TheDaak review

By K.S. Sanjana

Abstract

The beginning of the decade of the 2010s accounts for a series of watershed moments that drastically changed the landscape of Indian politics. The urban-centred political movements like the India Against Corruption, the Nirbhaya Movement and the consequent anti-establishment sentiments were amplified with the use of social media. Politics was mediated by newer practices of social media that now connected millions of people through a single click. These politically significant events were translated into political-electoral shifts in favour of a majoritarian Hindu right-wing political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP has been credited with accelerating the social media revolution in India. Interestingly, the rise of the party is closely intertwined with the emergence of social media in India and a simultaneous construction of the category of ‘people’ as opposed to the elites. Promoted and aided by the affordances of social media, the party and its Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi was able to connect with voters across sections, thereby engaging them in a ‘participatory logic’ rendered legible both by elections and social media. This raises the question on how significant is social media in changing the electoral game and facilitating populism? Does the use of social media in the electoral realm have deeper implications in the political landscape of a democracy?

This paper picks up these questions and tapers its scope to analyse the increasing use of social media by the BJP with respect to electoral mobilisation. The paper aims to address the shifts in Indian politics, particularly the ‘populist turn’ by tracing an overlap between electoral mobilisation and social media. The main argument of the paper is twofold- first, that social media has altered the way electoral campaigning marking a deep shift in the practice of Indian politics, second the tactical use of social media has resulted in accentuation of the category of ‘people’ that can result in a majoritarian consensus favouring the populist and his party. A symbolic collective representation of the ‘people’ has been constructed by establishing a direct communication between the leader and his voters that social media has made possible. The paper undertakes a case study of General Elections of 2014 and 2019 to demonstrate the impact of social media on electoral campaigns. It looks at the mediation of electoral strategies of the BJP and its leader Narendra Modi by social media to unknot the overlapping process of social media, populism and electoral mobilisation.              

Introduction

Election campaigns in India are no less than a carnival, a celebration of the world’s largest democracy. The First Indian Election in 1952 was an experiment in democracy that demonstrated the tenacity of the Indian electorate. The commitment to choose their representatives for the first time left a unique ‘postcolonial’ imprint on the colonial institutions of Parliament and modes of representation. The Indian experiment in electoral democracy has been a success without any aberration in over seven decades and seventeen General Elections with the exception of the National Emergency when the country’s democracy was suspended for nearly two years (1975-1977). Mukulika Banerjee’s Why India Votes captures the phenomenon that an election is in the country- it means more to people than simply a means to elect governments rather the very act of voting is seen as  meaningful and an end in itself expressing the virtues of citizenship, accountability and civility (2014:3). Elections are an insight into the mood of the country, whether they acknowledge the commitment to the promises made by the political parties before coming to power, they punish the government and/or support it by bringing them back to power. The General Elections of 2014 is a strong case in support of this observation of the Indian electorate, it surmised a death knell for the Congress Party and marked a right-ward shift in Indian politics.       

The two General elections during the decade of 2010s marked a momentous phase in Indian democracy when the country was at the cusp of a change in its political leanings and social imaginings. This requires retracing the context right before 2013-14 Elections before the BJP emerged as a desirable alternative to the dominant force of Congress since the beginning of post-independence politics. The Congress was accused of rampant corruption including 2G Scams, Commonwealth Games scam, coal scam among others which drained the public resources of the country and tarnished the reputation of the party. The rhetoric of corruption picked up magnitude when the India Against Corruption movement led by self-proclaimed Gandhian, Anna Hazare mobilised thousands of Indians largely constitutive of urban middle class on the streets. This ‘emerging’ middle class played a crucial role in the 2014 Elections (Kaur, 2014). The rhetoric of corruption was central to Narendra Modi’s campaign who articulated in a populist manner, projecting the Congress and its ‘dynastic politics’ as the elites who suffocated and misused the rightful claimants of political power- the Indian ‘people’ or the ‘aam admi’ (common man). However, the peculiar significance of this movement was its novel and strategic use of social media to mobilise the people (Panwar et al., 2019). The Anna Hazare movement disseminated information regarding protests across cities in India, images of protests and strategies of protests using social media. For instance, the movement’s facebook page announced ‘candle light support’ rallies in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Within minutes, millions were mobilised across the country, SMS and Missed Calls Campaigns were ways to show solidarity with the movement. Through social media, people connected with the movement and a national consciousness against corruption and state inefficiency was evoked. Having witnessed the power of social media in political mobilisation, one of the first few political actors to tap into the potential powerhouse in constructing its own ‘mediatized appeal’ was the BJP. Unlike conventional methods of electoral campaigning including mass rallies, door-to-door campaigning and pamphlet distributions, the affordances of social media seemed convenient and cost-effective (Mukherji, 2015). Political leaders could connect with the people directly opening up an interactive medium of political communication changing the way electoral campaigns take place. This transcended the more rigid relationship shared between the citizens and their political leaders, furthering the idea that ‘people’ had greater accessibility to political power. This line of argument is important to establish the overlapping of social media and political shifts.

