Computer Mediated Communication and the Ascent of Narendra Modi

Computer-mediated communication and the ascent of Narendra Modi 9 V.S. Sambandan Governments come and go, then, but the need for and importance of effective political communication, using all tools made available by advancing technology, continues to be central to the democratic process everywhere. (McNair 2011: xix) n 16 May 2014, a bilingual message in English and Hindi announced to world the victory of the right wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In all of 40 characters, the new prime minister-designate, Narendra Modi, conveyed what he had achieved, and what he intended to deliver, to the world’s largest democracy. The tweet was both to the point and inspirational: “India has won!” it said in English and added in Hindi, “India has won. We are approaching good days.” The tweet was more than a message. It represented an important medium through which the 2014 General Election was fought and won. The BJP secured for itself a clear majority, winning 282 of the 543 parliamentary seats that are directly elected to the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament—the Lok Sabha (House of the People). O The election marked a change from the normal on two counts: First, the victory broke the phase of coalition governance, which had come to be a feature of India’s national politics since the mid-1990s. Second, and more important, the election campaign set a new frontier for the modes of political communication in India, with the extensive and effective use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) by the victorious party. V.S. Sambandan | 125 What set the 2014 Modi campaign apart from both the previous election campaigns, in general, and that of the incumbent Congress party in particular, was the manner in which political communications were carried out by Modi and his party, the BJP. The political communication mode adopted by Modi’s team varied in both substance and form compared with previous elections. This chapter emphasises that the key to the success of the BJP in winning this majority was a carefully conceived, well managed, and effectively implemented political communication strategy. This strategy recognised factors such as anti-incumbency, popular disenchantment with corruption, the desire for a “strong leader”, clamour for “development”, and the call to put an end to “dynastic politics” (Joshi 2014), and effectively used the social media to convey political messages to the electorate that a) the Congress had to be voted out, and b) that the BJP under Modi’s leadership should be voted in. Garber and Smith’s (2005) deinition of political communication is instructive in discussing the manner in which the Modi campaign set about its task: “[T]he construction, sending, receiving, and processing of messages that potentially have a signiicant direct or indirect impact on politics.” (Graber & Smith 2005: 479-505). In addition, the distinguishing feature about the social media strategy of the BJP was that it factored in the three elements of political communication—political organisations, the audience and the media—through which political actions are “conceived and realised” (McNair 2011: 5-13). Organisationally, the BJP drew a lot of strength from its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The latter played a vital role at all levels of the electioneering process—campaigning, providing feedback, and managing polling booths. This comprised “nearly one lakh group leaders and six lakh [volunteers] from 42,000 units spread across the country”, who worked fulltime to ensure a BJP victory (Narayan 2014). That the RSS assumed a leading role in the BJP’s election campaign is acknowledged by Narayan based on ield visits to the northern state, Uttar Pradesh, and secondary data based on newspaper reports. 126 | India Election 2014 In addition to the organisational support, the RSS also served as a useful feedback mechanism, collecting information from the ground on the popular reaction to issues raised by Modi during campaign meetings. This feedback helped in creating appropriate messages for audiences—both online and for public meetings. The feedback was not only based on ground reports from RSS volunteers, but on integrated information received on social media. For instance, before Modi addressed a public rally in the southern city of Hyderabad, one of his followers “tweeted how his elderly mother was a great fan” of the prime ministerial aspirant. This was followed up by the local BJP unit and the elderly woman was brought on stage, where “Modi sought her blessings” (Sardesai 2014: 237-238). The third element— the media—which is central to this discussion comprised of both the traditional and online modes of communication. However, for the purpose of this chapter, the focus will be on the online medium. As a prelude to understanding the electoral success of the BJP, more speciically, that of Modi, a brief overview of the political situation on the eve of the 2014 General Election is required. The Election Commission of India lists six national parties (Election Commission of India 2014), which include the BJP, and its main opponent in the 2014 election, the Congress, which was in power since 2004, leading a coalition of other national and state parties. The Congress has held power for a total of ive decades in independent India. More relevant to the 2014 election, it was in power for 10 years before it faced the election as the