Ownership, money, Modi 3.0 uncertainty: A sobering reality check for election cheer

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 13, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/06/13/ownership-money-modi-30-uncertainty-a-sobering-reality-check-for-election-cheer

The Lok Sabha elections will continue to be analysed threadbare for some time to come. They were unexpected, revelatory about the Indian electorate and uplifting, even if momentarily, because they suggested that democracy is still alive in India.

The celebrations, however, by those who believe that the election results, and a governing party with a diminished mandate, will lead to substantial change need to be tempered with a reality check.

Let’s just look at the media, especially television news – call it “mainstream”, “Big Media” or “godi media”. There is little to debate now that in the last decade under Narendra Modi’s government, it has been a supplicant, rather than acting as the Fourth Estate in a democracy.

The clips of the dozens of interviews Modi gave to these friendly channels during the elections are proof enough, if that was needed. News anchors, who on any given day, are in scream mode, were listening and smiling attentively even as Modi proceeded to lecture and even insult the media.

After a decade of bending over backwards to please the ruling party, to amplify its poisonous and hate-filled narrative, especially against Muslims, and to save its aggression for the opposition, can one really expect a change just because the governing party’s numbers in this Lok Sabha are fewer than the last time?

I think not, and this is why.

First, even if the BJP is now more dependent on its coalition partners in the NDA today than it was yesterday, is there any proof that these partners are committed to freedom of expression and freedom of the press? Would they really object if this government – which the media has rightly called “Modi 3.0” rather than the “NDA government” because Modi will continue to dominate – continues to find ways to curb dissent and critical voices in the media? 

As a former chair of Prasar Bharati, Jawhar Sircar points out in this article in The Wire, “The godi media is likely to be a little less virulent against the opposition, as one never knows who may come in next. But the screaming television prosecutors, including a few rotund well-dressed creatures who revel in tormenting anyone who dares to question Modi, would hardly change — as they earn unimaginable amounts of crores.”

Which brings us to the second point, that the owners of these television channels dictate the line they take. And that ownership pattern is not changing.  As long as it is evident that Modi and the BJP are in full control of the government even if technically, they are part of a coalition, the topics discussed might change a little, but the approach will remain the same. There is no cost attached to attacking the opposition, but criticism of this government will still have repercussions.

Media analyst Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, who writes a column in Business Standard, makes some additional and interesting observations about Big Media. She points out that while the Election Commission figures reveal that 642 million people voted in these elections, and of these, roughly 235 million or 36.6 percent voted for the BJP, if you watch any of the roughly 400 news channels, you will think that the news on it is directed only at these 235 million who support the BJP. What about the remaining 407 million news consumers, she asks. 

This gap has been filled to some extent by independent news channels on YouTube and for those who read news, the digital news platforms that are not dependent on big business. Their numbers might not exceed those who watch or read news provided by these mainstream channels and newspapers, but there is little doubt that they have played an important role in the last five years, in filling the void left by mainstream media. They have been the source of nuanced and in-depth reporting, of critical comment, of interviews that inform and educate. 

Their ability to continue and remain independent in the future, however, is uncertain. This Modi 3.0 government might wait a while before it proceeds with the agenda it outlined in its previous avatar but there is little doubt that at some stage it will find ways to curb independent media. 

For instance, even before the first sitting of the new Lok Sabha, Mohammed Zubair of AltNews has been informed that the Delhi Police has asked that his account on X be taken down because it violates the Information Technology Act.  The social media platform has not complied with the request but the very fact this has happened within days of the formation of the new government provides a necessary reality check on its approach towards a free and independent media.  

We must remember that there are two interventions that will adversely impact independent media that are still on the anvil. One is the setting up of a “fact-checking unit” that will determine what is false or misleading and insist it be taken down by social media platforms. And the other is to bring all news-related YouTube channels under the Broadcasting Services Act which will give the government the power to curtail their content.

Journalist Charmy Harikrishnan sums up the last decade under Modi well when she writes:

“This was a lost decade of journalism. A generation of journalists has come of age with the bitter knowledge that the only news that is fit to print is positive news or spin. It is time we looked at ourselves in the mirror and flinched. It is time we wrote an editorial to ourselves. It is time we rediscovered the 5 Ws and put them to every announcement the government makes instead of responding with 1 Yes. It is time we redeemed ourselves.”  

