It is amazing that in spite of an apparent anti-incumbency factor, the ruling party won with a handsome margin. What makes people vote for a party? Persuading people to support a particular candidate or party is a crucial test of any political campaign. However, how to move voters successfully is a matter of intense debate on media channels. This is the raison d’être for political strategists and experts.
Do we need to understand political psychology to decode the BJP win? Do we really need to understand the foundations, dynamics, and outcomes of political behaviour? Does it also involve cognitive and social explanations? Though several explanations have been coming, no one has really explored the social engineering and a massive use of technology by the ruling party that went into a very meticulous planning behind the unprecedented results.
First and foremost are leadership skills and political acumen of the leader. His decisions can affect the safety and survival of more than a billion people. A leader must instil trust in his subjects. It is also the accuracy and keenness of judgement or insight that will bring success. The leader must have the ability to accurately perceive and judge the formal and informal influences which shape decision making. It’s about correctly reading the context and being able to make sound decisions based on what is really happening on the ground. The leader and the PM amply demonstrated this in the first outing. Decision of demonetisation was momentous but was full of belief and passion. His reading the people bodies that have a level of subtext, and estimating the undercurrents of things that were happening behind or underneath the daily machinations of those bodies was spot on. He turned the electioneering into one that resembled the presidential system. It was “Me Vs others” all the way. If triple talaq was projected as a woman emancipation law, demonetisation was showcased as punishing the rich and the corrupt. He amply demonstrated his political sagacity and the courage needed to take the bull by the horn. The people reposed immense faith and trust in him. That assured, the canvas was left to be painted the way he wanted. A persona of a self-made man, strong and decisive with a clarity of purpose and studied action endeared him to the young, aspirational and happening in equal measure.
In Colin Powell’s words, he refused to be buffaloed by experts and elites and truly believed they often possessed more data than judgment and that the elites could become so inbred that they would only produce haemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they were nicked by the real world. His trust on experts from outside the civil service arena amply proved this. He truly took the government past the level that the science of governance says possible. Truly, Michael Korda, a British writer and novelist’s words describe the PM aptly. “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.”
The Organisation one heads is equally important to succeed. A multitude of bodies working on the ground and ideologically supporting the ruling party did the honours. Great amount of meticulous planning and social engineering helped their cause. Social management was turned into a most effective art form. The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his study ‘The Present Problems of Social Structure’, proposes that a society can no longer operate successfully using outmoded methods of social management. To achieve the best outcomes, all conclusions and decisions must use the most advanced techniques and include reliable statistical data. Social engineering then becomes a data-based scientific system that intelligently manages resources and human capital.
The BJP as an organisation has stood the test of times and emerged victorious. The metamorphosis from a two-seat party to one that virtually is omnipresent has been phenomenal. How then did this happen? For one, the organizational strength of the party, its share of money and resources, the alleged overt or covert backing of supposedly independent institutions, and the leader’s personal charisma proved too much for an opposition that had several incongruities and self-defeating fallacies to sort out. The result was the ruling party was always a step ahead. It did not matter that the economy was under performing. The GDP had actually dropped. There was job crisis. The farmer’s distress was mounting. All odds were circumvented. The results of social engineering carried out, with a Nationalism plank, couched in an Indian identity was stunning.
Use of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube was most effective and innovative. One reason social media is effective is that it engages younger voters. Its value is in its immediacy. The “Share” function on Facebook or “retweet” of Twitter allowed like-minded voters and activists to easily share news and information such as campaign events with each other. It dramatically changed the way their campaign was run allowing the people to interact with the party candidates. The message was loud and clear. That the candidates running for public office were accountable and accessible to voters. The think tank of the ruling party knew exactly how their policy statements or moves played among the electorate. Even social media buzz was used in viral marketing which allowed interaction of people on social networking sites about party policies and their candidates. The emotion, excitement, energy, and anticipation around the expectations from the party and its candidates proved infectious.
The public adjusted to the candidates’ campaigns real time. However, the direct access where some candidates sent out unfiltered tweets or Facebook posts did land them in embarrassing situations. The leader quickly turned them to advantage by interjecting at most appropriate times. Finally elections need funds. The entire campaign was so innovative that even the so-called “money bombs” to raise large amounts of cash in a short period of time was used. Money bombs are typically 24-hour periods in which candidates press their supporters to donate money by tying them to specific controversies that emerge during campaigns. The party truly institutionalised what PM Narendra Modi said, “Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities” Truly the leader and the Organisation of his bidding combined so well that a memorable victory could have been the only outcome.