In a close observation, the current ‘seemingly’ inevitable invincibility of the BJP was a political phenomenon in the making with multiple factors such as strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the Congress, mass perception of the party as being corrupt and scamming the people, political movements including India against Corruption and the Nirbhaya Protests in the 2011-12, all of these among other factors contributed to the political landscape of the country over a decade. The ‘people’ though largely constitutive of urban middle class had learnt their power, successfully mobilising themselves against the state machinery (Chopra, 2014). Especially, with the help of social media the people were able to connect and form ‘networks’ that helped organise agitations and movements (Papacharissi, 2014). The wave of anti-incumbency against the state and the party in power, Congress was generated, sustained and amplified. The background of BJP’s win was condensed in this idea of ‘people’ taking charge of the political helm, calling out those perceived as ‘elites’ in power. It kindled a nation’s collective imagination- desperate hope for prosperity and betterment. This was embodied in Narendra Modi’s branding as the ‘56-inch chest saviour’ who could transform and bring about ‘ache din’. The populist turn in India was solidified by a political and electoral mandate in favour of Narendra Modi in the previous two General Elections of 2014 and 2019. Several scholarly studies (Gudavarthy, 2015; Jaffrelot, 2021) have made attempts to capture this populist impulse, this paper focuses on an important if not fundamental aspect of the BJP’s current invincibility- its constructive and almost compulsive use of social media for spreading its message. The BJP’s hegemonic power, according to Suhas Palshikar rests on two pillars- election and ideology (Vaishnav, 2019). The two pillars, I argue, are tethered together by the social media ‘lasso’. The brilliant use of social media in the two elections has enabled BJP to not only maintain electoral dominance but also construct a political field where its ideology of Hindutva is made legible. Though it must be noted that of the two elections, it was the 2019 elections that saw a more systematic and rigorous use of social media. The differences are also noted in the kind of narratives that dominated its electoral campaign; the 2019 social media-led campaign used nationalist and communal overtones making it a highly polarised campaign. The first part of the paper will look at the factors of BJP’s electoral success. Expanding its social base, BJP has come to represent sections across caste, gender and class. The sections in this part underscores the significance of representation in electoral politics, political narratives during election campaigns and the increasing identification of diverse sections of society with the BJP that was closely linked to the popularity of Narendra Modi. The second part of the paper extends the analysis to the increasing use of social media in exemplifying the representativeness of the electorate. While tracing the impact of social media on election campaigns, the section focuses on the case of General Elections of 2014 and 2019 to argue that populist style of communication deployed by Narendra Modi establishes a direct representation of the populist with the people. In doing so, the populist reaffirms himself as the representative of the ‘authentic people’ . The section notes that the participatory logic of social media coupled with a populist impulse has characterised the shift in the practice of Indian politics, particularly election campaigns in India.      

Part I: The Rise of the BJP

1. The Electoral Mandate

The ‘post-Congress’ polity in India (Palshikar, Kumar and Lodha, 2017) was inaugurated by the massive gains made by the Bharatiya Janata Party at the cost of a humiliating defeat of the Indian National Congress in the 16th Lok Sabha Election.  The latter lost as many as 162 seats over the 2009 election outcome. The mandate of the election was reflective of the success of the BJP in presenting itself as a capable alternative to the Congress. It secured 31.1% of the votes, winning a clear majority with 282 seats in the Lok Sabha. The BJP in the 2014 election added to its strength in the lower house with the aid of its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The Allies contributed to a total of 54 seats, taking the total tally of the NDA to 336 seats. While this seemed as a ‘one-off event’  and a ‘fragile mandate’ (Chakravarti, 2018; Chhibber & Ostermann, 2014), in the 2019 elections, the BJP gained more than its previous tally winning 303 seats on its own with a vote share of 37.4%. The numbers only consolidated the BJP government’s hold over the Indian electorate. What is significant about the 2014 election is the replacement of coalition politics with majority party rule (Wallace, 2015) With the upcoming 2023 elections, there is little to no doubt among the psephologists and political pundits that the BJP with Narendra Modi at the apex is set to return. “The general sense is that a BJP win is almost an inevitability at this stage,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a fellow at the Centre for Policy research. He added, “the question is more: what factors will shape the scale of the victory?” (The Guardian, 2023).  The election slogan for the upcoming 2024 General Elections ‘Teesri baar Modi Sarkar, abki bar 400 paar’ clearly proclaims the target the party has set for itself. The possibility of  a third term for the BJP with only increased majority provokes questions- How has the BJP managed to maintain its dominance? What are the mobilizational strategies it uses to come to power? How strong are certain factors in ensuring a continued electoral success for the BJP? Has the BJP continued to use the same ‘toolkit’ or repertoires of mobilisation since 2013. If there is a difference in the rhetorics being used by the BJP over the successive elections? What does it tell one about the voters and the changing landscape of Indian politics? Now, with a Hindu Nationalist party in the centre over the decade from 2014-2024, it is interesting to note the steady growth of the party on the Indian political scene.

