The copper revolution

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)