leader of coalition parties. Anti-incumbency had set in because of two principal factors: a) the Congress was the main ruling party for a large part of independent India, and b) during its latest period in ofice over two terms, the second ive-year term (2009-2014) saw a sharp decline in its popularity owing to charges of corruption and what the opposition termed “paralysis in governance”. The task for an incumbent party is made more dificult in an election. Political scientists have shown that “voters base their evaluation of the incumbent party and leader on their performance in ofice, i.e. it is a retrospective evaluation rather than an assessment of the party’s proposals for the future” (Himmelweit et al. 1981: 8). Thus, the onus for the Congress, as the incumbent, was to effectively communicate its achievements in ofice. V.S. Sambandan | 127 In contrast, the BJP, as the aspirant, stood to gain by, what US political scientist J.A. Smith calls the “investment model”. As he explains, the investment model stresses: [T]he role of the candidate or leader of the party [emphasis original]. The analogy with the manager of one’s investments is clear; the voter takes into account the track record of the candidates, the trust that can be put in their promises, their ability to deliver, their standing with signiicant institutions, their capacity to arouse loyalty and general likeability (Himmelweit et al. 1981: 8). Based on these two categorisations of voter behaviour, we discuss the election campaigns, in particular the political communication approaches, of the two main national parties—the then incumbent Congress and the aspirant BJP. Political communication in India before 2014 Although the 2014 General Election is the 16th in independent India, modern electoral democracy to constitute central and regional governments is just shy of a century old—the irst elections to the regional and central assemblies were held in 1920, which gave direct representation to Indians under the British rule. These elections, however, were not based on universal adult franchise, which came with the formation of the Indian republic in 1952, and coincided with the irst General Election. This context-setting is important in the viewing of political communications in India. Universal adult suffrage also meant adapting the messages to reach the popular electorate, placing the onus on both the party and the candidate, and an increasing role for the media in inluencing public opinion and electoral outcomes. Himmelweit et al. (1981) emphasise that the importance of the media in election campaigns had moved the focus from individual constituencies to party headquarters: In the parties’ response to this increasing role and power of the media in the campaign, the power has shifted decisively from the constituency to each party’s headquarters, where staff, resources and role in masterminding and orchestrating the campaign have all substantially increased (Himmelweit, et al 1981: 222). 128 | India Election 2014 Dominance of direct interaction and the printed medium The main modes of political communication until 1977 were public meetings, stage performances, direct communication by the candidates with their constituents through visits, supplemented by door-to-door campaigning by party workers. These forms of political campaigning were widely reported in newspapers. Additional print media that were used for campaigning included handbills, and pamphlets distributed by political parties. Other non-print ‘innovative’ methods included popularising the candidate’s symbol. In one instance, a candidate was reportedly walking around with a lamp, and when queried, he replied that he wanted to bring people out of darkness and hence had chosen the lamp as his symbol and was popularising it by carrying it around in the constituency. Election news was disseminated via newspapers, both in English and Indian languages, and the oficial electronic medium, the statecontrolled All India Radio (AIR), included reports on campaign rallies in its news bulletins. It was not until 1977, that political parties got airtime on AIR. The next major change in political communication came in 1983, when the then Congress general secretary, Rajiv Gandhi, brought in an advertising agency, Rediffusion, to chart the party’s electoral success in the general election, scheduled for a year later. However, the impact of print advertising in the outcome of the 1984 election campaign cannot be established. This is because, to borrow a term from Economics, a “blackswan event” (Investopedia)—the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi—resulted in the Congress riding a sympathy wave and capturing power (Balakrishnan 2009, Narayanswamy 2009). After the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi sought his irst popular mandate as an incumbent prime minister. In 1989 the same advertising agency, Rediffusion, was brought into the political communication process. A series of print advertisements on the theme “My Heart Beats for India” was carried evoking imageries of disaster if a non-Congress government were to be formed after the election. The images included those with scorpions, broken dolls, and the like, aiming to create a sense of doom if the electorate were to choose V.S. Sambandan | 129 the opponents of the Congress. This print advertisement campaign was of similar hue to that of 1984. The result of the election, however, was far from what the Congress hoped for: besieged by charges of corruption, the