2. Accommodating new social coalitions

The BJP came to power with promises and hope for a developed India that resonated with the country’s electorate. While in 2014, the political winds were fanning the BJP to new heights in its political journey, it was a first for the Indian political landscape to bring a majoritarian right-wing party to power with an emboldening mandate. Wallace (2015) notes three major factors that led to BJP’s victory in the 2014 elections- economy, corruption and the massive campaign that Modi led on his own. In his book The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India, Lance Prince systematically lays out the carefully and meticulously crafted campaign to project ‘NaMo’ as a strong Prime Ministerial candidate not only within his party but also nationally. He launched his campaign independently along with the party, contributing heavily to his personal popularity somewhat separate from the party. However, BJPs success in the elections is not solely attributed to Modi’s persona but to its own transformation. BJP’s social engineering bore fruits in the form of expanding social base and shedding its image as an upper caste party. Taking the OBC into its fold left unaccommodated and untouched by the Congress allowed BJP to brand itself as the party of the ‘people’ as opposed to that of the elite which later helped in furthering the oppositional binaries of people and the elite during the election campaign of 2014. In 2019, Modi’s BJP came to power adding 21 new seats to its pocket (BBC, 2019). 

The BJP’s victory in the 2019 elections has prompted Chhiber and Verma (2019) to have argued for the rise of a fourth party system in India. The BJP enjoys a dominance that Congress once enjoyed (Vaishnav, 2019), what Kothari called the ‘Congress system’ (Kothari, 1964). This points to their argument in their much acclaimed book Ideology and Identity (2018) that the BJP’s victory in 2019 was not merely an extension of the immediate context of the elections but the structural shifts taking place in Indian politics (Chhibber and Verma, 2019).  The expansion of BJP’s social base contributed to this. The party was seen as an upper caste party, but with the lower rungs of the party open to diverse social groups, it has therefore become “more reflective of a larger swathe of Hindu society” (Chhibber and Verma, 2019:138) (Rukmini S. in Vaishnav, 2019). Nalin (2022) notes that not only was BJP able to forgo its casteist image but also its urban image by penetrating into the rural heartlands. Oliver (2015) attributes the reasons for the BJP’s landslide victory to mobilising new voters. Traditionally the BJP has received votes from upper caste, middle class, educated and those exposed to media (Chhibber and Verma, 2019). New social coalition of the Voters of the party include the poor, those from the rural areas, women and the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SC), the religious minorities are an exception here. It is interesting to note that since 1998, voter turnout had been on a decline but the trend reversed in 2014. In 2009, it stood at 58% which went up to 66.4% in 2014 and the highest ever in 2019 with 67.1%. Increasing voter turnout coupled with two simultaneous trends of exponential rise in women voters and increase in young and first-time voters has changed the electoral field for the parties. Data from the National Election Survey (NES) 2014 and 2019 shows that the number of voters under the age group of 18-22, 23-29 has grown from 4 to 12% respectively. The 2014 Election registered a high voter turnout among young, first-time voters. Studies demonstrate that the young voters make a difference in electoral outcomes and so the political parties tailor their campaign to attract this block of voters (Palshikar, Lodha and Kumar, 2017). 

(Source: NES 2019, Lokniti-CSDS)

With respect to women voters, 2019 was the first time that women voter turnout (66.68%) equaled the male voter turnout (66.79%) (BBC, 2019). The BJP was able to capture more women voters in 2019 than the previous elections and for the first time women voters voted for BJP over their conventional choice of Congress. Rahul Verma and Ankita Barthwal note that welfare policies, emphasis on safety and emotive connection with the women voters led the latter to vote for BJP (India Today, 2022). 

BJP’s success, writes Suhas Palshikar can be attributed to the party’s ability to spread its message of majoritarianism. The constant narrative of victimhood and dominance creates a craving for leadership. The BJP with the face of Narendra Modi has been able to meet this demand. Thus, the rise of BJP is a combination of several factors working simultaneously on the political scene of the country. The BJP’s electoral gains were also a result of massive and sustained campaigning. The Prime ministerial Candidate, Narendra Modi addressed 437 public rallies across 25 states covering 3 lakh kilometres besides 1,350 rallies through 3D technology from September 2013 to the end of campaigning period (The Times of India, 30 April 2014). The Lokniti-CSDS Survey has noted that an increasing number of voters are identifying with the BJP- 41% of the voters a stark congrats to 18% identification for the Congress. (Chhibber and Verma, 2019). 

       (c) The Modi magic 

As briefly mentioned in the last section, Narendra Modi’s charisma has sustained and transcended beyond the electoral realm. His journey from Gujarat’s Chief Minister to the country’s Prime Minister to becoming the most popular leader in the world is not a fluke (Business Today, 2022). Lance Prince (2015) in his book The Modi Effect gives a detailed account of how once a pariah who was refused entry into the United States as a religious extremist would become the most prominent international leader with his electoral triumphs.  He writes that, Modi tried to show his achievements in the state of Gujarat to that of the whole nation, jumping up his position from a chief Minister of the state to that of a Prime ministerial candidate. He also notes how Modi was in awe of Obama’s Presidential Campaign of 2008. The 2014 elections was an ‘Indian version of Obama’s ‘Yes We Can!’ amplified a hundred times over (Price, 2015). The novelty of 2014 Elections was the extensive use of social media. The Modi phenomenon is the work of social media, the evidence for it lies in the fact that mainstream mass media was not in favour of Modi given his communal image and role in the Godhara riots (Chopra, 2014; Wallace, 2015; Price, 2015). Jaffrelot notes that BJP’s 2014 campaign was Modi-centric and populist in nature (Jaffrelot, 2015) .  He carefully crafted his ‘chaiwala’ image in sharp contrast to the Congress corrupt elites in New Delhi. 

