It’s the election time again. Be prepared for the
political advertisement blitzkrieg, sucking the money meant for you, wasting the
resources that could be put to the effective use of building many more schools
and health centres in a country where over 60 per cent of the population is
quality-illiterate and survives on less than 2$ a day.
The information and broadcasting ministry works as the
publicity front of the different wings of the government. Manish Tewari, the
information and broadcasting minister, is in full drive to galvanize the public
outreach programme of the United Progressive Alliance government with
possibility of early general elections that are, otherwise, slated to be held
around April-May 2014.
Every ministry of the government of India has some budgeted expenditure
in the name of public outreach programme. Ideally, such funds are to be used in
making public aware of the programmes and policies of the government thus
empowering the people to claim their rights.
Instead, the funds are misused in the advertisement
blitzkrieg to create shadow visibility, where the main aim is to create the
perception of the government policies as pro-people irrespective of how many of
the intended beneficiaries are seriously availing the benefits.
Any big policy decision like the India-US nuclear deal or
the FDI in retail or projects like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
or farm debt waiver scheme require an intensive communication campaign and not
just advertising blitzkrieg to create an effective outreach ensuring maximum
empowerment through optimum utilization of resources. It needs a comprehensive
plan of action with a pre-launch awareness campaign well in advance to make
people aware on how to exercise their rights.
But that is the ideal situation. And in an India where
there is nothing ‘ideal’ left about its politics, that is a foolhardy
proposition.
Indian politicians believe in creating and sustaining
flimsy perceptions. Instead of doing, they endeavor to look ‘doing’. They do so
because they believe elections in India are fought and win on
perceptions. And the electoral history says they have been right most of the time.
Calculations begin in the planning stage of a project to
maximize the share of corrupt dealings. From NREGA to farm debt waiver, from
the National Rural Health Mission to the mid-deal meal scheme, from different government
scholarships to the universal education mission, every project of social
concern is a sordid tale of corruption in the world’s largest democracy.
No sincere efforts are made to aware the intended
beneficiaries of their rights and on how to claim their rights; beneficiaries, where
most of them are quality-illiterate, poorly-fed and survive in and on the
brinks of poverty and uncertainty.
Instead, glassy advertising campaigns are lunched to
create and strengthen the perception that lives are going to change in one go. The
poor fellows are bombarded with heavy dose of advertisements that blocks their
already narrowed thinking capacity.
The scheduling is kept tight stuffing maximum messages in the
minimum possible time. Its does one thing cunningly. It creates the perception
in the mind of the voter that the ‘mirage’ (of something good for him) is
now in his reach that he wants to grab anyhow realizing that ‘it’ will
become mirage again, once the election is over. But very meticulously, such
campaigns fall short in making the voters informed and aware on how to claim
their rights ‘once the opportunist political and bureaucratic machinery of
the election time is gone’.
Campaigns begin few months before the elections and
unleash their tyranny on the mental composition of the poor voter. The timing
is decided keeping in mind the goal – to hit the impulse of the ill-informed
voter and make him push for an impulsive decision.
Till the time, the vote is in, the perception is
lubricated consistently that the politician is the beggar and the voter is the
lord. Once the vote is in, the politician becomes the king and the voter is made
a poor fellow again.
The campaign stops at that. The blitzkrieg comes to a halt
at that.
But, sometimes it fails too, as it happened during the
2004 general elections!