Until this Modi 3.0 government settles back into its bad old ways with respect to independent media, there has been a welcome breathing space. This has permitted some interesting comment and analysis as well as much-needed humour and parody of India’s most powerful man.

The best is the cover of the latest issue of Frontline magazine, with a cartoon by Satish Acharya. It says all that needs to be said.

Also, much of the debate on TV, especially after the exit polls of June 1 that were way off the mark, took away from a more nuanced understanding of what had happened on the ground in these elections.

For those who wanted to know, The Hindu ran the post-poll survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) over several days. Equally useful and interesting is the interview by Manisha Pande of Newslaundry with Sanjay Kumar, the director of CSDS. The interview is worth watching because it answers so many questions that people must have to understand what has changed in India to throw up these results.

And finally, let me end by mentioning what I consider one of the most heart-warming articles to appear post-results even though I am not as optimistic about the future. Written by well-known cultural activist and literary critic G N Devy in The Telegraph, it is addressed to the Indian voter:

“Political analysts may lose sight of the fact that Indians are heaving sighs of relief not because their respective parties have won or lost but because they know that democracy has recovered from a spell of authoritarianism and the cult of personality… Leaders drunk on power, reeking of arrogance, need to know that as they were giving their lectures, thumping their chests, abusing their adversaries, pandering lies and posturing as superhuman, Indians were watching them without giving even the slightest clue as to which way their thoughts were going.”

The clues were there, given by independent media, but these leaders were not watching.

Modi’s ‘Hindu-Muslim’ assertion amplified unchecked. Thanks to a media in coma

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 16, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/05/16/modis-hindu-muslim-assertion-amplified-unchecked-thanks-to-a-media-in-coma

One must acknowledge that, as media strategists, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi are streets ahead of their opponents. It helps, of course, that they have a pliant mainstream media that is ever-ready to play along.

In this last fortnight, yet again, we have witnessed this play out. On April 21, Narendra Modi made a communally loaded speech while campaigning at Banswara in Rajasthan, where, among other things, he called Indian Muslims “infiltrators”. His speech was reported, but there was barely a murmur in mainstream media about it violating the Model Code of Conduct or even that it was not befitting the prime minister of a country to use such coarse and hate-filled language.  

Since then, mainstream media seems to have become almost comatose, sitting back and merely reporting such speeches and their disturbing contents. Apart from Narendra Modi, his lieutenants like Home Minister Amit Shah, have also not held back with openly communal language used to attack opponents, as this report in The Telegraph illustrates. The objective of this line of campaigning is evident; it is to polarise the voting population along communal lines.

Also clear is the BJP’s determination to keep Modi the focal point of its campaign. To do this, not only is the Prime Minister rushing around the country speaking at meetings and doing road shows, all of which are prominently covered by most media, but for a man who has shunned the media since he was elected in 2014, he has gone on overdrive to grant “exclusive” interviews to newspapers and television channels. Like the interview he gave last month to Smita Prakash, editor-in-chief of the news agency ANI, these interviews are clearly scripted, with little scope for follow-up questions. 

According to senior journalist Krishna Prasad, who posts on X under the handle Churumuri, in 30 days, Modi gave 26 interviews. He writes: 

“@narendramodi has given at least 26 ‘interviews’ in the last 30 days to newspapers, news channels and news agencies, revealing a staggering asymmetry of media coverage in favour of the BJP in the general elections. Timed to coincide with states going to the polls in various phases, the ‘interviews’ – undisguised plugs for the BJP, really – have received hours and hours of coverage that no opposition leader has enjoyed. ‘Interviews’ with newspaper groups have fetched the maximum returns: 6 pages in the @lokmat group; 4 pages in the @HindustanTimes group. Ditto TV networks, which broadcast in multiple languages on loop, and then get still more coverage on social media through the PM’s handles and handlers. In most languages, only one or two media outlets are chosen by @PMOIndia for the ‘interview’, but as befits a provincial #GujaratFirst mind, 5 Gujarati newspapers get the honour, including one that does not publish an e-paper.”

