Minoritism, the bluff, media and politics

By: Amit Bhushan \ Date: 3 April 2014

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The commercial mass media, hungry for sound bytes and roars, has done it again. That is, played up the leak of a minority religious leader meeting a party boss. The positioning of the news item was as that of a fulcrum of a resultoriented alignment with pointers towards competing political dispensation and leaders to paint a picture of some tectonic shift in electoral paradigm. The basis for such dubious stories needs to be examined by people and leaders alike. The reports of some competing assertions of some rivals also need to be examined i.e. if those were deliberate and considered reactions. In democratic polity, the influence and impact of a non-political leader to have any actual bearing on elections has not been clarified/studied by our commercial media for varied reasons. Firstly, the politicos need to maintain relations and so are wary to make any unsavoury observations on failures, if any. Secondly, to maintain non-political status, support or endorsements are offered via cues and other signs rather than any open assertions and therefore lack clarity but may be hinting the obvious. The nature of support itself is thus dubious, since it cannot be cross-examined. Thirdly, our electoral process ensures that we only record and publish vote count and not any record or pointers about who vote whom, a hallmark of democracy. This offers a suitable cloak to hide to religious leaders since their exact impact cannot be measured. The rival political parties and leaders also do not come forward since they have their own constituency and perceived use for such actions by non-politicians. Questioning the merit of non-politicians to make political suggestions is generally shunned by media because of their constant need for news bytes and therefore need to maintain relationships. Thus we lack queries regarding: Quite a few people may be just visiting the institution headed by such people, so actual influence of such people to have political impact is not proven. (i.e. difference between conversation potential wrt actual vote potential) How being born into a position yields influence amongst public, especially since we see examples of such failures, regularly. There may be several leaders in other communities and even other aspect of life, so how much is the actual effective impact of the minority non-political lead vis--vis others.

Our understanding is that people decide to vote a candidate basis their experience about the candidate/party, matching of their expectations with promises and associated credibility, personal knowledge/relationship with candidates, incentives and inducements, leadership track-record (therefore publicly known figures have better chance to win), oratory skills to impress voters, rapport with community by virtue of more friendly programs/projects for their

development. The much worded caste factor is more about personal knowledge/relationship since people identify better or candidate seems more approachable or friendlier because of caste factor. In case, if same caste candidate does not resonate with people in the manner, he is more likely to fail since he may be competing as just another candidate. So getting all worked up about non-political endorsements of a party or candidate and its vast impact on outcome needs to be assessed. To understand actual impact, a better way out for those de sirous to change the polity, could be to make use Victory survey accounts/records. Strange as it may sound, since the surveys are losing the campaign appeal that they once had, however they can be put to use and therefore come handy for use. These surveys often tend to point which candidate is likely to win in a constituency (though exact details are normally held up). So, some of the parties/leaders likely to win can stand up and challenge such non-political leaders to get their supported candidate to win by calling upon non-political leaders to openly campaign for their supported parties/candidates and support credibility of their own support. Note that this has to be a carefully considered decision since there might be political people and leaders who may want play up the influence of non-political leaders as well. This has chance to blow away the myths and make some positive impact. Lets see if someone may want to grab this political space. Lets see if some half dozen challengers can rise up to the challenge and get supported by their party to do so. Another, though less interesting and journalistic way could be to compare pre and post support figures from target community, however this will be open to skepticism by one and all. This may help to improve our understanding of the nation and nature of its democracy. This would also be more interesting way burst several hydrogen balloons that are sent up in a tizzy in anticipation of going back to old tricks giving opportunity to the old hands. Most i mportantly, it gives opportunity to make a change