Opinion: Politics is changing in India! Social media clearly stands out this election

New Delhi: Till recently, identity politics meant something different. It referred to doing politics based on caste, community, language, religion, geography or even gender. These identity indices cannot be wished away.

But the current elections have clearly heralded a departure from this. The start of the end of such identity politics has started. Now the new identity is in caps.

There is the Aam Aadmi cap, which was crudely copied by the saffron cap of BJP, leading to Seva Dal cap of Congress and Red Cap of the Samajwadi Party having a re-birth.

Caste calculations are going haywire and hence the likes of Mulayam, Mayawati and Nitish Kumar or Lalu are finding the changing grammar of Indian politics tougher than ever before to comprehend and maneuver.

It has been for long fashionable for the netas to be elitist, to be seen with security men all around, to have a cavalcade of cars following you and ahead as well. No more show. The common man image is the in-thing now, minimum security is the best, and occasional diatribes against ‘security concerns and restrictions’ (as done by Priyanka Gandhi in Amethi and Narendra Modi in Varanasi when permission to use a field on security grounds was denied).

Large rallies, grandiose promises and paid media use have been hallmarks of elections for long. And this time around too such tools of political communication have been used, especially by the largest claimant to power, BJP, very effectively.

Manufacturing consent, the famous treatise by Noam Chomsky, has had a major application in the Indian summer of 2014.

However, alternative tools like prabhat feris, small local rallies, roadshows and most importantly, knocking every voter’s door etc have all come back. Indian freedom movement had used many of these tools long back, and were long forgotten.

AAP and the left parties have used these techniques effectively, AAP leading by miles.

Social media has emerged not only as a platform of freedom of expression, cheaper electioneering, reaching out to a large number of educated youth from urban and semi-urban India, but also as a source of content which mainstream media then pick up to build larger stories.

So tweets by leaders, blogs by observers, Facebook accounts of parties etc have become the other media now, often influencing the older media as well. BJP has been the front runner in this, with AAP, Trinamool etc following closely, while SP, BSP, the left and even Congress failing to jump on to the social media bandwagon effectively.

Cultural and heritage or even religious images and motifs on the one hand and the talk of secularism and people’s welfare on the other did not gel well in the past. No more so. A Ganga aarti, tika or Muslim topi, culture-specific attire, stopping a lecture during ajaan, etc are now co-existing joyfully with talks and slogans of development, anti-corruption and people’s welfare.

BJP and AAP are setting the changes in tone and tenor, images and messages in this regard.

Once upon a time, giving subsidies, doles and gifts before and after winning were sure-shot poll winning measures. Times are changing. Entitlements, rightful gains of growth and economic development etc are becoming the in-thing for the increasingly conscious and demanding electorate, especially the younger voters.

This is where the traditional patronage driven Congress failed miserably.

The Indian Left has traditionally been the voice of difference, banking more on the labour and lower classes, along with a segment of the educated middle class. Left is increasingly being left out of the emerging political discourse in the country. It is the neo-left from within the system, mixing Inquilab Zindabad with Bharat Mataa ki Jai, which is on the rise, and capturing public imagination now.

AAP represents this and has within 18 months spread across the nation, putting up more than 425 Lok Sabha candidates and pressing to act on ground an army or nearly a million volunteers, largely young.

Women in politics generally have come either through family connections (Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi, Dimple Yadav, Poonam Mahajan and Priya Dutt, etc) or through caste route (Mayavati) or patronage (Jayalalitha). Very few exceptions were there to this (like Mamata Banerjee through struggles, or Sushma Swaraj through organization).

However, this time a large number of women from completely varied backgrounds have come to the fore and with a force, mainly through the AAP route: journalists like Anita Pratap or Rakhi Birla, social activists like Medha Patkar or Dayamani Barla, tribal activist and victim of state repression like Soni

Sori, celebrity activists like Gul Panag, corporate honchos like Meera Sanyal, and many more, and all achievers or activists in their own rights, not due to legacy or lineage.

Mass interest in politics has completely changed. Voting margins have increased by 6 to 25% this time in each state in comparison to 2009 elections. A very large number of youths have become politically active either under the saffron brigade of BJP or in the white army of AAP. Women are voting in large numbers, at times larger than male voters.

While corporate and media’s active involvement in electioneering of sorts is visible, especially in the campaign of Modi-fied BJP, strong fights put up ordinary people in many seats tell another story too. Results will tell if the bold fights put by foot soldiers with no resources of a few parties, AAP especially, could take the might of the media-driven, corporate funded electoral juggernaut of BJP led NDA.

On one hand, this time, whereas some parties have made mockery of manifestos, leading to release of the same nationally even on the day of elections; on the other, some parties have started presenting constituency-specific manifestoes which lead to a focused plan for each area and promises to which the parties and candidates can be held accountable later.

Elections have been always about representation, managed by hook or by crook, by community leaders and doles, by pliant media and slogans. However, this time around representative democracy has surely gone into the participatory mode, with millions of youths actively participating in the polls, thanks to the dreams of development sold well by BJP or the promises of transparency and integrity advocated by AAP. Higher participation of the electorate in voting is also a testimony of the same.

One can only hope that democracy now moves to empowerment, and not just participation of the moment or merely representation of the past. And for that, divisive identities must lead to welfare demands. Active role of the people from all walks of life needs to increase, going beyond known political families and traditional community leaders. And, a thorough reform of the electoral law is must to ensure pure play of money, muscle-power and manufacturing consent to be restricted.