party lost the election. The ineffectiveness of print advertising campaigns to swing the electorate decisively in favour of a political party was borne out, again, in 2004, when the BJP launched its “Shining India” campaign in an attempt to retain political power. Like the 1989 experiment by the Congress, this advertising campaign also did not seem to help. A common strand between the 1989 and the 2004 advertisement campaigns was that both were launched by ruling parties. There is, however, a difference. In the case of the former (1989), the ruling Congress was besieged by charges of corruption, which was relected in the public domain. However, no such visible factor was evident in 2004, when the BJP launched its “Shining India”campaign, riding on the country’s economic growth story. The eficacy of print advertisements to turn electoral fortunes has been a matter of introspection in the Indian media, particularly given the adverse electoral results in the above-mentioned campaigns, which were largely print-based. Drawing an analogy from agriculture, Modi’s propaganda can be seen as akin to “drip irrigation”, where a high moisture level is maintained in the soil so that plants can lourish. Modi used “drip propaganda”, conveying messages in concentrated and targeted forms over a period of time, starting as early as 2012, soon after he won the election in India’s western state, Gujarat, to become its chief minister for a third successive ive-year term. Of particular signiicance is the manner in which Modi’s political messages were taken to the world’s largest electorate. It is only natural that the reach of election propaganda increases over a period of time and with the progress of technology. 130 | India Election 2014 Hellriegel and Slocum (1981 cited in Boddy 2005) suggest the following ive principles for effective communication: a. Relevancy: To make the message meaningful and signiicant, carefully selecting the words, symbols or gestures to be used. b. Simplicity: Put the message in the simplest possible terms, reducing the number of words, symbols or gestures used. c. Organisation: Organise the message as a series of points to facilitate understanding. Complete each point in the message before proceeding to the next. d. Repetition: Restate key points of the message at least twice. Repetition is particularly important in spoken communication because words may not be clearly heard or fully understood the irst time. e. Focus: Concentrate on the essential aspects of the message. Make the message clear and avoid unnecessary detail. A typical tweet from the Modi campaign camp would meet the requirements set out by Hellriegel and Slocum (1981 cited in Boddy 2005). For instance, consider the following tweet by Modi on 26 March 2014: Give us 60 months to serve you. We don’t want to enjoy power but want to be Chowkidars [policemen] who will guard people’s money This message, which was retweeted 802 times and had 668 favourites (IBN 2014), also had a link to a longer report on the need to free India from dynasty politics, which struck all the right notes and was an oftrepeated theme in Modi’s campaign strategy. For nearly the entire election campaign, Modi outscored the Congress on the social media. The integration between his verbal communication and the social media was so well managed that written sentences were largely transferred to the social media without loss of content or context. This was done by adding photographs on his Twitter and Facebook posts, the use of hashtags and acronyms V.S. Sambandan | 131 that were capable of quick recall (examples of this will be illustrated later in this chapter). In short, the approach of the two main national parties were in sharp contrast to each other, with the BJP sticking to the rules of the game, while the Congress was more reactive and defensive in approach, which weakened the impact of its CMC messages on all these counts. Computer-mediated communication A brief deinition of computer-mediated communication (CMC) would help in setting the context for its discussion both in shaping political events around the world, and more speciically in Indian general elections. For the purpose of discussing the role played by the Internet and the social networking sites in the 2014 General Election, we use John December’s deinition of CMC: A process of human communication via computers, involving people, situated in particular context, engaging in processes to shape media for a variety of purposes (December 1997) This deinition will help in properly contextualising and locating the propaganda messages made by the BJP and the team that backed Modi in the run-up to the General Election and during the campaigning. For the purpose of this article, CMC is further narrowed down to computer-mediated political communication, and a brief outline of the political usage of CMC will help in setting the context and the evolution of its usage internationally, and in India. An early start for Modi Narendra Modi enjoyed the advantage of being an early mover in CMC in a democracy that follows the Westminster irst-past-the-post system1. Lilleker and Vedel 2013: 401-420) points out that the role of the Internet is more effective in such democracies as these systems are “usually more conducive to more localised and individualised election campaigns” (Lilleker & Vedel 2013: 401-420). For instance, Modi’s online campaign successfully found resonance with local powers of inluence. One example was his photograph on Twitter with