This media bombardment of “exclusives” does not suggest that Narendra Modi and his team have woken up to the fact that the media is an important institution in a democracy. Rather, it is part of a cleverly planned strategy to ensure that the face of the man who is the main selling point of the BJP continues to be prominent in all media. And the strategy has worked.

It is possible that the Prime Minister’s “resolve” that “I will not do Hindu-Muslim” is also a part of that strategy. On May 14, in an interview to the television channel News18 in Varanasi, Modi said: “The day I do Hindu-Muslim, I will be unworthy of public life.” 

The next day, Indian Express ran this as its page one lead, while others reported it without giving it that much prominence. While the headline of the Indian Express story repeated Modi’s statement, the text of the story did mention his statement in the Banswara rally three weeks earlier that was clearly “Hindu-Muslim”.  But most newspapers, barring the Telegraph, did not remind readers that Modi had in fact been playing the “Hindu-Muslim” card in multiple election speeches. 

A detailed record of PM Modi's speech in The Telegraph.

The hesitation by most mainstream media to give the other side of the story when it involves the Prime Minister is now a given. Hindustan Times did comment on the statement in its editorial on May 16. But instead of reminding readers that what Modi said was not supported by his most recent election speeches, it suggested that his comment should “guide the election campaign”. 

While reports on speeches by star campaigners form the bulk of election coverage, with headlines either highlighting statements made by these politicians or predictions by them about how many seats they will win or how badly their opponents will fare, some stories stand out as different. They tell us about the India that continues to be invisiblised by much of the media. They convey voices that are rarely heard, not even during elections.

Take this story in The Hindu by Purnima Sah. She reports on Adivasis living in the Satpura range in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district who still have no running water or pucca houses. They tell her that they know it is their duty to cast their vote, but they do not know whether that will make a difference to their lives. Most of them have not heard of the Modi government’s schemes promising them houses and water supply. One of them tells the reporter, “We are surprised to hear that there are government schemes where people get water and a pucca house.” The other reason they say they will vote is because they are afraid that if they do not, the forest department might force them to move from the land on which they have lived for generations.

The experience of Adivasis living just 46-km from Nashik is almost identical. No running water or electricity. And like their counterparts in Jalgaon district in the story mentioned above, a daily wage labourer tells the reporter from The Hinduthat he is afraid that if he does not vote, he will be declared dead: “We are scared that if we do not vote, the government will strike off our names from their documents and declare us dead. If that happens, then our existence will be in danger. What will happen to our family then?”

These stories remind us why the vote is so important to the poorest, who otherwise do not feel they count, even as every political party makes promises to look after their interests. They also tell us how, more than 76 years after India became independent, these black holes of misery persist. 

They remain invisible because we in the media do not make that additional effort to reach out and uncover this India, one that is more real than the glitter and power displays that dominate the media scene.

 

Manipur, misinformation, Revanna: Three issues ignored by Big Media this election season

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 2, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/05/02/manipur-misinformation-revanna-three-issues-ignored-by-big-media-this-election-season

The absence of something in the media is often not noted, especially in election season. But this morning, some readers of English newspapers in Mumbai, the city where I live, might have noticed the absence of Narendra Modi on their front pages. Barring The Indian Express, which had a front-page advertisement by a TV channel about an “exclusive” interview with the prime minister, a story on increased GST collections literally trumped anything Modi might have said the day before.

He still features in all newspapers because he has not ceased making controversial, and therefore newsworthy, declarations. 

In this last fortnight, since my previous column, Modi’s speeches have dominated the news cycle. Beginning with his provocative, inaccurate and hate-filled speech in Banswara, Rajasthan on April 21, where he called Indian Muslims “infiltrators” and declared that the Congress planned to give away the ordinary person’s hard-earned money to those “who have many children”, Modi has continued daily to make statements that have featured prominently in the media.

The front page of The Indian Express a day after Modi spoke in Banswara.

 This is probably a well-calibrated media strategy by the BJP to ensure that the dominant narrative in these elections remains focused on what Modi says. It also ensures that the Congress party, the focus of Modi’s attacks, must constantly counter everything he says. Its response, however, rarely gets the same prominence as Modi’s statements. 