   (d) Ideological belongings and Political Narratives

Price (2015:23) notes that Modi’s fascinating image is due to his ability to ‘weave together and then articulate India’s many contradictions and make them appear consistent’. The 2014 election had three major narratives spun together around the three major factors for BJP’s success as noted in the first section- economy, corruption and Modi’s own campaign. Emphasis on policy paralysis, poor delivery and credibility crisis were some other issues that needed to be addressed. The language of reform and reinvention of the system was well received by the voters (Business Today, 2019). The 2014 election was driven by economic agendas set for the nation. The main electoral slogan for the 2014 election was ‘achhe din aane wale hain’ (good days are about to come) gave hope to the people for a better future that saw India rising from the grip of a stale economy bogged down by corruption to that of fast-paced economic development and prosperity. The BJP projected itself as the party with a difference with Narendra Modi at its helm who was able to present a cohesive ‘aspirational’ narrative for the growth story of India that was only achievable under the conditions that ensured him coming to power. He projected his ‘successful’ stint as the chief minister of  Gujarat and the ‘Gujarat model’ as the ideal path for India’s success story (Jaffrelot, 2015). ‘Development’ as the catchphrase helped BJP garner support from not only the upper and middle class but also the poor (Palshikar, et al., 2017). The youth, particularly, wanted to benefit from the promises of development and unencumbered growth. The pro-market and pro-industrial image of Modi captured the growing neo-liberal impulse that was partially being stifled by the Nehruvian past, the capitalists of the country who were eagerly awaiting the penetration and expansion in the market and also the corporate-driven media that gave coverage to Modi that facilitated his popularity. Moreover, the rhetoric of Hindutva which Modi and the BJP has been tied to was dormant in the 2014 Election, what Jaffrelot has called the ‘banalisation of Hindu nationalism’ rather than its absence. The BJP government had to balance its Hindutva agenda with the promises of economic growth. This careful balancing act was the foundation of BJP’s success post-2014 elections.   

The BJP has accused the Congress of appeasing the minorities, specifically the muslim minorities for its own gains. This narrative has come to be attached with discussions on India’s secularism which is presumed then to have been ‘favourable’ to the minorities and an unequal treatment of the Hindu majority. The construction of public distrust for secularism as deeply flawed and solely western in its oeuvre, aided the BJP’s narrative of a Hindu majority victimhood furthering its own ideological premise of Hindutva. The BJP has had a list of cultural agenda for decades with Ram Mandir, abrogation of Article 370 and the implementation of Uniform Civil Code. These rhetorics came in handy during the 2019 elections. Despite many political pundits predicting a loss of votes and popularity for the BJP and Modi, the outcome of 2019 elections proved all the predictions wrong. Modi employed new communication strategies to ‘saturate’ the public sphere and reach voters directly (Tillin, 2015). 

The 2019 Lok Sabha Elections was high on the rhetoric of national security amplifying the ontological threat to the Hindu majority and the nation while casting out muslims especially Kashmiri muslims as threats. The information regarding Pulwama attack and the retaliatory surgical strike was played out on smartphone screens which seems to have impacted voting in favour of the incumbent party notes a Lokniti CSDS Survey (2019). Varshney (2019) notes that, unlike his 2014 campaign which was built around economic development, good governance, and an attack on his political rivals, Modi’s 2019 campaign was built around his personal charisma and incorruptibility along with grand narratives of national security (after the Pulwama attacks) and the Hindu nationalism to persuade voters. The 2019 elections also focussed on Modi’s achievements in the previous term and subsequent articulation of the slogan ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’. It reflected BJP’s position that it stands for the development of all, appeasement of none. The development narrative along with communally polarising narratives of the general elections were premised on bringing the nation under the ‘right leadership’. . 

According to Palshikar, this BJP-led system has been able to cement its newfound hegemony on two pillars: elections and ideology. This part of the paper accounted for the electoral appeals and accommodations the BJP undertakes. The BJP has emerged as a catch-all party that was once credited for Congress’s decades-long mass appeal. The BJP has weakened the coalition system and strengthened itself as a formidable opposition to Congress. This has been characterised by the rise of a charismatic leader who claims to be the representative of people from across sections of the society. With manifold increase in the number of voters and their participation in the electoral democracy through votes, the shifts in democracy have been consolidated as populist in nature. The quest for electoral and ideological hegemony is incomplete without an examination of the significance of social media in ensuring BJP’s political success. 

          Part II:  Social Media: A key player in Indian Elections ?

