JOIN USUnion Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor, in his dual role as cyber trainer of the Congress party, spoke to Prakash Kumar of Deccan Herald on why the internet and social media networks have caught the fancy of political parties in a big way. Edited excerpts:
In the run-up to 2014 polls, political parties are using social media platforms on the net in a big way. How relevant is this medium?
Social media is here to stay and it’s growing. So it’s an area that we cannot afford to neglect. It is true that only 10-12 per cent of Indian population is connected to the internet which may suggest that social media cannot have the same impact on winning elections that it does say in a country like the US where 92 per cent of the population has access to the internet. Nonetheless there are important reasons why social media is influential. When you have messaging on social media, you reach a certain educated and fairly affluent elite. You don’t really reach the mass of the voters. But what you are saying in social media is minded by the mainstream media which takes the message to the rest of the population. So a tweet in the morning can be picked up by a news channel during the day and published in the newspapers next morning. In other words, the cycle of news use is such that social media has a multiplier effect beyond those who are directly using it.
You cannot use social media to organise a mass rally, even to call a public meeting, as you can in America. But, you can use social media to set your political agenda. Social media is a place where we cannot afford to be absolute because if we are, others will take this place. When I started going on social media, I was criticised for doing so by my own party and the Opposition. The then president of the BJP Venkaiah Naidu famously said, too much tweeting will lead to quitting. And, the result is that many mainstream politicians shied away from this space. What has happened thereafter? The BJP was the first to realise that this was an opportunity they should not leave to me. Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj and others got on it. Their popularity and their increased use of the space was magnified by organising social media cells to tweet, to put out their messages. And, finally the other parties realised we cannot afford to neglect this.
The BJP started using the social media platform much before the Congress; the anti-UPA campaign has gone viral on cyberspace. How is your cyber team dealing with it?
We are fighting that. It is definitely helping the party to counter the propaganda. If you look at, for example Twitter or Facebook, there are as many robust pro-UPA and pro-Congress views available as you would want to have. So not one argument, one criticism by the BJP or the Opposition today is going without rebuttal and without challenge from our side.
How organised is the social media team in your party?
It’s getting more organised. Earlier this year, Congress revamped its communications team. Apart from inviting some party spokespersons, office bearers, MPs and state and district Congress members to become part of the move, a number of people on Twitter and Facebook, who were never in the party before but sympathetic to the Congress, were invited to join and support.
Has your party hired IT support?
There are IT experts. What we have done is unlike Mr Modi, who hired Apco worldwide, an American PR firm. We have not hired any PR firm. And he also seems to have hired a lot of people to set up fake accounts and support him. We are not playing the same game to the same degree.
How is Congress going to fight its political battle in cyberspace?
We are giving guidance from the top. Ajay Maken’s team is putting out guidance every day. Let us say, for example, a message in English is sent to all states, the person receiving it may translate it into the local language and put it on the social networking sites.
What is the reach of social media that political parties are so ga ga?
Today, 10-12 per cent of Indians are on the internet. But already 70 per cent of Indians have mobile phones. Ten years from now, that figure will be over 80 per cent with mobile phones. By then, the 3G will have given way to 4G and access to the internet on mobile phones will be much faster, cheaper and easier. At that point those 80 per cent will be on social media on the mobile phone. Can we afford not to have built the foundation today?