a popular south Indian ilm 132 | India Election 2014 actor, Rajnikanth, who is seen in Tamil Nadu as a popular vote-puller, while another was one with Modi riding a horse to visit a Hindu shrine. The most effective, albeit controversial one, was a selie after Modi cast a vote with the BJP’s election symbol, the Lotus, prominently displayed on the foreground. The expansion of the Internet, in particular the reach enabled through mobile telephones, proved to be an effective tool in the outreach of Modi’s campaign team. Though he started on rather low-key note in late 2009, he was well ahead of other political leaders to have an online presence and could, therefore, enjoy the irst-mover advantage by a constant presence on the Internet. CMC formed the crucial part of reconstructing the BJP, which had lost two general elections on the trot, and Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat (then in his third term in ofice). This electoral duality—the national party losing at the election, while a regional leader from the same party winning three successive terms of ofice— is an important political factor which weighed in Modi’s favour. By successfully retaining political power in his state, he was in a position to push himself to the centre stage of national politics. The major hurdles, however, were quite a few. The overwhelming hurdle was Modi’s image as that of a hardline Hindu nationalist, under whose watch in 2002 Gujarat witnessed the most horriic anti-Muslim riots in independent India. The other major criticism about Modi— largely relating to economic ideology, such as favouring business groups—was easier to counter, particularly as there is little evidence of a polarisation of economic ideology between the BJP and the Congress. However, given the previous experience of the BJP losing the 2004 General Election because of the effects of growth did not percolate down, despite good macroeconomic performance relected by the then slogan “Shining India”, was a matter to be addressed. The repositioning of Modi Modi’s early start was not restricted to his electoral campaign. This was preceded by the political assertion by Modi, when he led the BJP to a second consecutive electoral victory in the 2007 Gujarat Assembly election. For the BJP, the 2007 victory was the fourth in V.S. Sambandan | 133 a row since 1995. However, what is of signiicance here is that “the strings of BJP leadership in Gujarat had virtually passed on to Modi” (Economic & Political Weekly 2007: 6). This victory, in turn, set in motion an internal party process signalling Modi’s moves to rise in the party, before he could stake claim for the prime ministerial position. In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, therefore, he continued to consolidate his position. This was because another senior leader, L.K. Advani, who was instrumental in the revival of the BJP’s national fortunes through the Ayodhya movement, was the party’s prime ministerial candidate. Modi not only ruled himself out from any national role in 2009 if the BJP were to cross the winning post, but also was conident enough to assert that “I am the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and I believe no one will remove me as the Chief Minister of Gujarat” (Modi 2009). The BJP lost that General Election, but Modi’s electoral successes in Gujarat continued, and he won the state’s Assembly election for the third time in a row on 20 December 2012. His prime ministerial aspirations can be traced from that victory onward. Signiicantly, Modi chose to speak in Hindi—the largest spoken Indian language, particularly in the northern states, which were the traditional strongholds of the BJP—in his victory rally after winning the state election in Gujarat, where Gujarati is the main language. This can be seen as a clear pointer to his larger-than-Gujarat ambitions. Since then he also started connecting directly with the youth through social media and, more signiicantly, through organised speeches in colleges and other youth gatherings. A series of judicial, media, diplomatic, and political events in 2012 also helped Modi’s cause. In May, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court of India concluded that it did not ind “any evidence of the Chief Minister having promoted enmity among various communities on religious grounds” (Dasgupta 2012). Subsequently, on 31 August 2012, Modi took his irst plunge into CMC when he participated, as the chief minister of Gujarat, in a Google Plus Hangout. The event was moderated by a popular Hindi actor, Ajay Devgn, and questions were described by a newspaper report as “quite harmless—about youth, education, rural uplift and perils of 134 | India Election 2014 urbanisation” (Dinakaran 2012). What is noteworthy is that it drew an international audience, and one of the participants reportedly wanted Modi “to come to the US as Prime Minister” (Dinakaran 2012). The online success of this event was relected by the fact that the increase in trafic crashed the server. The Google Plus Hangout2, which lasted close to two hours, was the irst CMC interaction by an Indian political leader. More importantly, it connected Modi to the largest voting segment in the 2014 General Election, the youth of India. On the diplomatic front, the UK reopened ties with Modi on 22 October 2012. British High Commissioner to India James Bevan met Modi, thereby ending a 10-year boycott that was in place since the 2002 Gujarat riots, in which three Britons were killed. The