Clearly, the big story coming out, as the world's largest democracy votes for its next government, is one of voter turnout. For the past three general elections, the voting turnout in India has averaged 58-59 per cent of voters. This time the average across the country is about 68 per cent, so far. The US averages 58 per cent, the UK is well over 70 per cent and Germany over 80 per cent. Note that India is one of the few countries in the world that has had free elections for over 66 years, ever since its independence in 1947.
There are many hard reasons why this recent rise has happened - increasingly prosperous voters who feel strongly about change, rising literacy, younger voters and electronic ballots that make voting very convenient - among others.
But there is also a softer, more subliminal reason - the whole glamorisation of voting. It has become a status symbol of nationalism and good citizenry. Not voting now borders on anti-nationalism (with apologies to the people whose names got knocked off the electoral rolls). It is the sort of uncool thing that could immediately make you a pariah with friends and colleagues who can see that you haven't done it, if the ink mark that election officials put on your index finger, is missing. This social pressure alone has probably forced many people, who usually treated voting day as a holiday, to go out and do the job.
This hit me at a journalism conference in London last month when a panel was discussing the apathy of voters when it came to voting for the European parliament, which sits in Brussels. The panel asked the audience to share cases where voter turnout had risen and I shared the India experience. From the expressions around me, it seemed that making voting a fashion symbol was not something other countries had done. How did we end up doing it?
There may be no clear answer to that but tracing what is happening does help.
The social pressure on voting started building up with media proliferation. The exponential growth in news media - both print and television - happened post 2005 when foreign direct investment norms in print were further liberalised. From 20 and 30 editions, most large newspapers now have 200 editions and more. From nine news channels in 2000, we hit 39 in 2005, and now we have a staggering 135 news channels. There are now over 250 million Indians accessing online media. And radio reaches almost all of India.
Much of this would have had only some impact if it was just the government exhorting people to come out and vote. But brand advertising, celebrities and films have blended with the copious amounts of news media, to create a heady cocktail that seems to have hit Indian voters.
The first ad, which made voting look cool, that I noticed, was the Jaago Re one by Tata Tea in 2007. Now there are several. Indiantelevision.com recently ran a story that lists nine TV ads around these general elections - from Sunfeast and Tata Tea to Hero CF and Idea. Almost all of them advocate voting directly or indirectly. The protagonist in the Hero ad suggests not paying attention to cricketers and film stars who do not vote. Then there are films. Bhootnath Returns (2014), a recent Amitabh Bachchan starrer, brings the whole issue of voting to the centre of a story where a ghost stands for the elections (nothing in the rules forbids this apparently).
Then there is the imagery around celebrities. When Bachchan or Shahrukh Khan raise their finger to show off the voting mark, it does become a status symbol. It also mocks the people who do not vote. If they can, why can't you, say those pictures.
All of this on traditional mass media alone has created enough buzz to exhort to people to step out in the last two elections. In the ongoing polls, social media has added a garrulous dimension. On Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other places the conversations around elections are deafening. TO THE NEW, a digital services network, analysed digital conversations across social media, blogs, news sites and forums within three days of the release of each party's manifesto. The Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party's manifestos were discussed or mentioned over 155,000 times. Remember social media is inhabited by young people who you would assume are not very interested in manifestos.
And the pictures of inked fingers are endless. Check out a funny visual story on BuzzFeed, a social news and entertainment site, on our need to click a selfie soon after voting. Most of the pictures feature young people displaying their fingers with pride.
The more involved, "voting voter", is then the happiest political story coming out of the Indian media and entertainment industry in a long time.
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