Given the extent of the prime minister’s half-truths and outright lies in the last fortnight, it is incumbent on the media to fact-check. This has not been a norm in mainstream media and in the last decade, since the BJP and Modi came to power, such fact-checking is notable for its absence. 

However, in recent days, at least some in mainstream media are doing what ought to be routine. Perhaps this is happening because it is election season, and even though the outcome seems predetermined according to political pundits, there is always a sliver of uncertainty. 

 

Some newspapers, like The Hindu, ran a fact-check after Modi’s Banswara speech, especially on what he claimed was in the Congress party’s election manifesto. Scroll called out Modi’s lies in a clear and incisive article headlined: “Fact-checking five days of Narendra Modi’s speeches: A catalogue of lies”. And even a mainstream TV channel like Aaj Tak, not known for being even slightly critical of Modi in the last decade, ventured to point out rather gently that what he had stated in Banswara was not based on facts. 

Ironically, Modi’s statements turned into a bonus for the Congress as journalists and ordinary voters began downloading its manifesto and reading it. Election manifestos are rarely the subject of any prolonged discussion in the media. 

Apart from these fact-checks, there were also a couple of strong editorials, such as this one in The Hindu.  Yet, despite the reporting and comment on Modi’s speeches, and complaints by the Congress and concerned citizens, the Election Commission of India took its time to decide whether what he said violated the Model Code of Conduct. As has been extensively reported, instead of sending Modi a notice in response to the complaints, the EC chose to skirt around the issue by sending a notice to BJP chief JP Nadda. 

Simultaneously, and perhaps attempting to appear even-handed, it also sent a notice to the president of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, in response to speeches by Rahul Gandhi and Kharge during the campaign. At the time of writing, there have been no further developments on these notices.

Moving away from Modi and his election speeches, the other major story this last fortnight was the sex abuse controversy involving Prajwal Revanna, the MP from Hassan who belongs to the Janata Dal (Secular), founded by former prime minister HD Deva Gowda, who also happens to be Revanna’s grandfather. He is the JDS candidate again for the same seat.

Mainstream media’s response to this terrible scandal, where literally hundreds of women appear on recordings where they are being sexually abused by Revanna, needs to be noted. While the media has focused on the tapes, their provenance, how they were made public, the motives of the people who did this, and the impact of this on the BJP which has partnered with the JDS in Karnataka, little attention has been paid to the women who were at the receiving end.

The story that must be investigated is not just why Revanna recorded these abuses, or how those tapes got out, but the system that allows these powerful men to exploit powerless women. It is precisely this imbalance in the power structure that led to global focus on sexual harassment at work in 2018, including in India, following the exposé by the Washington Post and the New Yorker about Hollywood producer and serial abuser Harvey Weinstein. The outrage then led to many more exposés. It also resulted in demands for change in the system that permitted this type of exploitation to continue unchecked. 

The Revanna scandal, and earlier Sandeshkhali in Bengal, tell us that not enough is known yet about the extent of sexual exploitation within the political system. Even if it is known, it has not been exposed. Incidentally, while many mainstream television channels focused on the Sandeshkhali scandal, where women had allegedly been sexually abused by politicians belonging to the governing Trinamool Congress in the state, they have barely touched the Revanna scandal. The JDS is an ally of the BJP in Karnataka whereas the TMC is fighting the BJP in Bengal. 

This seamy side of Indian politics and political parties is a story that has barely been told. There are a few instances that pop up now and then. But the message from the Revanna episode is that in a situation where the power equation is so grossly skewed as in India, women without power are silently bearing the worst kind of sexual exploitation. It is a terrible indictment of our system and needs to be thoroughly exposed.

Let me end with the other absence that mainstream media has yet to fully rectify, its reporting on Manipur. May 3 marks one year since the beginning of the ethnic strike that has divided the state, where thousands have been displaced, and several hundred killed. The violence has not abated and continues almost every day.  

It is a time for us in the media to introspect. To what extent has our sporadic coverage of the troubles in this north-eastern state over this year, contributed to the union government’s callous indifference to Manipur? 

