Mumbai: Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi speak to the media to concede defeat. One looks relieved and the other looks happy. Did we miss something? Has not the Congress been handed its worst ever electoral defeat? Or perhaps this is goodbye to politics for “the family” which, some would say, has been shown the door by the Indian voter. Or who cares about all that? The real issue, considering that Times Now discussed it for 30 minutes, is why Rahul Gandhi did not take any questions from the media, and especially from Times Now. Should Rahul Gandhi have taken questions from Times Now? Did Rahul Gandhi want to take questions but was stopped by his mother? Look at the clip again and again. She moves, he stands, she makes a gesture, he follows...
Ever since NDTV in an earlier avatar — when it was the only English news channel in India — discovered the term “body language”, we have been subjected to it ad nauseam. And so it is again. Was it a smile, a smirk, a wave, an instruction? Anyone would have thought Times Now had forgotten that the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi (or is it the other way around?) had won the election.
Unfortunately, since Narendra Modi was off to meet his mother — although we do not know whether she signalled to him to talk to the media or not talk to the media — and address victory rallies, his body language has not been discussed yet. Undoubtedly we will have enough time to do that in the next five years.
TV sees life in bright colours and graphics and over-interpretation. There was as much blabbing as anyone could babble on Friday from early in the morning onwards. Did we get it right? Who got it right? Is this a real lead or a speculative lead or a trend or a result...? The questions that our famous TV anchors ask are astounding in their obvious absurdity.
Although CNN-IBN had a fine line up of speakers and pontificators, it was just too much serious discussion. There was absolutely no feeling of being in a Hindi TV soap or a wonderful, old-fashioned village melodrama. NDTV relied on the tried and tested Prannoy Roy but, again, it was much of a muchness.
On the other hand, watching Times Now was like watching a play where every time there was a new trend, the whole audience gasps together. And the master of ceremonies, Arnab Goswami, thundered and trembled his way through the day.
He was poetic: the Congress was stuck in the “cocoon of delusion”; analytical: the Congress is a “pocket borough” party; and banal: “this is historical in the history of…” No one else gives you all that, although Hindi news channels do give you Bollywood songs because no one knows their audience better than them: astrology, gem stones, ghosts and looney toons.
Life on social media however is another story. Or, at any rate, there are more jokes. Comedian Rohan Joshi tweeted: “Let’s not pretend that Gujarat is even remotely dry today”. Referencing of course both Mr Modi’s win and Gujarat’s prohibition. One has to explain this because on social media everything has to be explained. The thumb rule on Twitter is that for every six people who understand a joke, three naive twits will flail about in naive confusion.
Congress supporters were obviously downcast in their tweets and, most surprisingly, BJP supporters were not as gung-ho as one would have imagined. Yes, there were a few catfights here and there and the usual name-calling, but, perhaps, the result is yet to sink in. It is also possible that Mr Modi’s first speech as yet-to-be-crowned-Prime Minister, full as it was of “I, me, myself”, so enthralled the world of Twitter that they could not react properly. Or, as someone pointed, 10,000 trolls will be jobless from tomorrow. The job has been done.
“The Family has lost,” said one wit, “and the Parivar has won”. Joy Das, who works in an ad agency, tweeted this: “Rahul Gandhi came forward to accept defeat. I thought he will hide for days claiming tooth-ache like Narendra Modi after Karnataka elections.” Said Sunil Rajguru, blogger and columnist: “Observe two minutes’ silence for Congress, two minutes’ speech for Manmohan”.
Rakhi Sawant, starlet and TV personality, who formed her own party when rumours that she was getting a BJP ticket did not materialise and managed to get 2,006 votes, was at the receiving end as were Aam Aadmi Party candidates like Arvind Kejriwal and Kumar Vishwas. Shashi Tharoor, till he finally won, was being catapulted across Twitter. And then there was gold-chain covered music director Bappi Lahiri, a BJP candidate in West Bengal, whose photograph was sent multiple times across the twitterverse after he lost.
The sensible person, spoilt for choice, appears to have headed straight for the Election Commission website. No drama, just straight information: votes, vote shares and trends broken down to every constituency. This is a trend which TV news has yet to twig on to.
This was an election that was fought through the media even as it was fought on the streets. This was an election which was sculpted through social media perhaps even more than it was contested in drawing rooms.
The Internet played an integral role in sharing information and spreading political messages — it cannot be taken lightly or ignored any more. For a while, at least, politics in India outdid cricket and the IPL on social media.
And through the media this election also brought the world to India and took India to the world. Which is why Times Now, in one more of its moments of great journalism on Friday, had India’s most stentorian news anchor telling us with great glee that samosas were being handed out and eaten in New York’s Times Square in celebration of the BJP’s victory. With such nuggets the media stuffed our collective faces with a load of codswallop masquerading as potatoes as on the day #IMODIfiedIndia was trending on Twitter. Last seen, it had an image of a smiling Rahul Gandhi next to these words: “Achche din aanewaale hain, hum nani ke ghar jaanewale hain”.
