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Journalism of Courage
Eighty two-year-old Bhakta Prasad Nanda cannot see very well, but enjoys a good political meme. “I get WhatsApp messages from all three parties (BJD, BJP and Congress),” says the former Class 1 government officer, speaking on the phone from Balangir town in Odisha.
Over 100 km away, in Sambalpur, Ayush Panda, a 22-year-old MCA student, says he is largely apolitical, but his friends keep forwarding him political memes on WhatsApp and Instagram. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is impressive, but I have been seeing Rahul Gandhi in a new light since the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” he says.
As a long-drawn summer election stretches on, drawing on the last reserves of candidates and voters, political parties have relied on a key weapon in their arsenal: the political meme. Well aware of the power of the meme, parties have hired an army of talent to run their digital war rooms – from content writers to graphic designers, video editors, social media property managers, digital marketing experts, popular social media influencers, ecosystem managers and artificial intelligence experts.
The journey of the political meme begins with a clever concept, crafted to resonate with the masses and spread like wildfire across social media.
Sharique Hussain, who is part of the Congress’s social media team, gives the example of a reel posted on the party’s official Instagram handle. The reel was made soon after PM Narendra Modi alleged that Gautam Adani had paid Rahul Gandhi off. “It imagines a fallout between the two ‘friends’ following Modi’s speech, told through a WhatsApp chat. Once the concept was approved, a content writer created a script using words that are common parlance among the youth such as ‘bhai’, ‘dost’, ‘flow-flow mein nikal gaya’, after which a video editor brought it to life. The public’s attention span is short, and the issue would have been relevant only for a short time, so it was pushed out within 7-8 hours,” he says.
However, not every post goes viral. Falah Faisal, a comic writer who works with a political consultancy affiliated with the Congress, says, “We had created a parody of the Rock On song, Pichle saat dinon mein, and dubbed it ‘Pichle dus saalon mein humne khoya’, thinking it would become viral, but it did not. Perhaps, it was too serious. At the end of the day, the content has to be funny while also subliminally carrying forward the party’s narrative.”
A political strategist affiliated with the BJP, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says, “The BJP has pushed out some out-of-the-box content this election season. Who would have imagined that ‘Pepe the Frog’ (associated with the alt right in the US) would make its debut in India?” The Telangana BJP recently shared a video on its X account showing teary-eyed ‘Pepe the Frog’ caricatures bowing down and praying before the Ram idol at Ayodhya.
Another meme that the Prime Minister recently shared on his X account featured an animated video of him dancing. This, the strategist says, was “done to counter the ‘dictator’ jibe of the Opposition”.
He adds that the person who created the meme is not affiliated with the BJP. “Apart from the party’s social media team and affiliated consultancies, the party also hires independent contractors to churn out content in the election season. Some people also independently create memes and if they are good, the party onboards them. The party actively holds conferences and hosts meet-ups to ensure the right content goes out.”
Parties post the memes on their official and surrogate pages on Instagram and Facebook, which are then forwarded to chains of WhatsApp groups – starting from MPs and MLAs down to booth workers. A meme is analysed by many handlers, who decide whether a particular post is fit for the target cohort on a particular WhatsApp channel, group or page.
Prerna Vijayeni Panda, a political consultant who is part of the digital war room set up for the Congress’s Balangir Lok Sabha candidate Manoj Mishra, says, “One of the reasons we are pursuing an aggressive social media campaign is the weather. Balangir is sizzling at 44 degrees Celsius, and it is difficult for people to come and attend political gatherings. Balangir sends out many migrant workers who come home only to vote. Social media bridges the gap when they are absent.”
Pointing out that WhatsApp is their preferred medium for getting the message out, she says, “We have around 21 WhatsApp groups for each parliamentary constituency in Odisha. Each of these WhatsApp groups has around 200-300 people, which is a mix of party workers, community leaders/influencers (caste leaders, union leaders, social workers, panchayat heads etc),” she says.
On how they work to ensure a particular video goes viral in a target constituency, Prince Raghuvanshi, whose political advertising firm Chunav Chanakya has been working with different AAP candidates, says, “First the POC (point of contact) with the client approves the content, then we use Facebook to GeoTag the video through ads. Also, we send bulk messages to residents of an area through WhatsApp. If the content is eye-catching enough, it at least reaches half the voters.”
The strategist working with the BJP says the party has several surrogate pages on Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter. “A lot of the posts circulated on BJP WhatsApp groups are taken from Instagram and Facebook pages. The idea is that the posts should be able to gain traction, whether negative or positive. Popular songs, and popular characters are used to ensure the message sticks with the audience.”
