When a movie is made about the current Indian elections, something that can serve as a great reference point would be a Chilean movie called No. This was nominated for the Best foreign film Oscars last year. The major theme of the movie was that you cannot fight a message of hope and happiness especially if you are running a reactive campaign. The movie, which was inspired by true events, was set in the context of the Chilean referendum in the late 80's to determine fate of the then dictator Augusto Pinochet. The campaign trying to defeat him was initially focused solely on the wrongdoings of Pinochet and the atrocities he committed in trying to win the battle. A lot of their efforts were being censored by the government and they were finding it difficult to get their message across. At this point they brought along a media expert to run their campaign who completely changed the face of the campaign. The focus of the campaign was instead changed to selling hope. This was their central campaign advertisement. It is nothing more than a catchy tune with happy people all of whom are saying if no is chosen, happiness won't be far behind. With this and the rest of their campaign they steered the imagination of their country to start associating a happy future with the No campaign. The No campaign eventually won the plebiscite.
While he didn't face the same obstacles of censorship and authoritarianism, Narendra Modi and the BJP in this electoral campaign did succeed in capturing the imagination of India's youth like never before. They succeeded in associating a message of hope with Modi. (Modi's campaign slogan Achche din aane wale hain even roughly translates to the song in the Chilean advertizement I linked which means Happiness is coming, Chile). Doing so was an extraordinary feat for his marketing team. The man has been strongly associated with hate and anger since 2002. People who support Modi can claim that he has been exonerated by the SIT, but a stigma has remained. Removing that stigma and then refocusing his brand towards a positive image required some doing. And in the last 10 years or so they have been slowly chipping away at this. There are a couple of excellent truth v/s hype episodes on this subject. They systematically ignored even mention of the riots and slowly starting with the vibrant gujrat campaign they started selling Gujrat and Modi as destinations of development and progress. These campaigns were a mixed bag in attracting investors but definitely created an image of a state that is investor friendly.
After having created this image they decided to sell it to rest of the country. A great dish is never perfect without the last bit of tadka. And here is where the organizational efficiency of the BJP/RSS and the oratorical capabilities of Modi came into the picture. They kept repeating that they will bring progress at the top of their voices while using their organization to spread a message of cynicism and gloom against the current dispensation. It is not particularly difficult to do so, when the leader of the government, the prime minister, does not wish to speak and when the leader of the political party speaks, one wishes he would stop.
It is futile to fight a message of hope in a reactive campaign. If you start reacting with positive campaigns of your own you would be seen as a me too party. If you start defending yourself with your achievements you would lose anyway since you are now on the defensive. You will forever be answering questions and never relay your message. People may not even remember your answer as the questioner has already moved on to the next set of questions. If you try discrediting this message of hope with a message of gloom your loss will be complete. Now not only are you reacting and defensive but also associating your campaign with a negative message. I may not have studied marketing, but I can assure you nobody likes that. People will say let us at least give the other guy who is selling us dreams of heaven a chance. Especially when you have nothing to offer except scaring us about the dream merchant.The Congress and its marketing strategists decided that the third option was the best.
They could have started the campaigning with energy and seized the initiative with a positive message. They could have focused on their positives from the start and asked for an opportunity to improve upon this. They decided its not worth it. If a small state like Gujrat with a growth rate of 10% can sell itself so well, the whole country growing at 7.8% during the same time can definitely be sold. Both function on the same plank of free market capitalism anyway. How much ever the opposition might discredit them, there have been a record number of people who were propelled out of poverty in the last 10 years. Almost the entire country has been connected by roads. They could have talked about the fact that the entire nation has been electrified under their watch. They could have spoken about the fact that there are a billion mobile phone connections in the country. Yes, the BJP could have countered each of those by saying that the last three years the growth rate has been shrinking and the government is rudderless. They could have said the roads are in poor condition, and that while there might be a billion phone connections a billion gazillion rupees were stolen by corrupt officials in the process. But facts are irrelevant in a marketing campaign. In this scenario you are the message of hope and the BJP the message of cynicism and negativity. Especially given that the tadka of maligning the extreme right wing of the BJP and using that to gain a portion of the votes has already been applied.
