opposition) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). If there was a speech by Congress Party scion Rahul Gandhi at the CII (Confederation of Indian Industries), there were three more by Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, the projected (not yet official) prime ministerial candidate of the BJP.
One even organized by a powerful media house showcasing Modi's thoughts on everything from governance efficiency to foreign policy. At face value, it almost seemed akin to the presidential style debates one sees in the US, a novelty for the Indian voter. Except here the debates were done in isolation.
And so the hashtag wars begun. Television studios became platforms for analyzing every word the two spoke, with live feeds of Twitter, Facebook and other social media reactions driving hours of endless coverage. The virtual arena saw the clash between Modi and Rahul supporters get ugly.
Derogatory colloquial nicknames: Rahul#PappuCII vs Modi#Feku were trending, according to media reports there were 40,200 #PappuCII tweets and 45,700 #Feku tweets until April 9. (For the uninitiated, Pappu (here used for anti-Rahul rants) roughly translates into simpleton and Feku (used for Modi-bashing) is Hindi slang for a person known to bluff/gloat.)
Rebranding strategies
There was intense debate and speculation on how after trailing the BJP which has very structured and robust social media presence, the Congress has invested in striking back with a social media strategy to regain lost ground. Even at the governmental level the UPA has woken up and is reportedly putting together a new social media strategy.
This after it was heaped with scathing criticism for mishandling the social media triggered mass exodus of northeast Indians from the mainland, following ethnic riots in Assam last year. Recent moves of regulating Internet content from screening social media to allegations of moral policing have done more damage to the Internet savvy image the government is trying to portray.
This new strategy aimed at negating the criticism, will involve reportedly, setting up a special cell in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to focus on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Hangout and the like, to promote UPA's achievements and to counter proactively any undesirable propaganda. A programme to enroll people with Internet connection and strong social media presence as digital volunteers for disseminating government messages and policies has already taken off.
Google Hangout hosted recently the finance minister to take on direct questions from netizens on the budget and the larger economic health of India. This was immediately followed up by a discussion with the head of the planning commission and other officials - which triggered tongue-in-cheek media discussions on how officials were coping with the 140 character limitation to simplify access and attract attention to lengthy government documents.
There are many more such examples - including the debut of the Indian Post office on Twitter which apart from highlighting its achievements aims to act as a direct mechanism for grievance redressal. All of this goes to prove that despite its love/hate relationship with social media, the government of India has recognized the opportunities provided by the medium both for participative governance and as brand building exercise. Yet the tendency more often than not is to use the medium as a broadcast platform not as a feedback loop.
It was only in April 2012, that the government finally put together a draft on a framework and guidelines for use of social media by government organizations. It organized its first ever "live Twitter conference" in February this year.
At the level of state legislatures too, the exploration of the medium has been cautious and un-uniform, often depending entirely on individual leadership initiatives. The point being, that the foray into social media and utilizing its potential to connect with the masses by the government is fairly nascent and a work-in-progress. In fact many young politicians believe that the status quo-ist nature and mindset of Indian politics is often the biggest hurdle for engagement.
Beyond the numbers
In essence, if reaching out to constituencies through participative governance and redressal via social media were yardsticks to measure engagement and consequently impact of social media outreach efforts on voter preferences, then it is too early to do so. There are problems with accepting on face value the assertion that social media may swing the 2014 elections at multiple levels.
First, the most basic argument - there is a realistic understanding among most political parties in India today, including the ruling congress party that they are dealing with two India's - one which is dominating the social media space and other offline movements, demanding that governance meets aspirations of citizens and gets more accountable.
The other India is still struggling with basic issues of poverty, food deprivation, unemployment, health and basic social infrastructure support. While the trends are slowly changing now, as we saw with the Gujarat elections where Modi, the incumbent chief minister, was able to draw out the urban voter, the same cannot be said for the rest of India. Here more often than not the people queuing outside poll booths belong to the other India.
In fact in a discussion held in New Delhi by the foundation of media professionals over the weekend on "whether Internet and social media be a game changer in the next general elections" attended by representatives of the government, opposition, socially active parliamentarians and media experts - the house voted that while social media had forced the Indian government and the Indian politician to engage, become accountable, opened up democratic dialogue and be seen as alternative to mainstream media, it had "still not reached the tipping point to swing elections yet, it was two/three election cycles away in doing so".
So social media remains one among many platforms available to political parties to communicate with their constituencies, and is not yet the most influential one.
Second, even if one were to accept that social media penetration into the Indian heartland has grown manifold, it remains at 5% at the macro level, which is well below the global average figures. Coupled with this is the problem of infrastructure. Google Chairman, Eric Shmidt who was in India in March, warned that the country might "miss out on the Internet revolution if Internet infrastructure was not revamped."
India's lagging behind in terms of the web services model followed by rest of the world, confusion and regulatory uncertainty over spectrum policy are leading to congested networks, and the unresolved debates over amending draconian laws governing the use of the Internet are among the many problems that still need to be navigated.
While handheld devices which circumvent technical barriers are being seen as the game changer, they are yet to hit the markets. So the impact of social media will perhaps be felt much stronger in the future.
Finally even in terms of e-governance linked with social media there is a problem on delivering in terms of content. At a very practical level given the diversity of India in terms of language, levels of education etc, social media engagement will mean creating and customizing local content, which will require substantial investment.
As the establishment tries to open itself up to citizen engagement, the large quantity of user feedback, will require investments in terms of social analytics if sense has to be made of the plethora of messages that will be received. On a broader national level there also an issue of mindset.
Irrespective of which party is in power, for the government, the use of the Internet has always focused on the technical goals of governance. Not much thought has been given to the aspect of content. The predicament of most government servants wanting to exploit the medium is the 'dos and don'ts' which are still being fine tuned, for they fear transgressions may result in professional setbacks.
Given the multitude of pulls and pressures governing social media space in India today, it is clearly too early to predict whether a "tweet" or a "like" will guarantee a vote. However given the mood of the nation, for the "argumentative Indian" the more avenues for debate and democratization of information, the more chances of a healthier democracy - social media will surely supplement this exercise. The focus needs to be brought back to the message and not so much the medium.
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