1. New medium of political communication

Mass Media has been used by political parties to mobilise voters and communicate their political agendas. Traditional electoral campaigns relied on distribution of pamphlets, organising rallies and roadshows and making personal appeals to the voters. Social media added an additional layer of medium for political communication (Diwakar, 2015) (Mukherji, 2015). Social media is different from traditional mass media, in the sense that people can create their own content, thereby creating an active participation. The novelty of participation and direct communication attributed to social media communication ensured greater connectivity, establishing a bottom-up route of political dialog. Social media has the potential to alter the relationships of individuals to society (Effing, et al., 2011). It functions on the paradox of allowing individuals to maintain their individuality by creating their own profiles, enabling them to craft an ‘online persona’ that might be different from their ‘real’ persona and; has also bound individuals together into a collective that can think and act in unison. This ‘participatory logic of social media’ gives the ontological comfort of connectivity with others and renders participation convenient. The use of social media as a tool for political mobilisation has been witnessed in the Arab Spring, Anna Hazare movement and Nirbhaya Movement among others. In the electoral realm, however, politicians use social media to interact with their voters and communicate their message directly to them. The voters can directly tweet or tag the leaders, engage in political discussions and conversations with others on similar issues using hashtags. Political campaigning has found a new communicative medium in social media (Safiullah et al, 2017). The question of how much of a significance social media plays in electoral campaigns is highly debated (Effing et al., 2011; Mukherji, 2015). The precedent for a tactical use of social media was set by Barack Obama for his Presidential Campaign in the American Elections of 2008. His “Yes, we can!” campaign gained traction and prominence among the American voters making him the First Afro-American President in a deeply racially divided country (Effing et al., 2011). This was picked up in various countries including India. 

2. BJP’s tactical use of social media in the General Elections of 2014 and 2019

The digital population in India has witnessed exponential growth. The Internet and Mobile Association of India states that India is the second country with the most internet users. In 2014, India had 814.59 million voters, out of which 23.16 million were in the age group of 18–19 years, comprising 2.8 per cent of the national electorate (Kanungo, 2015). NDTV (2014) reported that since the 2014 elections were announced till its end, twenty-nine million people in India have engaged in 227 million posts, comments, and discussions. This represents two third of all regular Facebook users engaged on Facebook, and around 13 million citizens have mentioned Modi in their posts on Facebook.  While only one in ten voters accessed Facebook in 2014, this figure jumped to 32% by 2019 (CSDS-Lokniti, 2019: 12). India’s 2014 General Election was proclaimed as ‘substantially mediatized’ elections  (Verma and Sardesai in Palshikar et al., 2017) where mainstream mass media and social media heavily determined the popularity of the Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. The BJP worked hard to eliminate the narrow ethno-religious nationalism and violence that had stuck with the party by redefining its public messaging to that of development in the 2014 elections (Vaishnav, 2019). 

BJP and Narendra Modi placed an unprecedented emphasis on social networking sites that allowed the party to relay its own narratives and ideas surpassing the mediation by the mainstream mass media. It also helped Narendra Modi to establish a direct channel with the electorate through social media. He created his Twitter profile in 2009. Much of the election took place online with the medium becoming a deliberate channel of electoral communication (Narasimhamurthy, 2014). The elections of 2014 and 2019 became a spectacle that transformed not only the way electoral campaigning played out in the world’s largest democracy and new communication but the way people saw their representative. I argue that social media was not only put to use to relay the political message of the party, however, the party’s compulsive reliance on social media has consequently impacted the latter’s ability to capture the political imagination of the ‘people’.  

Modi, notes Lance Price was aware of the success the American President Obama had in the elections and aimed to follow suit. The ‘Brand Modi’ relied heavily on social media. The politician had a website, his own youtube channel which gained 20 million subscribers becoming the first world leader with such massive followers. He was also one of the first politicians in India to target young voters by taking part in a Google+ Hangout discussion (Price, 2015). Speeches made by Modi were livestreamed and broadcasted to the larger public. He regularly posts on Twitter and even uses the micro-blogging site to engage with celebrities, like taking selfies with them and also performing community action (Pal, Chandra, and Vydiswaran 2016). Ronojoy (2019) examines that Twitter significantly creates political influence and promotes a politician’s brand and profile. AAP, BJP and Congress make attempts to lure voters with the aid of social media (Goyal, 2014). However, Narendra Modi and his party had a headstart when it came to using social media for electoral campaigns. India 272+ was launched with the intention to translate support for Modi’s ideas into votes during the election. The ‘272’ stands for the number of seats the BJP and its allies had to muster to win the majority in the Parliament. The portal asked volunteers to sign up and pass the message to others. It became like an online game subtly rebuilding Modi’s image and planting the seeds for the electoral haul. Further, a Stanford University study noted that during the 2014 elections BJP was ahead in the number of tweets, posts and reposts on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) (Hindustan Times, 2017). An example of BJP’s social media electoral campaign post on 22nd April, 2014 read: “To end the institutionalisation of corruption, the only legacy of UPA govt., Vote for Modi, press the ‘Lotus’ symbol”.     