There have been spurts of media focus on Manipur, such as in June last year, when the May 3 incident of two Kuki women being paraded naked and thereafter raped by a mob of Meitei men became public with the release of a tape of this incident. Or more recently, because of the violence that occurred during the elections. But regular reporting in mainstream media on the horrific levels of daily violence and difficulties that ordinary people on both sides of the divide encounter has been largely missing. 

In fact, the complete story of what happened on May 3 is only just beginning to emerge. The Indian Express in a front-page story on April 30 – headlined, “Manipur chargesheet: Women paraded naked made it to police Gypsy but told no key, left to the mob” – tells us the extent to which the local police were complicit. The story is based on a chargesheet filed by the CBI, which is investigating the incident, last October in the Gauhati High Court. 

A more detailed piece by Makepeace Sitlhou in Article 14 tells us what the survivors of this assault are going through. Together, these articles remind us that the price of the media ignoring the tragedy that has unfolded in Manipur is being paid every day by the people in the state who have survived the violence. 

General Elections 2024 | The missing women in Indian politics

Published in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine on April 21, 2024

Link: https://www.thehindu.com/society/india-general-elections-2024-the-missing-women-in-indian-politics-bjp-congress-narendra-modi-womens-reservation-act/article68071489.ece

Phase 1 of the General Elections 2024 is over. There is still a long way to go before June 4 when the votes will be counted. Till then, we will be inundated with endless speculation, conjecture, guesses, accusatory statements by opposing sides — and the ritual photographs of women lining up to vote, holding aloft their election identity cards.

That image has become a cliché. But behind it is a story that has changed little, much like the photo itself. It is the story of Indian women and politics, why they are there, why they are missing, and whether anything will change in the near future.

Going by the candidates already in the fray this election, it seems as if change, if any, is incremental. Women constituted only 8% of the candidates in the first phase on April 19. This could change slightly by the end of the election cycle.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, women were only 9% of the candidates. And fewer were elected. In fact, the success rate of women candidates was a little over 10% in 2019.

Also, although there were more women in the current Lok Sabha — 78 — than previously, they added up to only 14%. These low numbers contrast sharply with the increase in women voters. In 2019, their numbers were marginally more than that of men — 67.18% women compared to 67.01% men.

This data, however, masks the other granular details. In several States, this time there are no women candidates. In others, only a handful. For instance, in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, out of the six parliamentary seats, there is only one woman candidate, former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. In Uttarakhand, of the five seats, there is one woman, a Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate who comes from an erstwhile royal family. In Punjab, so far, only two women have been selected. One is Praneet Kaur, who switched sides from the Congress to the BJP. Kaur is a four-time MP from Patiala and was earlier married to former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, who left the Congress and joined the BJP in 2022.

In the bigger States, there are more women contesting, but their percentages are still low. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, 76 women are contesting out of a total of 950 candidates for 39 seats. Although this is an increase from 2019, when 67 women contested, they add up to only 8% of the total. In 2019, only three of the 67 women who stood for elections won.

In Uttar Pradesh, with 80 parliamentary seats, the first phase has seen only seven women contesting compared to 80 men. We will have to wait for the final figures from Bihar, which has 40 parliamentary seats. Rajasthan, with 25 Lok Sabha seats, has 10 women candidates, while Gujarat with 26 seats has so far got eight women contesting although this number could increase. In Kerala, out of 194 candidates contesting 20 seats, only 25 are women.

Will reservation help?

The only two States where political parties have committed to field more women are Odisha (Biju Janata Dal, 33%) and West Bengal (All India Trinamool Congress, AITMC). In 2019, 41% of AITMC’s candidates were women.

Will the picture change if the Women’s Reservation Act is finally implemented? It was passed last year after being on a slow burner since 2008, when it was introduced.

It could, because the experience of elections so far has shown that barring a couple of exceptions, no political party is willing to commit to ensuring that one third of its candidates are women for either Lok Sabha elections or for State assemblies.

