<p>Rich political candidates are hiding their Bvlgari watches and Louis Vuitton bags, and sporting khadi instead; old foggy leaders are learning to tweet and ‘friend’ the MTV generation on Facebook; head banging college rock stars are belting out political messages. Elections are a time for lifestyle changes, writes Rachna Bisht-Rawat<br /><br /></p>.<p>No, no, no! Don’t go looking for these reports in your favourite newspaper. These headlines are from an online newspaper called The Unreal Times, started as a spoof by two IIM Ahmedabad graduates, and readers are advised not to confuse them with real incidents. But truth is stranger than fiction. And with states in the world’s largest democracy deep in the midst of the madness called elections, stranger things than those are taking place.<br /><br />The Tamil-English song Kolaveri Di, that has become an online sensation overnight, has gone viral on the streets of Punjab in a version teased and tweaked for the college going electorate. Old foggy leaders have retracted their limbs from the grave and are suddenly tweeting and Facebooking madly. Baseball bats are surfacing in cars in non-baseball playing regions as handy “weapons” to have around on late nights. And a millionaire election candidate has detached himself from his designer wardrobe and is going around on a scooter cleaning fans of the electorate to publicise his election symbol, you guessed it, a fan.<br /><br />The big leap in social communication in India in the last decade has spilt over to politics and tech-savvy younger party members have introduced aging leaders to the Internet. And no, they are not just using it to watch porn in the Assembly. Chances are you wouldn’t want to but, if the urge strikes, you can watch the Congress Party’s poll video on YouTube or friend the Bahujan Samaj Party on Facebook. Right from the Akali Dal to the BJP, to the Congress and the BSP, almost all political parties are using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to connect with younger voters. India has obviously come a long way from 2004, when in the Lok Sabha elections, BJP leader Pramod Mahajan created a sensation by publicising Atal Behari Vajpayee’s message through telephones.<br /><br />And why, you might like to ask, were the Punjabis (a non-baseball playing people) lugging around the cumbersome bats in their cars, during polling season. On a regular pre-election day, the Punjab police easily recovered a few bats, a couple of hockey sticks and rods from vehicles they stopped for routine security checks. Out of 100 cars, at least 80 were found carrying one or the other of the innovative ‘weapons’. Though excuses were many, ranging from “we need protection if the car breaks down at night” to “there are animals getting into our fields”, the most intelligent reason for this sudden desire for baseball bats was that they serve as sturdy weapons in the rival party skirmishes that are common during elections. And apart from cold cash and liquor, the Election Commission has had to keep a close watch on weapons-in-disguise like these.<br /><br />What has a Tamil song got to do with elections? Apparently a lot, if it’s the theme song of the MTV generation. Kolaveri Di was resung by satirist and Punjab People’s Party vice president Bhagwant Mann with PPP chief Manpreet Badal lending his voice to a few couplets and got a massive response on social networking sites. In a bid to connect with the common man, the video shows Manpreet driving a jeep, riding a scooter and taking a pledge at Jallianwallah Bagh to fight social evil. <br /><br />And that’s not all from the world of music. A group of young musicians from Ludhiana, put aside their usual lyrics and took up issues neglected by the government. They used rock music to draw attention to civic and social problems in the district. Called TEDxYouth@Satluj, this group of guitar-and mike-yielding youth is using the medium of rock shows to convey their grouses and the problems of the common people to political leaders on election eve. A popular song ‘Rage against the machine’ goes: They are the renegades in this atomic age. They change the course of history, everyday people like you and me. <br /><br />Political aspirants might not have promised voters the moon but almost everything else has been on offer. A temple for the devout, laptops for students and cows for the poor — these were just some of the things offered in Uttar Pradesh by BJP heavyweights like Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. The carrots dangled in front of Lucknow voters included a magnificent temple at Ayodhya, natural manure, new seeds for sugarcane cultivation and a cow for each family under the poverty line.<br /><br />Political aspirants left no stone unturned, no song unsung, no vote unasked. Even weddings were affected, not because conscientious voters didn’t want anything interfering with their responsibilities as democratic citizens but because no one wanted to get married on a dry day (thus declared by the Election Commission). With no liquor obviously meaning no fun, couples hastened to postpone weddings fixed on polling dates or shifted the venue to other states. <br /><br />Natty neckties have been giving way to open collars as former top cops and civil servants leave their offices to enter the election battleground. Former bureaucrats trying their luck in the Assembly elections have shed their neckties along with their inhibitions and are rolling up their sleeves and learning to smile wider to connect with the fussy electorate.<br /><br />Rahul Gandhi is wearing a turban for the Sikhs and a beard for the minorities. Film star campaigners are dropping diamonds and chiffon for crumpled cotton. The convent educated classes are no longer conversing in English, they are instead picking up the lingo of the masses. It is that time of the year when the common man is king. There are no leaders and followers only vote givers and seekers going around with folded hands and humble smiles, asking for a chance to work for the betterment of the country. <br /><br />Sounds like a farce? We’ll know when the scams and the flashy cars come back on the roads after the election results are out. For the time being, sit back and enjoy the privileges of the electorate. Isn’t that what democracy — the great equalizer — is all about?</p>