meeting, Bevan was to say later, was “about engagement, not endorsement” (BBC 2012). This meeting was followed by European Union ambassadors meeting Modi over lunch at the German ambassador’s residence in New Delhi on 7 January 2013, ending a decade-old informal boycott of the political leader. Clearly, cues were emerging from those closely following India’s political developments that Modi would be the BJP’s main contender to challenge the ruling Congress. On the political front, as early as 9 June 2013—a full 11 months before the polls—Modi was chosen by the BJP to head its campaign in the General Election to be held in May 2014. This led to a political rift within the party, with Advani initially resigning from all party positions, only to retract his resignation later and gradually endorse Modi’s candidature, albeit reluctantly. The BJP formally announced Modi as its prime ministerial candidate in September. A repositioning of Modi’s image was also swiftly attempted. Modi the prime ministerial aspirant was distanced from Modi the chief minister during the Gujarat riots. This was done carefully by focussing on economic development— more speciically the Gujarat “development model”. Distance also had to be put between the party and Modi, as the former was seen as one that was not only Hindu nationalist in persuasion—a characteristic shared by Modi—but also carried the more politically unsuitable tag of a party riven with differences. To counter this, all communications on behalf of Modi projected him as a “strong man” who was decisive and excelled in organisational skills (Pande 2014). V.S. Sambandan | 135 Connecting through holograms While sealing his position on the political front, Modi simultaneously moved in on CMC, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Modi had joined Facebook and Twitter as early as 2009 and had slowly built up his base (Sardesai 2014). From a slow start, by January 2013 Modi had put together a team that had the following Internet arsenal: a) a Twitter account with more than three million followers, and a social authority of 81 (where 100 is the highest), a Facebook page with 7.5 million, a blog, a website which was set up in a way “that every sentence on it can be tweeted as a 140 characters without having to make an effort of copy-paste” (Chopra 2014: 92). What is of importance in terms of political strategy and for engaging with the electorate is that this was done nearly 18 months ahead of the General Election 2014, six months before his party announced him as its chief campaigner (June 2013) and, more signiicantly, eight months before he was to become its formal candidate for the post of prime minister. As formal campaigning started, Modi brought on to the Indian electorate a new form of CMC—the “3-D rallies”—using hologram technology to simultaneously address multiple election rallies without him having to be physically present in all these locations. Though this was a new mode for a national campaign, Modi had experimented with this in the Gujarat Assembly election. On the primacy of CMC in determining the electoral outcome, the BJP’s head of digital campaign, Arvind Gupta, had pointed out that in the 2009 General Election the difference between the BJP and Congress was 17 million votes. In the 2014 General Election, however, the difference between the votes gathered by the victorious BJP and the losing Congress was 64,72,4288, pointing to an overwhelming sweep by the BJP. Though it is not the argument here that the difference was on account of the BJP’s effective political CMC alone, it is certainly the case that political communication, using Internetbased technologies, mobile telephones (SMS messages, voice calls, ringtones, to name a few, in addition to accessing the Internet over smartphones) and other forms of innovative communication such as holograms widened Modi’s reach. 136 | India Election 2014 A sluggish effort by the Congress In sharp contrast, the Congress’s electioneering went wrong on all fronts from strategy to communication. Its inability to communicate its political message effectively was relected across the electronic and CMC media. To start with, at the political level, the incumbent prime minister, already besieged by criticism—both personal and political—had ruled himself out of the electoral race. This problem was compounded when the Congress did not name a prime ministerial candidate, and sought to defend its position, rather unconvincingly, that in a irst-past-the-post system, such a requirement was needed. It went on to criticise the BJP for adopting the US presidential style of campaigning in a democracy rooted in the Westminster model. The haziness in announcing a potential prime minister by the Congress left the ield open to its opponents, the BJP in particular, to direct the electoral attack on the party’s vice president, Rahul Gandhi, who is also the son of Sonia Gandhi, the party’s president and chairperson of the then ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition. This made him vulnerable to personal attacks, which presented him as an “inexperienced dynast” aspiring for power like a “yuvaraj” (prince). Other factors also worked against the Congress. It entered the election as a party that had governed the country for 10 years at the head of a coalition that was falling apart. Topping its agonies were several corruption charges. However, the inclusive growth that it had delivered in its 10 years of rule, the socio-economic changes for which it had