Why the Congress-BJP strategy of hijacking Twitter is bad news

Online political debate is passionate, vociferous, and high-decibel. It is also self-defeating and futile. All disagreement transmutes inevitably into a toxic partisan fist-fight, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Ideas, policies, solutions are drowned out in a deluge of rhetoric that relies on name-calling and willful misrepresentations to score points. Every issue, be it hunger, sexual violence or national security, becomes yet another version of a #Feku vs #Pappu face-off. This empty polarisation suits the two national parties just fine. It offers an opportunity to transform the virtual public square into yet another arena for puerile partisanship. Hence the latest move to recruit most vociferous and ardent members of the Twitterati, creating a volunteer army of party PR hacks. [caption id=“attachment_975485” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tweets with the hashtag #Pappuisback.[/caption] “Our mandate was to reach out to BJP’s support base. We look for volunteers. Ever since social media caught up, it became very easy for us to spot such people. Anybody who identifies with our ideology and is willing to work with the party should be our brand ambassador,” BJP communication honcho Anupam Trivedi tells Times of India. At first blush, the new strategy looks like progress. Technology can now offer the white-collar, educated Congress or BJP loyalists a sanitized route into politics, and bypass the darker demands of on-the-ground political action. The parties reward not local thuggery or electoral manipulation but social media visibility. The loudest die-hard partisans earn an invitation into the party fold, which in turn holds out the carrot of wider visibility: “Many who have consolidated a base of followers on Twitter are seen as unofficial spokespersons for the parties they support. They get invited to television debates and are gradually building a public profile independent of their day jobs.” Thanks to Twitter, Mumbai homemaker Priti Gandhi can meet Narendra Modi in person, work with the local BJP officials and organize political rallies; and Congress party can rely on the talents of former banker Sanjay Jha and IT consultant Suryanarayan Ganesh to represent them. Those who complain about the apathetic urban professional may rejoice, but none of this is good news for the state of public debate in this country. This strategy of amplifying the loudest, and most aggressively partisan voices will, in effect, turn Twitter into a 24X7 version of the TV shoutfest – as comment boards on most news sites have already become. While 140 characters may not make room for deep engagement, Twitter opens up the political conversation to all interested participants, removing the media gatekeepers who have traditionally determined which voice is heard, while others ignored.  And it offers the possibility of a citizen dialogue that are not dominated by the empty partisan posturing that dominates TV debates. The hope that a truly open and free debate will throw up at least some arguments, opinions, and ideas that break past the arid BJP v. Congress frame. Handing a party-funded megaphone to the most stridently partisan members of the Twitterati is an effective means to destroy that possibility. It ensures that the conversation of Twitter will be dominated by made-up hashtags and over-the-top heckling, with little oxygen left to debate an actual policy or a real idea. Feku Twitter wars are the opium of the professional classes. And the joint BJP-Congress strategy is clear: Keep ’em smoking.