<p>Rich political candidates are hiding their Bvlgari watches and Louis Vuitton bags, and sporting khadi instead; old foggy leaders are learning to tweet and ‘friend’ the MTV generation on Facebook; head banging college rock stars are belting out political messages. Elections are a time for lifestyle changes, writes Rachna Bisht-Rawat<br /><br /></p>.<p>No, no, no! Don’t go looking for these reports in your favourite newspaper. These headlines are from an online newspaper called The Unreal Times, started as a spoof by two IIM Ahmedabad graduates, and readers are advised not to confuse them with real incidents. But truth is stranger than fiction. And with states in the world’s largest democracy deep in the midst of the madness called elections, stranger things than those are taking place.<br /><br />The Tamil-English song Kolaveri Di, that has become an online sensation overnight, has gone viral on the streets of Punjab in a version teased and tweaked for the college going electorate. Old foggy leaders have retracted their limbs from the grave and are suddenly tweeting and Facebooking madly. Baseball bats are surfacing in cars in non-baseball playing regions as handy “weapons” to have around on late nights. And a millionaire election candidate has detached himself from his designer wardrobe and is going around on a scooter cleaning fans of the electorate to publicise his election symbol, you guessed it, a fan.<br /><br />The big leap in social communication in India in the last decade has spilt over to politics and tech-savvy younger party members have introduced aging leaders to the Internet. And no, they are not just using it to watch porn in the Assembly. Chances are you wouldn’t want to but, if the urge strikes, you can watch the Congress Party’s poll video on YouTube or friend the Bahujan Samaj Party on Facebook. Right from the Akali Dal to the BJP, to the Congress and the BSP, almost all political parties are using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to connect with younger voters. India has obviously come a long way from 2004, when in the Lok Sabha elections, BJP leader Pramod Mahajan created a sensation by publicising Atal Behari Vajpayee’s message through telephones.<br /><br />And why, you might like to ask, were the Punjabis (a non-baseball playing people) lugging around the cumbersome bats in their cars, during polling season. On a regular pre-election day, the Punjab police easily recovered a few bats, a couple of hockey sticks and rods from vehicles they stopped for routine security checks. Out of 100 cars, at least 80 were found carrying one or the other of the innovative ‘weapons’. Though excuses were many, ranging from “we need protection if the car breaks down at night” to “there are animals getting into our fields”, the most intelligent reason for this sudden desire for baseball bats was that they serve as sturdy weapons in the rival party skirmishes that are common during elections. And apart from cold cash and liquor, the Election Commission has had to keep a close watch on weapons-in-disguise like these.<br /><br />What has a Tamil song got to do with elections? Apparently a lot, if it’s the theme song of the MTV generation. Kolaveri Di was resung by satirist and Punjab People’s Party vice president Bhagwant Mann with PPP chief Manpreet Badal lending his voice to a few couplets and got a massive response on social networking sites. In a bid to connect with the common man, the video shows Manpreet driving a jeep, riding a scooter and taking a pledge at Jallianwallah Bagh to fight social evil. <br /><br />And that’s not all from the world of music. A group of young musicians from Ludhiana, put aside their usual lyrics and took up issues neglected by the government. They used rock music to draw attention to civic and social problems in the district. Called TEDxYouth@Satluj, this group of guitar-and mike-yielding youth is using the medium of rock shows to convey their grouses and the problems of the common people to political leaders on election eve. A popular song ‘Rage against the machine’ goes: They are the renegades in this atomic age. They change the course of history, everyday people like you and me. <br /><br />Political aspirants might not have promised voters the moon but almost everything else has been on offer. A temple for the devout, laptops for students and cows for the poor — these were just some of the things offered in Uttar Pradesh by BJP heavyweights like Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. The carrots dangled in front of Lucknow voters included a magnificent temple at Ayodhya, natural manure, new seeds for sugarcane cultivation and a cow for each family under the poverty line.<br /><br />Political aspirants left no stone unturned, no song unsung, no vote unasked. Even weddings were affected, not because conscientious voters didn’t want anything interfering with their responsibilities as democratic citizens but because no one wanted to get married on a dry day (thus declared by the Election Commission). With no liquor obviously meaning no fun, couples hastened to postpone weddings fixed on polling dates or shifted the venue to other states. <br /><br />Natty neckties have been giving way to open collars as former top cops and civil servants leave their offices to enter the election battleground. Former bureaucrats trying their luck in the Assembly elections have shed their neckties along with their inhibitions and are rolling up their sleeves and learning to smile wider to connect with the fussy electorate.<br /><br />Rahul Gandhi is wearing a turban for the Sikhs and a beard for the minorities. Film star campaigners are dropping diamonds and chiffon for crumpled cotton. The convent educated classes are no longer conversing in English, they are instead picking up the lingo of the masses. It is that time of the year when the common man is king. There are no leaders and followers only vote givers and seekers going around with folded hands and humble smiles, asking for a chance to work for the betterment of the country. <br /><br />Sounds like a farce? We’ll know when the scams and the flashy cars come back on the roads after the election results are out. For the time being, sit back and enjoy the privileges of the electorate. Isn’t that what democracy — the great equalizer — is all about?</p>
