Last week my post "The Unhappy Election" was about a bitter, enervating campaign that had the whole nation on a boil.
This week we have emerged out of the tunnel and it smells like new beginnings.
I am a left-leaning, English medium type who voted Congress in all previous elections but this.
According to a whole host of gurus - political, marketing, branding etc- and a whole lot of general gas bags currently pontificating on TV screens and newspapers, I was persuaded to vote against all my inclinations and past affiliations because "brand Modi" was "marketed" so well.
That I think is just the kind of glib, mindless analysis that is so common in our media on any issue that requires even scratching below the surface, forget about doing a deep dive,
I am sure that we will over the next few months and years have serious, well-researched analysis of what happened during this astonishing election and of the phenomenon called Narendra Modi.
One strand of analysis will be about the changing nature of the Indian electorate. The obvious one is of course the demographics - the 100 million first time voters and the total of around 500 million below the age of 30. Going beyond the demographics and perhaps related to it, there could be lurking a deeper change. Ironically among the first spotters of this trend, at least among those who get widely quoted in media - was P. Chidambaram, the outgoing Finance Minister. Indian society has rapidly moved away from being a petitioning society to being an society driven by aspirations -simply put even the poor and the disadvantaged in India do not want handouts they want jobs and a better quality of life. In other words they want the opportunity to fish for themselves not just be handed small portions of rotting fish.In that sense it was India's first middle-class election.
The second strand of analysis will be about for what made for winners and losers in this election.
In my post dated November 20th 2013 titled "Memes and the Coming General Elections" I had written about how memes are much more powerful entities and brands and what role memes are likely to play in elections. To my mind the landslide nature of the results of this election is a sure shot sign that what was operating in this election was a powerful force that was not a brand but a meme. Brands create markets and market shares, memes create civilizations, societies and revolutions.
The thesis could be that Modi is much beyond a brand, he is a newly-made meme.A meme that digs as deep and resonates with the generic timeless memes of "Change", "Success" and "Youth". The harnessing of the power and promise of Change, Success and Youth is the result of a conscious strategy brilliantly executed by Team Modi. However that alone would not have lead to the astounding results but for a happy accident: Modi evoked across a wide swathe of the electorate the meme "Indian". It is my hunch that every Indian, except for perhaps among the most Westernized of us, recognized in him a kin. In his scraggly appearance, in his earthy idiom, in his unfettered aggression all of saw a personification of the Indian gestalt - of a tough life faced with courage, forbearance and innovation.
Well the above are just thoughts and perhaps just as glib as the ones I was complaining about. Let me end by wishing the man well before I go back to contemplating what my stock portfolio will be worth a couple of years from now.
This week we have emerged out of the tunnel and it smells like new beginnings.
I am a left-leaning, English medium type who voted Congress in all previous elections but this.
According to a whole host of gurus - political, marketing, branding etc- and a whole lot of general gas bags currently pontificating on TV screens and newspapers, I was persuaded to vote against all my inclinations and past affiliations because "brand Modi" was "marketed" so well.
That I think is just the kind of glib, mindless analysis that is so common in our media on any issue that requires even scratching below the surface, forget about doing a deep dive,
I am sure that we will over the next few months and years have serious, well-researched analysis of what happened during this astonishing election and of the phenomenon called Narendra Modi.
One strand of analysis will be about the changing nature of the Indian electorate. The obvious one is of course the demographics - the 100 million first time voters and the total of around 500 million below the age of 30. Going beyond the demographics and perhaps related to it, there could be lurking a deeper change. Ironically among the first spotters of this trend, at least among those who get widely quoted in media - was P. Chidambaram, the outgoing Finance Minister. Indian society has rapidly moved away from being a petitioning society to being an society driven by aspirations -simply put even the poor and the disadvantaged in India do not want handouts they want jobs and a better quality of life. In other words they want the opportunity to fish for themselves not just be handed small portions of rotting fish.In that sense it was India's first middle-class election.
The second strand of analysis will be about for what made for winners and losers in this election.
In my post dated November 20th 2013 titled "Memes and the Coming General Elections" I had written about how memes are much more powerful entities and brands and what role memes are likely to play in elections. To my mind the landslide nature of the results of this election is a sure shot sign that what was operating in this election was a powerful force that was not a brand but a meme. Brands create markets and market shares, memes create civilizations, societies and revolutions.
The thesis could be that Modi is much beyond a brand, he is a newly-made meme.A meme that digs as deep and resonates with the generic timeless memes of "Change", "Success" and "Youth". The harnessing of the power and promise of Change, Success and Youth is the result of a conscious strategy brilliantly executed by Team Modi. However that alone would not have lead to the astounding results but for a happy accident: Modi evoked across a wide swathe of the electorate the meme "Indian". It is my hunch that every Indian, except for perhaps among the most Westernized of us, recognized in him a kin. In his scraggly appearance, in his earthy idiom, in his unfettered aggression all of saw a personification of the Indian gestalt - of a tough life faced with courage, forbearance and innovation.
Well the above are just thoughts and perhaps just as glib as the ones I was complaining about. Let me end by wishing the man well before I go back to contemplating what my stock portfolio will be worth a couple of years from now.
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