KOCHI: Political parties commissioning professionals for designing political slogans have made electioneering a highly capital intensive marketing exercise. Everyone having a modicum of rituals of marketing will concede that packaging, like any other consumer product, has become an integral part of the electoral democracy. In this high-decibel political razzmatazz, the citizen consumer is most often reduced to a passive spectator than an informed person making the right choice.
Does the voter have the right to stay away from the ballyhooing by a dubious political class? For those who have had enough of an endless stream of corruption and political chicanery, the answer will be obvious. Electoral democracy has been transformed into a propaganda system of political consumerism. Rescuing electoral democracy from the trappings of political consumerism is one of the meaningful political tasks before the electorate.
In Kerala alone a minimum of Rs 500 crore has been pumped into the election market if we go by the simple arithmetic of every single candidate of a mainstream political outfit spending Rs 1-2 crore for electioneering. The significance of such huge sums used for publicity blitz will become apparent when we realise that a six-lane flyover in Vyttila, the busiest junction in Ernakulam, cost only Rs 109 crore.
Political commentator and former Kerala University pro-vice-chancellor J. Prabash reminds that the essence of democracy is the debates. “During the freedom struggle, politics was considered as a pedagogic process. Leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi always spoke to the people directly,” he said.
During the early years, electioneering was also considered as an educational process. A candidate would place his agenda on various issues before the people and the opposing candidate would also raise his arguments. “However, the process was replaced by propaganda subsequently,” he said.
The transformation from debate to propaganda had taken place in the early parts of the 2000s. “Now, propaganda has been replaced by advertisements. Each candidate is placed for sale before the buyers. This transformation has really weakened the democratic process,” he said. Sreeshamim, student editor of Zamorin’s Guruvayoorappan College’s controversial magazine Vishwa Vikhyathamaya Theri, however, feels nothing is wrong in adopting marketing tactics for elections.
“Marketing tactics is essential for any party to project their manifesto and ideas effectively. Compare to the last elections, the technology has changed and that demands a change in the election strategies too,” he said. “At a time when people are engrossed in their world, the best way to catch them, especially youth, is to invite their attention to the campaign on social media and it required to adopt marketing strategies. I personally feel that the LDF’s campaign slogan LDF Varum Ellaam Sheriyakum has a positivity compared to slogans of others and that must have definitely influenced a section of voters.”
According to Thushar Nirmal Saradhy of Jankeeya Manushyavakasa Prasthanam, electioneering aping the marketing of consumer products is not the only weakness of the system. “The problem with a propaganda system is that it would obliterate the scope of a meaningful discourse of politics. This was evident in Kerala this time,” he said.
“While everybody was busy talking about the glory of the democratic process in the state, at least four persons were imprisoned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for pasting posters questioning the legitimacy of elections. Is our democracy so fragile that it cannot even withstand some graffiti raising questions about its authenticity?”
Public intellectual Najmal Babu feels one of the first actions of the LDF government should be to initiate measures to free the persons held under UAPA for calling to boycott elections. “It is ridiculous to frame people pasting posters calling for the boycott of polls under the provisions of a law supposed to be enacted for dealing with terrorist violence,” he said.
Section 79(d) of the Representation of the People Act is clear that a person can stay away from voting. The Act clearly stipulates that electoral right means “the right of a person to stand or not to stand as or to withdraw or not to withdraw from being a candidate, or to vote or refrain from voting at an election”.
Civil rights activist P.A. Pouran says people in the state are having a sigh of relief as the 'election carnival' is over. “Though the stakeholders would say that the exercise was held in a most democratic way, one cannot be faulted if he believes that money power alone had swept the election substantially,” he said.
“Unlike in the earlier elections, each party had entrusted the task of electioneering to event managers. They were ruling the roost and 70,000 tonnes of flex boards found its way to Kerala. It’s a Herculean task for the civic bodies who have them to dispose of now,” he said.
(With inputs from Sabloo Thomas, Hari Govind and N.M. Salih)