set the stage through several rights-based programmes and policies, were badly communicated, despite their inherent long-term positive effects for the nation. Though these set of legislations were among the irst to set a role for the state in providing for economic rights such as work, food and education, in a polity that was veering towards greater reliance on the freemarket economy (Hasan 2013), the Congress failed to communicate this achievement clearly to the Indian electorate. While the CMC outreach of Modi promised a better future, that of the Congress was defensive in nature. The Congress did realise the potential of social media, but its campaign was reactive, unlike the proactive approach adopted by the BJP and Modi. More speciically, the Congress misread the importance of two-way communication in the social V.S. Sambandan | 137 media. As Chopra (2014: 124) points out, “The high command and control style doesn’t work in social media as it is pretty much selfguided by those who use it.” A good indication of the lack of twoway communication in the Congress was the case of the Congress spokesperson, Manish Tiwari, who had “about 17,000 followers, but [in 2013-14] he did not follow a single one” (Chopra 2014:129). A successful digital strategy In sharp contrast, Modi’s digital strategy was to take the battle into the camp of the Congress through proactive, timely and repetitive interventions. The reach of Modi’s digital team was such that it had 11.4 million followers on Facebook and 5.4 million followers on Twitter3 (Kadia 2014). In his speeches, Modi used alliteration (for instance “Five Ts are required for India: Talent, Tradition, Tourism, Trade, Technology”); addressed his electorate as “friends”; and created the impression that he is the person with the solution, citing the success of Gujarat. The tagline “Abki baar, Modi sarkar”—which loosely translates to “This turn, Modi’s Government”—was unveiled on 7 March, barely a month before the irst round of election. It was a catchy phrase and resulted in a variety of memes on the digital media, which were quickly and effectively transmitted via social networking sites and as multimedia messages through mobile phones. The subject of the memes evoked a sense of urgency over the need to elect Modi as prime minister. A typical meme would contain Modi’s photograph, in close up, with a distinct message. The message in one meme is an illustration of a successful online political campaign. Rather than “Vote for Modi”, it was “Vote for India”, which equated the nation to an individual, while at the same time appearing to be self-effacing by not seeking a vote for himself. Another meme established Brand Modi at a personal level, even calling him a “modern Mahatma4” (modiforpm 2014). The messages in the memes were the issues over which India’s 2014 General Election was fought. The BJP, with its eficient digital media team remained steps ahead of the Congress and went on to clinch the electoral battle in the world’s largest democracy. 138 | India Election 2014 Conclusion Election campaigns in India have come a long way from the time the irst General Election under universal franchise was held in 1951. One distinguishing feature of Indian election campaigns has been that it has been in sync with the changes in the media forms and with technology. For instance, while up to the 1980s, when print advertisements came to play a role, the main fora for political communication were public political platforms, newspaper reports, and free air time over the national broadcaster and television. The effectiveness of print advertisements in swinging the electorate in favour of a party remains inconclusive largely because the one election in which print advertisements were widely used by the winning Congress was also marred by a blackswan event, namely, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which resulted in a sweep for the incumbent party. However, the manner in which the Internet has been used by the two main parties in the 2014 General Election make it possible to argue that the swing factor for the BJP in general, and Modi in particular, was strongly inluenced by the organised social media campaign carried out by the BJP. With its constant focus on issues that were aspirational in nature, and underplaying the negatives of the BJP (as a right wing Hindu nationalist party, in what essentially, is constitutionally a secular republic), and of its prime ministerial candidate Modi and his association with the 2002 anti-Muslim riots, social media played a vital role in political communication. The presence of Modi on Facebook and Twitter tells the story of the transformative ability of the Internet during elections. For long the BJP evoked images as a party that was associated with “an ageing Hindu revivalism” (Sardesai 2014: 243). The successful digital strategy of the social media team that handled the Modi campaign replaced this perception by repositioning Modi as a person who was the solution to the ailments left behind by a “dynastic” Congress. This shift in popular perception carried out by CMC is a pointer to the manner in which political parties functioning under the irst-past-the-post system can make inroads in crucial political constituencies and thereby give the party the topping-up of votes required to cross the mark. A caveat, however, is called for. Though this chapter presents an outline of the role played by social media in securing Modi his victory, empirical studies, based on primary data through interviews and an analysis of election results at a disaggregated constituency level, will be instructive V.S. Sambandan | 139 in establishing a link between the effective use of social media and the election outcomes. The manner in which the space between electors and the elected has shrunk through the use of CMC calls for an analytical study of such issues in the area of political communication. Endnotes 1 Although Shashi Tharoor is credited to be the irst Indian politician to have active Twitter participation, he was overtaken by Modi in the number of followers by the time the 2014 General Election concluded. Moreover, the former fell into controversies over his tweets, which the latter avoided, largely by resorting to unidirectional communication. 