The BJP’s target since the beginning of the election campaigns has been the young voters of the country. It is a well calculated strategy that BJP’s reliance on social media to frame its political message of Hindutva and economic development are attractive to these young voters. The Indian youth are spending a considerable amount of time on social networking sites. One study showed that 65% of Indian social media users think that social media is a significant source of staying updated (Krishnan, 2019). Political movement on social media platforms was higher in the 2019 election than in 2014. One-third of first time voters were influenced by political messages on social media platforms (Sharma, 2022). The 2019 Elections saw a greater use of social media platforms in mobilising voters. For instance, in the 2019 General Elections, a “booth action plan” was prepared by the Party President, Amit Shah which had asked state units of the Party to compile the list of smart phone carrying voters in every polling station. The party’s war room in its old HQ located in Delhi’s Ashoka Road will get into the act of integrating it with the proposed programme. Cell-phone pramukhs will be identified by party leaders who will then create three WhatsApp groups for each polling station, each group consisting of 256 persons (the maximum allowed on the platform), according to the plan. They will be responsible for creating whatsapp groups to disseminate information related to development agenda, policies and programs of the BJP (Hindustan Times, 2019). They acted as promotional agents for the Prime Ministerial candidate. The extensive usage of WhatsApp during the 2019 Lok Sabha election was dubbed as ‘WhatsApp elections’ (Bengani, 2019). Political Parties now have War Rooms from where tech-savvy “social media warriors” launch political campaigns in the favour of their respective parties. They ensure the party’s online presence. The infamous BJP IT Cell set up by Prodyut Bora was created with three main aims: ‘to automate the party, to reach out to the voters, and advise the party on policy matters’. However, over the years BJP has orchestrated online campaigns through the cell to intimidate perceived government critics. Sadhavi Khosla, a BJP cyber-volunteer in the BJP IT Cell said that the organisation disseminated misogyny, Islamophobia and hatred. Bora quit the party and asserted that he laments the current form the  IT Cell has taken (Quint, 2018). This perverts the democratic underpinnings of social media by making it a tool for spreading disinformation and even a propagandistic machinery. What it also points out is the way the BJP has used social media not only for electoral purposes but to introduce ideas of Hindutva using the new media.  

Overlapping trends: Social Media, Elections and Populism 

The increased and extensive use of social media does not suggest a wholesale abandonment of conventional mass campaigns undertaken by the leaders and political parties. This paper does not argue for a diminished role of conventional mass media. It points to the complementary value of social media in establishing a new mode of communication that impacts political communication in an electoral democracy. It acknowledges that social media lends convenience that aids faster, efficient and direct political communication. Social media has individuated as well as expanded the networks of communication between persons as well as groups across the globe. For instance, through a hashtag individuals can engage in conversations about a topic they care about, post their opinions and even use emoticons to express that particular emotion they feel at that point. The medium of social media allows greater connectivity and accessibility to people. In the political realm, this seems novel as citizens can directly tag and tweet to their leaders over issues that concern them or even register their protests through a hashtag. Similarly, parties and political leaders can establish a channel of communication bypassing the more restricted flow of interaction on mainstream mass media including newspapers and radio.  

The BJP became the first party to expand social media’s potential to the electoral realm. Along with the process of penetration of social media, the political movements of the early 2010s signified the category of ‘people’ as the legitimate harbingers of power. As noted in the previous sections of the paper, the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi was able to sharpen the wedge between the ‘elites’ and the ‘people’ that marked a populist turn in Indian politics. The overlap of these two processes- growth of social media and the rise of a social media savvy populist,  resulted in transformation of the electoral space. The argument then follows that the use of social media since the 2010s revealed a new kind of political engagement which furthered citizen participation. The Internet has inherent democratic characteristics promoting direct, transparent, collaborative participation to all in the absence of physical boundaries. The political movements of the early 2010s – the India Against Corruption Movement and Nirbhaya Movement displayed the power of social media in mobilising citizens across cities. Though the movements were largely urban, it actualised the liberal-democratic ideal that people had the ultimate power to decide the fate of the politicians and their power¹. It was also a testimony to the larger discontentment and growing frustration with inefficient political governance at the time. The idea of ‘people’ raises a political will that can be appropriated by a populist. Narendra Modi was no less than a populist leader who used personal charisma and populist rhetoric to direct the anti-incumbency anger into electoral gains for the BJP (Gudavarthy, 2014). 

By adopting the unconventional campaigning tool of social media, Modi bypassed the more conventional way of communicating with the voters. He used social media to reach out to a larger audience, thereby combining conventional electoral campaigns with newer forms of campaign medium. Modi’s speeches in multiple rallies were livestreamed and uploaded on his websites, twitter and facebook accounts. This allowed people across the country to consistently keep track of his speeches and contributed to the larger narrative that he built around himself. The aspirational story of becoming a ‘somebody-from-nobody’ was recounted in many speeches given in 2014. This emotive chord was struck with his voters adding to his popularity, social media amplified the process.

Modi’s brand was successful in translating social media buzz into votes. He is as of today the most popular political leader in the world and the elected representative of the world’s largest democracy, possibly for the third time. The success of Modi’s direct communication with the electorate by dismantling ‘old’ intermediaries and establishing to some extent, ‘new’ intermediaries like various online support groups of Modi and the BJP, and other political leaders and parties, actively promoted their leaders, parties and candidates (Sharma, 2022). Thus, Modi became a social media phenomenon even before he became the Prime Ministerial candidate (Chopra, 2014) since then he has used the medium to his advantage. There are three ways in which Modi employs a populist style of communication- self promotion and branding, narrativizing people-elite distinction and constant engagement with citizens.    

