'India Shining' redux: Will UPA's 'Bharat Nirman' campaign be its undoing?

In its last year in office, the UPA 2’s ‘Bharat Nirman’ advertisement campaign seems rather similar to the NDA government’s ‘India Shining’ campaign before the 2004 elections. Like it was done at the time, this mega project will be funded by the government, and not by the ruling Congress party, at the tax payer’s expense. But while the NDA’s campaign met with a disastrous electoral consequence, the UPA’s top brass is optimistic about its prospects in the next general elections. Parts of the ad campaign, which were released on Tuesday, are meant to address the aspirations of middle class, by showing desi-developed robots, a growing network of metro railways in big cities, easier access to higher education, and other schemes. In the case of Delhi, the credit for the development of the metro rail is given to the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government, but in the case of Bangalore and Chennai the advertisement gives credit to the UPA government at the Centre. The urban-centric advertisements will be balanced by showcasing UPA’s key populist pro-poor programmes and public delivery schemes. “The best part is that the ads don’t for a moment look like sarkari advertisements,” an enthusiastic Information and Broadcasting official boasted to Firstpost.  [caption id=“attachment_783801” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A screengrab from the new Bharat Nirman advertisement campaign.[/caption] Efforts were taken to ensure the advertisements did not look sarkari. After all, the government, as some reports claim, has spent about Rs 16 crore to produce the television advertisements which have been directed by film-maker Pradip Sarkar, who made the hit film Parineeta. The theme song, a jingle titled Meelon hum aa gaye, meelon hume jaana hai (We’ve come a long way, we have a long way to go)", has been sung by the star singers Shaan and Sunidhi Chauhan. The advertisements composed as 45-90 second clips will roll out in three phases. Yesterday’s roll out was just the beginning. The I&B ministry official claimed that unlike the India Shining campaign of the NDA, the UPA’s ad campaign was “not an over statement, just a statement of facts of what the Congress-led government has achieved in last four years and that it is not the end of journey yet, and there are many miles to go.” Whether the official is merely playing along with the campaign or being guided by the hype around him in Shastri Bhawan and other power corridors in central Delhi is difficult to tell. A carefully constructed ‘India Shining’ advertisement campaign had boomeranged in the face of the NDA in 2004, and was blamed for generating cynicism among the electorate which punished it for its hyperbole and dethroned it from power.The Congress  and other critics had also been rather successful in driving the message home that it was a completely wasteful expenditure by the Vajpayee government, which could have spent the same money, around Rs 150 crore, on developmental works.The election results perhaps proved that as compared to a media campaign, criticism through word of mouth traveled faster and worked more effectively. The UPA think-tank is not willing to buy the argument that their model of making people feel good about their nine-year-long regime will in any way be rebuffed by the people during the next elections. Responding to a query at campaign’s media preview, I&B Minister Manish Tewari said “This was not India Shining but the actual story of India that we are trying to present to you through these 12-13 ad spots.” Tewari added the tangible progress achieved in key sectors such as education, health, telecom, rural and urban infrastructure and basic civic amenities have led to a greater sense of confidence among the people, particularly the youth. After a victory in Karnataka, the Congress is clearly on a high, but while making a broad generalisation about the youth the party’s leaders often tend to forget that it was the youth which formed core of the Anna Hazare campaign for the Lokpal, and the spontaneous protests at India Gate in the aftermath of Delhi gangrape case. The Congress is also hoping that these feel good ads will result in people forgetting about the sordid saga of former ministers Ashwini Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal, and various corruption scandals like 2G spectrum, Coalgate and others that have plagued the government. The campaign has also stolen the thunder from the official fourth anniversary function of the UPA 2, where the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will release their report card on the government’s functioning. The focus of the function will now be more on how strongly the Congress President backs the Prime Minister in hour of his personal crisis. Meanwhile, the BJP has already started questioning the UPA’s ads and the expenses incurred on them. “While the government has every right to tom-tom its achievement, it has no right to waste taxpayer’s money for making such false and misleading claims. The ad campaign will not wash away the sins of the UPA government,” BJP general secretary Murlidhar Rao said. Pointing to the new print advertisements, Rao said, “The UPA government has made an absurd claim in the advertisement. The caption of the advertisement says ‘Thanks to MGNREGA No bonded Labour anymore’. I am not able to comprehend how an eminent lawyer like Manish Tewari would forget that the bonded labour has been abolished in 1976 by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. As such I am at loss to understand where did this bonded labour come from, which UPA government supposedly freed through MNREGA. If the claim made in the advertisement is true then the government must furnish the numbers, which form the basis of the claim.” However, when asked what grounds the BJP had for criticising the Congress given they had taken the same route in 2004, a leader who preferred not be named said that the UPA was indulging in this campaign at its own peril if it could not learn from the most glaring pre-poll mistake of the NDA. The campaign has also sparked off doubts over whether the Congress would initiate the campaign a year ahead of elections or whether they are actually closer. It also raises the question whether the government will go through with an ordinance to push through with the Food Security Bill, no matter what toll it takes on the national exchequer.