The reasons are obvious. While no political party objected to the introduction of 33% reservation for women in panchayats and nagarpalikas in the 90s, the idea of this being replicated in State legislatures and the Parliament has been resisted. There is much more power and money at stake, and simply put, men who have dominated electoral politics do not want to cede this space to women. Or any space for that matter. Despite decades of struggle for equality in the widest sense, and loads of political rhetoric about ‘Nari Shakti’, Indian women continue to fight each step of the way for recognition and for the rights guaranteed to every citizen.

Most of the women who do make it, despite this, are generally from political families, or women who have a public profile that a political party thinks it can leverage to win the seat. In both cases, the women must have financial resources, or the ability to raise resources. In fact, money power has been a major factor in Indian elections for decades. It discourages independent women, or even men, who have been active in the civic and political space, from contesting.

Not all the women elected from political families are silent spectators. They have made their mark and become politicians in their own right. Take Supriya Sule from the Nationalist Congress Party, for instance. She is the daughter of a powerful and experienced politician, Sharad Pawar, and this paved her way into politics. But her interventions in the 17th Lok Sabha have established her as a politician in her own right.

In the past, you could say this also about the late Jayalalithaa, whose entry into politics was facilitated by men. But she emerged as a strong politician who could win multiple elections, and served as chief minister of Tamil Nadu six times.

With their own might

We have also seen a few women without political connections who have managed to get elected and have performed exceptionally well as parliamentarians.

Take the feisty Mahua Moitra from the AITMC. As a member of the 17th Lok Sabha, she intervened, asked tough questions, and would not be bullied. For this, she paid a price. Apart from the expected misogynistic comments from some male members of Parliament, and vicious trolling on social media, Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha on charges of allegedly accepting money to ask questions. She is contesting again and her opponent from the BJP is a woman from an erstwhile royal family. It will be one of the more interesting contests to watch.

Moitra follows in the footsteps of other such women, not least Mamata Banerjee, the only woman chief minister in India today. Banerjee has succeeded without any godfathers. Also, while Mayawati’s influence is diminished today, one cannot forget this Dalit woman who fought against casteism and sexism to become a factor in Uttar Pradesh politics.

There was also the late Sushma Swaraj, who was outspoken but also had the ability to work with people on the opposite side of the political divide. One of those with whom she had a friendly relationship was Sonia Gandhi, who came into politics by accident, but whose presence in the Congress Party and in Parliament has shown that she has mastered the game of politics.

Women who are already active in politics, in the larger understanding of that term, also make a mark if elected. For instance, in the 1977 elections, held after the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, when she and the Congress party were defeated, several women were elected as first-timers. Women like Pramila Dandavate, Mrinal Gore and Ahilya Rangnekar from Maharashtra were already veterans in politics and social movements. During their time in Parliament, they worked with other women members cutting across party lines to push through several important laws that affected women, such as the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1986, and made important changes in the rape laws.

In contrast, there are women who have been in the Lok Sabha for several terms, yet their voices are hardly ever heard. These would be the women political parties select because they can win based on their popularity as actors, for instance, or in seats where there had been an erstwhile hereditary ruler. We note their presence only if they are selected again as candidates during an election.

There can be no argument, given the realities of the status of Indian women and of our electoral system, that without reservation, the percentage of women in Parliament and State assemblies will not reach the desired one-third of the total. These bodies are supposed to represent “the people”. If half the population does not find representation, then clearly something must change.

 

When politicians change sides: Welcome to India, land of political acrobatics

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on April 5, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/04/05/when-politicians-change-sides-welcome-to-india-land-of-political-acrobatics

Some newspapers have named this pre-election period the “dance of democracy”. But skim the headlines and you’ll wonder whether we’re witnessing the “farce of democracy” instead.

Every day at dizzying speed, some politician associated with a party for many years – known well by their constituents as a member of that party which has a particular profile – suddenly switches sides, that too just before the election.

Changing parties is an Indian political game for which we could probably claim copyright. But the speed and pace at which it is being played out in this election season surpasses anything we have seen in the past.

As a result, election-related news reports – and here I am referring to the mainstream print media – would be of passing interest to the average reader who is not steeped in the minutiae of the political merry-go-round. What many readers may well ask is whether the party system, or even elections, have any meaning if this special type of political acrobatics takes place just before we go out and vote. 

