Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
In the run-up to India's next general elections due to be held in May 2014, large sums of money are being spent for carefully planned social media propaganda. Elections are serious business where the leaders prepare the battlefield with unrealistic promises to woo voters.
But how closely is the reality of social media linked with the reality of casting votes? How do these two reconcile in a nation with less than 12 percent Internet penetration?
The second most populous nation in the world only has about 150 million people with access to Internet and smart phones with just over 80 million being social media users.
This election season in India certainly marks the dawn of a new era where tech gimmicks are in full swing, capturing the minds of more than 715 million voters, with nearly 47 percent of the electorate below 35.
The Indian elections have come a long way since the first general elections were held in 1952. During those years, people were ferried across the rural backwoods to attend clambakes and listen to politicians.
In order to ensure larger attendance for their rallies, free lunches were offered, along with gifts and reasonable amount of pocket money.
Politics and election since then have witnessed an overwhelming change, where even the dhoti-clad politicians of yesteryears are now embracing a tech-savvy approach to reach out to constituents across all demographics.
The ruling Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the principal opposition group, are trying to outmaneuver each other in the social networking domains ahead of high-stakes elections.
Public relations agencies have been roped in to create this space across the cyber platform. Given the total number of social media users across the length and breadth of the country, it's impossible to forecast which way the Indian voters will turn.
There has been an enormous orchestrated hoo-hah regarding the social media presence even spreading to small regional parties. But whether this urbanized campaign can translate into votes and whether it can reach out to rural voters ahead of the elections remain contentious issues.
More and more Indian politicians are now using social media as a catalyst to propagate their own nationalist ideologies, and trying to redefine the meaning of a secular state. This war of words has spread cross-platform.
The debate in this space is not about winning or losing. There have been some bizarre moves in the run for the maximum number of followers.
Given the state of political affairs, this may lead to a situation where neither national party will be able to single-handedly obtain the necessary majority to form a government.
There is no denying to the fact that social media is a very powerful tool and that it will play a significant role. But this communication campaign being run throughout the country seems to target those in the thriving middle class, ignoring the vast majority of Indians.
Rural Indians would like to see discussion of their genuine grievances, which either knowingly or unknowingly, have been forgotten.
But they are the overwhelming majority of people, surviving on less than $2 a day, and will eventually come out to vote in droves. If we focus only on the petty back-and-forth of social media politics, we may end up overlooking the needs of ordinary people for whom Twitter or Facebook is a foreign land.
It's hard to see whether parties are using social media to unite for the good of national interests or to perpetuate discord among their constituents. A technology designed to bring people together may end up tearing them apart.
The author is a Master's candidate in Global Business Journalism at Tsinghua University. himanshu28102000@gmail.com