Unpredictable Indian Voters

In 65 years of Indian democracy, Indians have exercised their adult franchise many a times yet their mood and sense to select a electoral representative for Lok Sabha and Assembly always seems to be far from reality and logical sense. They always seem to be fantasizing in the dream world to elect a macho person who would find the solution of their problem magically. They treat their representative to be a super hero as they have seen in the bollywood movies. Not surprisingly the result of the 2014 Lok sabha election has surpassed all poll predictions and given a clear mandate to the BJP and Mr. Narendra Modi.

There are few things which has been special in this elections are the large turn-out of voters to exercise their voting rights for electing the candidates, secondly the number of young voters formed the large chunk of electoral battle. The third and the major factor which led the NDA achieve this major hall mark of seats were the anger of the people because of the price rise, inflation, corruption, scams and un-responsive attitude of incumbent government towards the common people.

Apart from this, the mega marketing style of Mr. Narendra Modi which supposedly costed  5000 crores,  also created a great euphoria among the large section of the society that culminated into votes. Although, critiques does not endorsed all the poll promises of Mr. Modi or the BJP, it was the marketing style which influenced the individual voters to believe the promises to be really becoming true if Mr. Modi comes to power. When the election campaign of Mr. Modi started it had a lot to say about the development model of Gujarat and rescuing country from misdeeds of congress’s government but at the end of the campaign there were instances of wooing caste and religion too for the votes.

Now that the massive victory of BJP is out in the middle, it is very difficult to understand the mindset of the Indian voters. The poll pundits and analysts speculations have time and gain gone wrong in the recent past except  during Lok Sabha election of 1977, which was speculated to be clearly against the then Indira Gandhi Government. This time too there was a clear wave against congress yet the clear majority of BJP was not clearly written on the wall. As a result, all that has happened is quite surprising.

At a time when BJP is happy about this result and forming government in the center, its time for the opposition to understand as to how they could gear-up against the ruling party on the road ahead. Because in the coming assembly elections in few states the winning factor of BJP would definitely edge them over the opposition.  The real challenge is to be a strong opposition now to the ruling BJP in the center and be a strong contender of the assembly election in the states. Now, how the opposition look at their poll debacle in this concluded Lok Sabha election and introspect various mistakes they committed, will lead them to use their wisdom to look ahead fighting assembly elections.  

Assembly elections are largely fought on the basis of the local issues yet the policies of the center does play a greater role. Whether the coming assembly elections results would also be surprising or will it be on the line of BJP way is to be seen again. But the Indian voters would remain unpredictable for sure. 

Kejariwal's Off-Shoot Footage – Fodder for Fire

The off-shoot footage of Arvind Kejariwal engaged in an interview with Punya Prasoon Bajpayee was   posted on youtube and made it public on another social medias to let people know the collusive interview of AAP leader with AaJ Tak journalist.  Surely, this kind of off-shoot footage is deliberate attempt to show Kejariwal in bad light. At first place, to show this footage in social media by particular journalist or the concern media house is in very bad taste. It throws open the ethics of media as a whole, that too at a time when media is already in the heated debate over being polarized and heavily funded to support certain political parties in the coming election.

The intention of this footage making it public is a very well interpreted tactics and participation of the channel concern is undoubtedly to be believed what it tries to gain out of this leakage. On the wrong side, it certainly maligns the image of Arvind Kejariwal in public but on the other side, justifies his image as tall as one who is a PM contender. Otherwise, the question in the public space remains unanswered who will gain much out of this.

Not many thought this is a good news to play it on their channel and rightly so. But Rajdeep Sirdesai took interest to address this issue with utmost sincerity. He rightly understood that this kind of journalism is not defined in the media sphere and it is going to question the credibility of media. It will not bother much to those media houses which have already declared themselves to be the mouthpiece of a certain political party, but would certainly question the image of a media being independent. As discussion is already there in public space about the media being biased, Rajdeep tried to clear the air and he justified that the particular clip of interview of Kejariwal was already aired live and off-shoot footage is only a casual discussion what a common journalist does usually before and after the interview.  Even in cases when the interview has to go live journalist brief the person about the questions they are going to ask to avoid interruption during the interview.

In case of interview being aired post production after editing by newsroom, a copy of the same is given to the person whose interview is going to be aired and if there is any conflict of interest, it gets resolved and permission is sought before it is aired. I remembered once Amitabh Bachchan was interviewed by Pooja Bedi  for Amul India show and Senior Bachchan was not happy with some of its content, so asked not to air the show.

There is nothing special or unusual in this video for journalists. But to the common people its fodder for fire and an instrument to make of slandering accusation on Arvind Kejariwal and AAP. For those who are AAP basher, it’s an issue to justify collusive interview. For supporter of AAP, it’s a betrayal of media ethics and puts all media person under the lenses.

It’s difficult to understand who made this footage public – Punya Prasoon Bjpayee himself or some insiders. But its leakage definitely questions the credibility of his journalism career.

Media in a country like India is a first source of information for anything – be it print or electronic. It makes or breaks the images of individual and entities. It can aggravate and dilute an incident the way it is presented. In fact, in real sense media builds the opinion on the ground knowledge transformation to the common people. 

Therefore, media has a social responsibility to be independent and not influence the public perception by collusive news items. However, having said so, the individual journalists and media houses are divided on philosophy and polarized today.  There is also no ideological parameter to judge which media house and which journalist is independent. People in public life have been blaming media for biased reports and information and at the same time media also have never been clearing the air too. They have been silent on the charges labeled by people on them. Perhaps this is the first time any media person has taken a stand to oppose the built perception against them.

A small section of the people, in media too, feels that Punya Prasoon Bajpyee has been made scapegoat and his image as journalist has been tarnished.  Does this entire episode of this video going viral on the social network and then taking the attention on TV suggest media of being an example of crony journalism?