Today, there is no way to ensure that the person we vote for continues to represent the ideology of a party they belonged to when they contested, even if some people do vote for an individual irrespective of the party to which they belong. But if the cynicism that underlines the party-switching game gets across to voters, one wonders if more people will hold back and choose not to vote at all. 

As a young man who seemed interested in politics, especially of his home state of Bihar, told me recently, “Even though I was eligible to vote when I turned 18, I have never voted. And I’m not sure I will this time either.”

We know now, of course, why the big political players switched sides. In an excellent piece of reporting, Deeptiman Tiwary of Indian Express put together information that gives us a graphic view of not just who changed parties, but why. For instance, cases against two top NCP leaders – Ajit Pawar, currently deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, and Praful Patel, former aviation minister – were closed shortly after they joined the BJP. Tiwary documents that of the 25 opposition leaders who joined the BJP since 2014, 23 have had cases against them dropped or put in cold storage. The pattern for lesser-known politicians who have had a sudden change of heart and sought space in the BJP is likely to be the same. 

While this current political circus has established that the BJP is not “the party with a difference” as it once wanted people to believe, welcoming as it is of politicians with serious corruption charges against them, this also speaks to the quality of people entering the political arena. The decline has been evident for some time but now it has crossed new summits.

Which brings us back to the meaning of an electoral democracy with a party system.

The rest of the world is watching this election as well, given the sheer numbers involved, with almost a billion people voting in an election spread over 44 days. There is no other election of this size anywhere in the world. But already questions about the elections and Indian democracy are being raised.

The Financial Times, a well-respected international business newspaper, wrote a critical editorial last week headlined “The mother of democracy is not in good shape”. The paper’s particular concern was the way law enforcement agencies have been used against opposition leaders culminating in the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. It quotes Rahul Gandhi’s accusation that the BJP was resorting to “match fixing” in this election and says it is puzzled that the governing party should even feel the need to “squeeze the opposition”.

Of course, critical comments such as this in the Western media are most often dismissed by the BJP, which accuses these media groups of having an agenda. Yet, despite this public stance, it is not able to ignore such criticism entirely. We cannot forget that it was the Modi government that banned a BBC documentaryin January 2023 even though it was not going to be televised in this country. 

But apart from these passing pinpricks from foreign shores, there is little that the party need worry about with the Indian media. We will have to wait and watch the quality and the slants in the election coverage, but it would be fair to guess that there would be precious little that’s critical of Narendra Modi or the BJP in mainstream media.

Since the 2019 election, the changed reality as far as the media is concerned is the noticeable growth of small, independent media houses that have used social media effectively to put across a different narrative. We saw this most vividly, as I mentioned in my last column, in the coverage of the electoral bond scam. It was Project Electoral Bond, a joint effort by The News Minute, Newslaundry, Scroll and independent journalists, as well as the investigative work of the Reporters’ Collective since 2019 that finally told us the real story of who paid which party and what they got in return. R Rajagopal of The Telegraph has rightly acknowledged their work in his article “Keyboard guerrillas”. Those stories are still tumbling out (read here).

Also, YouTube hosts numerous news-based programmes by former mainstream TV journalists, apart from Ravish Kumar, in Indian languages that are watched by millions. In cities, your local vegetable vendor, carpenter, plumber, painter, or taxi or auto driver does not have the time to sit in front of a television and watch the news. All of them catch it on the run, usually on their phones. And the channels they watch are not just the mainstream channels that can also be found on YouTube but these independent channels that have a greater connect. 

On the other side is the BJP’s IT cell that’s excelled in using all forms of social media. It is already on overdrive. And assisting it are dozens of YouTube channels, also apparently independent, that daily spread not just disinformation, but also direct propaganda that will help the BJP. Kunal Purohit writes in this piece in Al Jazeera that media studies have established that Indians “place greater trust in news they view on YouTube and WhatsApp, over the news delivered by mainstream media outlets”. The days when we asked someone where they got their information, and the reply would be, “Akhbar mein padha” (read it in the newspaper), are well and truly in the past.

We will have to wait and watch which form of media succeeds in changing people’s minds, or confirming their biases, and whether any of this will have an impact on voter choice.