Social media, the new 'political battlefield'

G Bidyasagar *

Change is the only constant — Heraclitus

The Greek philosopher knew what he was talking about; he had the clearest picture of the real world problems. He knew nothing was permanent, everything evolves, changes, or is lost in time.

This very quote, which is more than 2500 years old, is still relevant today and will be after we are long gone. Maybe we should declare it as the 'One Theory to Rule Them All.' What is the very first image that comes to your mind when someone says 'Election'?\

It's probably Dhoti clad men in Kurtas with Nehru/Neta blazer or women in traditional attire (which mostly is Saree or Phanek even in Manipur), public meetings, booth level offices with carrom boards, grand feasts etc. In addition to this, some discussion in local TV channels. But that's about it. That is the whole picture that has been the main outlook of any election in the State.

But, election campaigns are not independent of changes and it has seen some drastic changes in the last couple of years. Election campaigns, in addition to being all the characteristics listed above, have become not just a war of words, but have become a war fought in 'Social Media' too.

Intending candidates specifically employ tech savvy 'Social Media Handler' or 'Content Creators' to put forth their agendas, principles, plans and the 'Social Work' they have done or will do for the people of their respective constituencies if they are elected.

The content creators make videos, images, or any other media requirements to reach out to the people of their as well as other constituencies. They also handle the social media accounts of the intending candidates (well at least most of them) to reach out to the social media frenzied youths.

The usual debates & discussions that used to happen at local hotels (hoten!) have moved a lot to the comment sections of social media, which in most cases is Facebook!

Supporters and their counterparts will fight their fingers off (on their keyboards and smartphones) and guess what, it serves all the purpose that is required by the candidates.

There are pages (not just one) that are named mostly in line with 'This AC for this candidate', 'We support this candidate' etcetera. People consider the account with the highest number of followers in social media platforms to be the strongest candidate in that particular AC, but that is also not the usual case as it is a widely known fact that followers in social media can be bought and there are actually firms which deal in selling and buying of social media followers.

A good indicator of the number of actual followings, which are probably from their own corresponding ACs, will be to look for the number of shares one's post is getting.

Well, the changes that have been incorporated in the election campaigns are not a surprise at all nor were they very sudden. We all saw it coming, we just didn't realize it. The use of social media platforms to woo voters was widespread in the US Presidential election and it was when former President Donald Trump was elected as POTUS, Russian hackers, Facebook and even Chinese hackers were alleged by the media for showing targeted posts to woo the voters in favour of Trump !.

In case of India, when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, his social media activities went upto the ceiling. BJP's IT cell, though sometimes trolled for being going overboard and their funny mistakes, played a major role in BJP rise to the single largest party in the country.

Their IT cell has been actively involved in furthering the image of their party at a pace the country has never seen before and it is paying off, no doubt about it. Other parties including the Congress came very late on the scene, they had their IT cells, but not as effective as the one in BJP.

The situation in Manipur is no different, major political parties and intending candidates have been trying to rope in various social media influencers with an aim of targeting the youths.

In addition to this, the upcoming 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly election is also seeing some youths coming in the picture willing to place their bet that the people of the State will vote based on their 'principle' and will be an interesting turn of event if such youths are elected as representatives.

But as it usually happens, elections are pretty unpredictable, lots of voters may be swayed at the last minute by various means and that suspense is what keeps election analysts on their edge till results are declared.

Heraclitus would have said, 'Change is the only constant, my friend, worry not.'