Changing Role & Aspirations of Ground level Political Activists in India and Mass Media

By: Amit Bhushan Date: 28th Mar 2014

The Role of political activist is to make members of the public aware of political affairs that effect their livelihood and social well being. The activists keep the public informed on legislations, policies and operating rules that affects their collective bargaining process and climate. However in India, the ground level political activists have traditionally played the role of reading public mood and guiding ordinary public who are most likely to vote for the candidates supported by them to poll booths on the polling day. This power to mobile votes is then used to curry favours with the leaders which are mostly for personal gains or solutions to municipal issues whose physical presence at the ground level is an avoidable eyesore (& thus claim to be champion of public cause). Then we also have some of the business class activists, who seek support to manage state or central bureaucrats (so that decisions are made in their favour) with the most venturesome business class seeking policy and rules driven support and manipulations. Usually, the most venturesome activist also engages at all levels of government due to their enormous network and gains an upper-hand in the state of affairs of the state. They are often large donors to the political parties often across party lines and not all party leaders may not be entirely aware of all their engagements. With the disruptive intervention of social media, things have started to get a little complicated for the ground level political activists as they are becoming more aware of the policy alternatives and questions being raised by curious public on the social media domain. They also see the frequent reverberations of these issues on ground though generally through kicking experimental discussions rather than a groundswell on its own. The activists are growing bold to raise some of these questions with the leaders in anticipation that their share of rewards can improve or else they may want to work for leaders and parties that may be seen as delivering upon promises and have people friendly image so that the activists can maintain their relations with the public. Shifting ideological affiliations has never been any qualms in Indiaeven at the leadership level and this is widely practiced with ease. Very few political activists are motivated by ideological affiliations to work with dedication for political leaders. Those who actually offer dedicated services are more likely to do so for personal gains or with an eye to raise their own social status within a community and therefore likely to swing towards a candidate that they presume to be heading for victory and likely to yield subsequent probable spoils (& therefore all political parties and leaders involve themselves

with victory surveys). There may be very few activists who would work to raise the political awareness of masses for social good alone. Then we have the limitations of social media as well. It has a lot of contradictions which tend to confuse audiences including political activists themselves since no two persons seem to agree to a single version of truth, completely. It raises issues and questions in half baked manner rather than through solutions since the people on social media come from varied profiles rather than just being those in situation who can offer wholesome perspectives and suggestion for resolution. Thoughts and ideas propagated in social media can often be mundane and at time factually incorrect/unsupported and so can confuse public. It however differs from mass media in manner that it raises issues from different perspectives and makes reader aware of multiple dimensions of a problem. This differs it from mass media has largely confined itself to being authentic voice of people of merit or organizations which generally (though not always) have an axe to grind (since the professionals involved do not work for free). The mass media thus sacrifices thoughts and ideas raised in social media to avoid cacophony and mundane. However, in spite of these limitations of the social media, its reach and impact to political activists can only be denied to the peril of ones own political career. However, we see the political leadership still resisting opening of debates to a larger audience and giving ground level activists their due by involving them in the debate. The mass media has generally swung between capturing views of the leadership and ordinary public ignoring the layers of political activists although some of these activists now are being promoted to lead some of the television debates which is a phenomenon shaped, thanks to the rise of some activists to form political venture on their own. The traditional leaders still do not want to engage in debate with such activists directly and hence graduation to activists from sundry roles to limelight in other parties as well. Lets watch how changes will be shaped further by ever evolving technologies and also by evolving political viewpoints in India.