Sharma (2022) empirically analyses that during the 2019 campaign a high proportion of tweets posted by Modi were self-promotional, to boost his own image and less about promises of development and good governance as was the case in 2014. Sharma and Sivakumar (2023) note the influence of social media in creating a communally polarised electoral campaign in 2019. The research study ‘Tweeting to win: Analysing social media use in India’s 2019 national elections’, concluded that nationalism was one of the main keywords that Modi used in his tweets. The Prime Minister posted the majority of his tweets concerning the BJP and tweets more than ten times in a day on an average which drives home the point that the leader has been effectively using social media for a decade now (Firstpost, 2021). Apart from using social media for self-promotion (Sharma, 2022), Modi has successfully turned every criticism against him into a powerful narrative that serves his image. After the election announcement in 2019, in response to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Chowkidar Chor hai Campaign’, Modi launched the ‘Mai bhi Chowkidar’ campaign that yielded better results than the former (Lokniti CSDS, 2019) (Tribune, 2019).  He turned the jibe into a positive message and encouraged people to fight corruption and social evils.

                    Image: “Main bhi Chowkidar” Modi’s response.

This campaign is a testimony to two facts- first, social media has been used effectively by the leader to respond to a political criticism and second, the social media enabled the construction of electoral narratives connecting with the voters simultaneously. Modi embraced the ‘chowkidar chor hai’ jab and asked citizens of India to themselves become a ‘chowkidar’. BJP leaders including  Amit Shah added “chowkidar” as prefix to their names on their social media handles. Modi launched his NaMoApp on Twitter and made the following tweet on March 30, 2019: “The day we were most looking forward to is here! At 5 pm, lakhs of Chowkidars from different parts of India will interact in the historic #MainBhiChowkidar program. This is an interaction you must not miss. Watch it live on the NaMoApp or NaMo TV.” 

In the 2019 campaign, Modi also tweeted on April 5, 2019: “Beware of the Dynastic Hand! They are going to INCREASE TAXES. YOUR MONEY will FUND the LIFESTYLE OF CONGRESS LEADERS!” This statement though based on no substantial evidence is indicative of the rhetoric that Modi was amplifying. Drawing the Indian electorate’s attention to the Congress ‘elites’ who are corrupt. Another interesting tweet on March 19, 2019: “The biggest casualty of dynastic policies are institutions. From the press to parliament. From soldiers to free speech. From the constitution to the courts. Nothing is spared. Sharing some thoughts.”  Disdain of political institutions being under the control of the elites is another rhetoric from the “populist toolkit”. The electoral results of the 2019 elections reaffirmed the populist turn in the country. Populist communication on social media is characterised by emotional appeals over rational persuasions. In a last minute bid, Modi heightened and captured the nationalistic rumblings of the nation after the Pulwama attack into votes in his pocket (CSDS, 2019). This alludes with Maldonado’s (2019) assertion that digitalization promotes social media campaigns for the populists, and the populists then turn the campaign from a rational to an emotional campaign as was the case in the Indian General Elections of 2019².  It is important to highlight that while social media was used to project an aspirational narrative with development at its centre in the 2014 elections, the subsequent elections saw the use of the medium to promote a communally polarising atmosphere. In both these elections, the Hindu right appealed to emotions. As a populist Modi’s personal charisma, ability to weave narratives of hope and aspirations with Hindutva’s ideological commitments and his strategic use of social media, he has been able to connect directly with the voters, a characteristic of populist communication style (Sharma, 2022). 

Contemporary populism is often described as mediated populism where social media platforms play a major role in spreading populist leaders’ messages directly to their followers, often bypassing the mainstream media (Chadwick, 2014; Engesser et al., 2017).  Rodrigues (2019) meanwhile notes that Modi’s use of social media by bypassing the mainstream media has already augmented a structural shift in India as the agenda-setting power of the mainstream press has diluted. Pal et al. (2017) in their longitudinal analysis of Modi’s social media handles note that unlike other rightwing leaders, Modi crafts his messages strategically by ‘dodging potentially controversial topics, avoids direct offence to any community of Indians, and projects a unified voice of his party on these platforms’. Modi often retweets common citizen’s tweets acknowledging their contribution to the nation. For example, during the Main bhi chowkidar campaign he retweeted a picture that featured a young girl promoting his chowkidar campaign and appreciated the family for contributing to the development of the nation. Modi constantly engages with his voters through twitter. In his #Votekar campaign, he urged voters to come out and vote in the 2019 elections. He also tagged famous personalities and urged them to spread the message. India recorded its highest ever voter turnout that year. Modi forms a personal bond with his voters through social media. He portrays a relatable image of himself that strikes a chord with millions of Indians who have continued to hype up his popularity. By posing himself as anti-establishment and anti-elite he employed populist strategies of communication on social media (Sharma, 2022).