The Congress did start on a disadvantageous footing, and this was completely of their own doing. After years of prostrating to a family instead of ideology, they reached an endgame where they were being led by the worst that family could offer. Given everything, Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi were fairly efficient administrators with some amount of charisma. Their governance schemes mostly matched the Congress' original ideology as well. Rahul on the other has the charisma of a polar bear in the Chennai heat. He probably has the same amount of brain power too. Given the scale of this defeat hopefully they quickly shunt him out and start rebuilding ground up with a new set of leaders. Either that or a new force will quickly need to be developed to occupy the left of center space quickly. Given that a more leftist worldview would not be palatable with most of my fellow countrymen, the days of a polity with a more centrist worldview would be the days I would be personally hoping for. Here is hoping that the days till then are also achche din!
While he didn't face the same obstacles of censorship and authoritarianism, Narendra Modi and the BJP in this electoral campaign did succeed in capturing the imagination of India's youth like never before. They succeeded in associating a message of hope with Modi. (Modi's campaign slogan Achche din aane wale hain even roughly translates to the song in the Chilean advertizement I linked which means Happiness is coming, Chile). Doing so was an extraordinary feat for his marketing team. The man has been strongly associated with hate and anger since 2002. People who support Modi can claim that he has been exonerated by the SIT, but a stigma has remained. Removing that stigma and then refocusing his brand towards a positive image required some doing. And in the last 10 years or so they have been slowly chipping away at this. There are a couple of excellent truth v/s hype episodes on this subject. They systematically ignored even mention of the riots and slowly starting with the vibrant gujrat campaign they started selling Gujrat and Modi as destinations of development and progress. These campaigns were a mixed bag in attracting investors but definitely created an image of a state that is investor friendly.
After having created this image they decided to sell it to rest of the country. A great dish is never perfect without the last bit of tadka. And here is where the organizational efficiency of the BJP/RSS and the oratorical capabilities of Modi came into the picture. They kept repeating that they will bring progress at the top of their voices while using their organization to spread a message of cynicism and gloom against the current dispensation. It is not particularly difficult to do so, when the leader of the government, the prime minister, does not wish to speak and when the leader of the political party speaks, one wishes he would stop.
It is futile to fight a message of hope in a reactive campaign. If you start reacting with positive campaigns of your own you would be seen as a me too party. If you start defending yourself with your achievements you would lose anyway since you are now on the defensive. You will forever be answering questions and never relay your message. People may not even remember your answer as the questioner has already moved on to the next set of questions. If you try discrediting this message of hope with a message of gloom your loss will be complete. Now not only are you reacting and defensive but also associating your campaign with a negative message. I may not have studied marketing, but I can assure you nobody likes that. People will say let us at least give the other guy who is selling us dreams of heaven a chance. Especially when you have nothing to offer except scaring us about the dream merchant.The Congress and its marketing strategists decided that the third option was the best.
They could have started the campaigning with energy and seized the initiative with a positive message. They could have focused on their positives from the start and asked for an opportunity to improve upon this. They decided its not worth it. If a small state like Gujrat with a growth rate of 10% can sell itself so well, the whole country growing at 7.8% during the same time can definitely be sold. Both function on the same plank of free market capitalism anyway. How much ever the opposition might discredit them, there have been a record number of people who were propelled out of poverty in the last 10 years. Almost the entire country has been connected by roads. They could have talked about the fact that the entire nation has been electrified under their watch. They could have spoken about the fact that there are a billion mobile phone connections in the country. Yes, the BJP could have countered each of those by saying that the last three years the growth rate has been shrinking and the government is rudderless. They could have said the roads are in poor condition, and that while there might be a billion phone connections a billion gazillion rupees were stolen by corrupt officials in the process. But facts are irrelevant in a marketing campaign. In this scenario you are the message of hope and the BJP the message of cynicism and negativity. Especially given that the tadka of maligning the extreme right wing of the BJP and using that to gain a portion of the votes has already been applied.
The Congress did start on a disadvantageous footing, and this was completely of their own doing. After years of prostrating to a family instead of ideology, they reached an endgame where they were being led by the worst that family could offer. Given everything, Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi were fairly efficient administrators with some amount of charisma. Their governance schemes mostly matched the Congress' original ideology as well. Rahul on the other has the charisma of a polar bear in the Chennai heat. He probably has the same amount of brain power too. Given the scale of this defeat hopefully they quickly shunt him out and start rebuilding ground up with a new set of leaders. Either that or a new force will quickly need to be developed to occupy the left of center space quickly. Given that a more leftist worldview would not be palatable with most of my fellow countrymen, the days of a polity with a more centrist worldview would be the days I would be personally hoping for. Here is hoping that the days till then are also achche din!
