Political strategist Prashant Kishor’s meeting with Vijay fuels debate in Tamil Nadu on the role of external advisors in election campaigns
War rooms have always been part of the electoral campaigns, all over the world. Even if one goes by the repeated to death rhetoric, ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ to explain a democratic government, any government invariably comes into existence only through strategies devised in the war room of the political party that triumphs. The ‘also ran’ parties in the elections, too, would have run their own war rooms. When this has been the reality all through the history of the ballot, the act of devising election strategy has suddenly assumed a controversial aura in Tamil Nadu, thanks to external strategists coming in to offer advice, of course for a price, under media glare.
The recent meeting of the founder president of Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam, Vijay, and his party associates with well-known election strategist Prashant Kishor was described as an outcome of ‘Pana Kozhuppu,’ a highly belittling term that can be loosely translated as ‘wealth arrogance,’ by the chief coordinator of Naam Tamilar Katchi, Seeman, provoking an immediate backlash on social media. Even if the term wealth arrogance is unacceptable, Seeman cannot be blamed for resenting the idea of roping in poll strategists from outside the State to draw campaign plans for State Assembly elections.
In fact, the idea of swinging popular votes in favour of a particular political party using the invariably cheap tactics of such spin doctors agitates against the basic concept of democracy, in which forming of governments should be by the people, of the people and for the people, and not by manipulators having no stakes in the State. That way Seeman was not wrong in wondering over the need for an outsider to come and swing votes in favour of a politician, wanting to rule the State, if he knew the people, the land, its resources and its pitfalls.
But as we all know that times have changed and most top parties use laptop holding strategists for working out their campaign styles in the present day context. Even the Congress party that captured the imagination of the nation as it was catapulted from the independence movement to the role of running the independent country has started going with the tide and consulting self-styled strategists who were otherwise into advertising. The only shift that those advertisement professionals, who were promoting brands of consumer goods, had to do was to sell a political party using the same skills they employed to change the buying pattern of people in the marketplace.
The advertisement professionals might have failed in the days of yore because people then did not support a party or a leader like they showed a preference for a type of soap or shampoo or shaving razor. Parties of those times – even leaders – were different, too, with ideologies driving them and policies framed according to the political beliefs and dogmas they stood for. So when a party that spearheaded the independence movement went to the people seeking their support to rule the country, it went without saying that they would have the interest of the nation first.
At the State level, too, when the DMK first sought people’s mandate, they were espousing the Dravidian ideology since all the top leaders came from the movement that advocated specific social and economic changes in society. So people, who were in agreement with what the movement stood for, voted for the candidates fighting the election under the same banner as there was no necessity to specially inform them through the media about what to expect from them. In fact, what the parties and their candidates stood for was conveyed through public meetings that were held all over the State at all times, particularly during elections.
The common people, too, attended those meetings that could stretch all through the night without any complaint of nuisance or disturbance or loss of sleep caused by blaring loudspeakers. But when people were annoyed by the pesky campaigns, they wanted restrictions and they were brought in at various levels. One, wall posters were banned in urban areas and writing on the wall was restricted and two, loudspeakers had to be switched off at a particular time. So unlike the early days of Indian democracy people cast their votes without knowing the name of their candidates. They also did not know their representative in the State Assembly or Parliament and above all did not bother to find out what the parties in the fray stood for, in terms of ideology.
It was then the strategists rushed in to fill the void in the political knowledge sphere. They were erudite people, as they believed, and had their fingers on the pulse of the voters. What will make a person vote for a party or candidate was something they knew and also possessed the trick to swing voters. Parties believed them and dished out funds. Initially it was a hush hush affair and nobody knew who was guiding whom. Then with the media digging deep, the strategists emerged with halos around their heads – say like Prashant Kishor. Yet, Vijay’s meeting with Kishor - DMK had engaged him in a past election and some persons now with Vijay, like Aadhav Arjuna and John Arokiaswamy, have worked for him – was just a sign of the times. Voters of Tamil Nadu, who cannot be swung by spin doctors, always stand out and Kishor has not always been successful.