Social Media has opened up a new avenue for political discourse and dialog to take shape and shape in turn the landscape of politics. The use of social media for electoral campaigning and mobilisation has been acknowledged and adopted by all the actors concerned. However, the question worthy of attention is if presence on social media converts into votes. The role of social media in influencing voting preferences is not understated but it requires systematic study with well-thought methodological techniques to gauge how much of the social media buzz actually translates into votes (Verma and Sardesai, 2017).  Another study by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in 2019 revealed that social media was not a game changer during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It also revealed that social media exposure hardly impacts voters’ voting behaviour, but social media exposure increased political participation during the 2019 elections. Barclay et al. (2015) study found a positive correlation between a leader’s Facebook fan page and amount of votes secured by the party with 86.6% accuracy’. With the rise in internet users and government’s push towards digitalisation, social media is likely a key player in determining the terms of political inputs and outcomes. 

Social media has been a key Player in the dissemination of Hindu nationalist projects over the last decade. The Internet renders itself as an effective tool to seize political power and establish dominance and hegemony. Chopra (2019) traces the significance of social media in constructing what he calls ‘Virtual Hindu Rashtra’. He notes three areas by which the Hindu right-wing wing of which BJP is an integral part uses Social media: Modi’s ubiquitous and ‘peculiar stability to dynamics of politics’, particular functions that social media platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter serve Hindu Right and in creating alternative truths about the Hindu right that amounts to deliberate disinformation. The BJP has unleashed an army of trolls that intimidate the critics of the government (Chaturvedi, 2016). The BJP social media cell which provides directions to the online right wing trolls has been accused of orchestrating harassment campaigns.  Riots and lynchings have become normalised and platforms such as whatsapp have enabled rumor and fake news to translate into actual violence against Dalits and Muslims (Ali, 2020). Gerry Shih (2023) exposes the digital campaign that promotes inflammatory messages and instils fear among Hindu majority to consolidate their votebase. For instance, in one of the whatsapp messages that was forwarded multiple times during the Karnataka State Elections 2023 played on the narrative that warned of Hindu girls being groomed by Muslim men to join the Islamic State. Simultaneously the message made an urgent appeal to vote: “If the BJP is here, your children will be safe. Hindus will be safe.” Thus, the hegemony that BJP aspires to maintain over the nation hinges on strategic use of social media- electoral use of social media is closely linked to the ideological project of Hindutva.   

Conclusion 

The decade of 2010 has unravelled political complications and newer challenges for political enthusiasts. This paper attempts to capture the intertwinement of multiple moments in Indian politics that hold significance in the country’s history. The convergences between popular movements that highlight the democratic impulse and their taming by a populist impulse as seen in India are important to draw. Social media acted as an important dimension in archiving the changes in Indian politics. The power of social media was acknowledged by both the people and the party leaders. It brought about a permanent change in electoral mobilisation of the country. The argument here is not that social media has replaced the conventional forms of electoral campaigning, rather it has supplemented a more interactive interface for political communication where direct communication can be established between the leaders and the people.  The paper furthers this line of argument to inquire into the nature of this direct communication by accounting for a populist turn in Indian politics. The tactical use of social media by the BJP and its leader has accentuated and amplified the political processes of the country.   

The Indian electorate is known to reject tall leaders if they fail to satisfy the demands of the people. The Indian electorate rejected the Congress convinced by BJP’s grand narrative of ache din that spun the narrative of growth and development. The elections of 2014, however, marked the arrival of Modi, a populist leader. A post-Congress polity as Palshikar (2017) notes was founded on BJP’s hegemony- electorally and ideologically. This paper extends Palshikar’s observation to argue that social media acted as a common thread between the two and in doing so it pulls the two closer. This enmeshment of BJP’s dominance electorally and ideologically is evident in the change in political discourse and campaign narratives in the General Elections of 2019 from that of 2014. It is noteworthy that Modi’s rise as a populist leader converges with the rise of digital platforms in India (Sharma, 2022). Modi has been able to rebrand himself through Social media. He has altered the very terms by which party leaders, officials and other electoral communication takes place. However, social media revolution in India, particularly in electoral and political mobilisation has posed newer challenges for democracy. In conclusion, the paper has revealed an intertwined paradox of social media which enables participation of citizens in the political process of the country and affords a new medium for political representatives to connect with their voters. However, in the case of India since 2014 the use of social media by a populist has enabled him to sustain and further his own image as the sole representative of the ‘authentic people’. The use of social media by a right wing populist party such as the BJP has unleashed undemocratic forces that curtails participation on social media by bullying and abusing on social media. The benefit of easy access to information through social media also has been misused to spread rampant misinformation. The paper highlighted the paradoxes closely intertwined in the electoral campaigns, use of social media and populism that work together to change the terrain of Indian politics.      

Notes

1. The Anna Hazare movement has been lauded as a democratic uprising of the people, critics, however, have argued that it harboured a populist impulse, a ‘movement against politics’ (Chatterjee, 2012).
2. It is imperative to mention that Modi was not the only populist leader to emerge successfully in India. Indira Gandhi also invoked populist repertoire during her election campaign in 1972 after the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971. However, Modi’s populism in the contemporary neo-liberal and social media context begs a distinct analytical analysis. What is also distinct about the Modi brand of populism is its reliance on Hindutva rhetoric which has deeper implications for Indian society and polity tending to communally charged majoritarian sentiments. 

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