2 Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzUTCXKnmZg 3 However, a report published on 7 December 2014, said that more than 80 per cent of Modi’s followers were either ‘plants’ by corporate organisations hired to boost igures, or were inactive accounts (punjabspeaks 2014). 4 India’s Father of the Nation, Mohandas Gandhi, is considered a ‘Mahatma’ (a great soul) for having led the Indian freedom struggle. He is credited with making the original, pre-independence Indian National Congress a mass movement during his ight against colonial rule. References Balakrishnan, A. (2009). The Congress Party Ad Campaign for the 1984 Lok Sabha Elections: http://blogs.rediff.com/ajitb/2009/12/08/the-congresspart-ad-campaign-for-the-1984-lok-sabha-elections/ [Accessed 4 December 2014]. BBC. (2012): http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20024563 [Accessed 3 December 2014] Chopra, S. (2014). The Big Connect. Noida: Random House Dasgupta, M. (2012). No evidence of Modi promotion enmity: ST: http:// www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-evidence-of-modi-promoting-enmitysit/article3398456.ece [Accessed 3 December 2014] Dinakaran, R. (2012). Modi chats live on Google Plus Hangout: http://www. thehindubusinessline.com/news/politics/modi-chats-live-on-google-plushangout/article3847440.ece [Accessed 3 December 2014] 140 | India Election 2014 Deccan Herald. (2014). Modi storms to power; gets absolute majority for BJP. Deccan Herald, 16 May 2014 December, J. (1997): http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/jan/december. html [Accessed September 2012] Economic & Political Weekly. (2007). Modi’s Victory. Economic & Political Weekly, 29 December: 6 Election Commission of India. (2014). Notiication: http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/ ElectoralLaws/OrdersNotiications/year2014/EnglishNotiication_12032014. pdf [Accessed 1 December 2014] Election Commission of India. (2004). Political Parties and Election Symbols, New Delhi: Election Commission of India. Graber, D. A. & Smith, J. M. (2005). Political Communication Faces the 21st Century. Journal of Communication 55 (3): 479-505. Hasan, Z. (2013). Sonia Gandhi prefers progressive social policies to balance growth with equity. The Economic Times, 13 September 2013 Himmelweit, H. T. Humphreys, P. & Jaeger, M. (1981). How Voters Decide. Bristol (PA): Open University Press IBN. (2014). Narendra Modi’s Election Story in Tweets. https://storify.com/ ibnlive/narendra-modi-s-elections-story-in-tweets [Accessed 24 December 2014]. Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp [Accessed 4 December 2014] Joshi, S. (2014). People believe change will come with Modi. India Today, 5 May 2014: 30-31 Kadia, S. (2014). The digital strategy that won Narendra Modi-BJP the elections. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41gPCGfM_OY [Accessed 5 July 2014] Katz, E. (1957). The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-To-Date Report on an Hypothesis. The Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring, 21(1): 61-78 Lilleker, D. & Vedel, T. (2013). The Internet in Campaigns and Elections. In: W. Dutton, ed. Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 401-420 Mathur, S. (2012). UP polls: Rahul Gandhi is the Congress’ Yuvraj, not of the masses, says Akhilesh Yadav. The Times of India, 5 January 2012 V.S. Sambandan | 141 McNair, B. (2011). An Introduction to Political Communication. Oxford: Routledge Modiform. (2014): http://www.modiforpm.org/modi-slogans/Narendra-Modilatest-Quote-Desh-pehle.jpg [Accessed 26 December 2014] Modi, N. (2009). Time is in the hands of the people [Interview] (9 April 2009). Narayan, B. (2014). Modi’s Modus Operandi in the 2014 Elections. Economic and Political Weekly, XLIX (20): 2-14 Narayanswamy, H. (2009). Do popular ad campaigns win elections? The Economic Times, 27 May, 2009 Nelson, D. (2014). ‘Magic’ Modi uses hologram to address dozens of rallies at once. The Telegraph, 2 May 2014 New York Times. (2005): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/world/ asia/17iht-india.html [Accessed 1 December 2014] Norris, P. & Curtice, J. (undated): http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/ Acrobat/JITP%20Paper%20Draft%202.pdf [Accessed 4 December 2014] Pande, S. (2014). Just the Right Image. Business Today, 8 June: 44-48 Punjabspeaks.org. (2014): http://punjabspeaks.org/2014/12/07/blowto-narinder-modis-sm-image-a-social-media-study-revealed-87-twitterfollowers-were-planted/ [Accessed 8 December 2014] Quraishi, S. Y. (2014). An Undocumented Wonder—The Making of the Great Indian Election. New Delhi: Rupa Sardesai, R., 2014. 2014 The Election That Changed India. New Delhi: Penguin 142 | India Election 2014