Sidharth Mishra 2

Bihar 2020: Surfeit of Contrasting, Confusing Narratives as Polling Starts

Narratives do matter in polls. They increasingly started to influence voting patterns ever since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) unveiled the power of social media during the 2013 Delhi Assembly polls, emerging as a political force from almost nowhere. Prime Minister Narendra Modi quickly picked the threads and patented it during the 2014 campaign.

The spin masters and media strategists were never as important they are today in any poll campaign. Though the best-known political spin master Prashant Kishor is conspicuous by his absence from campaign in his home state, the spin of words is complementing the pace and gruel of campaign at grassroots.

On Monday Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi took to twitter to say that the rival RJD’s Chief Ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav has humiliated the upper caste at a rally in the remote Rohtas area. Bihar BJP’s tallest leader Sushil Kumar Modi, is a known baiter of the upper castes and often targeted by leaders of his party for step-motherly treatment to communities loyal to the BJP.

Posting of such information by Sushil Modi somewhere betrays the jitter in the BJP campaign, which suspects that a section of upper caste voters could vote for the grand alliance (Mahagathbandhan) of the RJD, Congress and the Left parties. The magnitude of edginess is such that Sushil Modi has also claimed that his rivals used black magic a few years back against him.

Sidharth Mishra

Bihar 2020: From Politics of Identity to Politics of Subsidy

The poll results in this country, elections after elections, has always been driven by an X-factor. This X-factor largely goes unrecognized by the analysts covering the campaign, which post-result they find it convenient to define as under-current. 

As the poll campaign for Bihar Assembly elections 2020 steams ahead, the analysts in the war rooms of the political parties are busy crunching numbers, especially on which caste goes whose way. The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) garners its confidence from the fact that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is back with them.

The general refrain from the BJP ranks is that Nitish comes with his 15 percent vote share, which directly is a loss to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance). They are also confident that Chirag Paswan walking out will not do much damage, given the Lok Janshakti Party’s performance in 2015 polls, when they had won just two seats.

There is a merit in this argument as far as consolidation of the traditional NDA votes go but it would be immature to project it as a direct loss of vote share of Gathbandhan. In this poll the grand alliance also has Left parties as partner. It could be pointed that in past too RJD joined hands with Left but in 2020, RJD for the first time is coming together with Communist Party of India (Maoist-Leninist) Liberation.

Sidharth Mishra

Chirag’s Divorce with Nitish, Live-In with BJP Forced by Complex Caste Considerations

The preface to the unfolding Bihar 2020 poll story has become very intricate with first the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) walking out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and then its leader Ram Vilas Paswan walking out of the world. However, the loss of patronage from the first family of Dusadh community (not to be confused with another Dalit community identified as Pasi) of Bihar may not necessarily paint an abysmal picture for state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Those who follow the politics of the country’s politically most convoluted state, would recall that Nitish Kumar had initiated the social engineering process to create the voting vertical of Mahadalits to counter the influence of comparatively powerful communities of Chamars, aligned for a longtime with Congress (largely due to the presence of Babu Jagjiwan Ram and his daughter Meira Kumar) and now with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Dusadhs, where Ram Vilas Paswan’s influence was taller than anybody else.

Kumar’s suspicion of Paswan and vice-versa (made so overt by Chriag Paswan) is not about personal preferences but embedded in the social-caste structure of the state. To illustrate the point, one could recall the infamous Belchchi massacre of 1978, which proved to be a turning point in the revival of the fortunes of then ousted Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the Congress party.

Sidharth Mishra12

Imploding Media: Newspersons as News

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2016, during his monthly radio programme, ‘Maan Ki Baat’ had advised print and television media to carry positive stories that inspires the nation. The advice has not been heeded to goes without saying, as media today, especially television, is about anything but positive news.

Sometime in 2011, then leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley while addressing a seminar on the civil society upsurge under Anna Hazare, which was being witnessed then, had a very telling comment to make. Jaitley had said that Anna was making to television because cameras like sad pictures. Prophetic comments indeed!

In another instance Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that journalists should be like a honey bee and not a housefly. Houseflies, he had said, sit in filth and spread it around, whereas bees are productive and also capable of responding with a sting when required. The problem with today’s news is that the journalists are functioning neither as sting bees or houseflies but ‘tamasha makers.’

Among the foremost rules of practice for a journalist which were taught by the conservative school was that a newsperson should never become news; s/he should report the news. A reporter would make a ‘tamasha’ of oneself for news only if the person didn’t have a meaty copy to offer. 

Sm

CBI Does Well to Accept AIIMS Report in SSR Case

The much awaited, debated and speculated report from the team of experts of the department of Forensic Medicine of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR) death case came on Saturday last. Given the airtime which has been consumed by this particular unfortunate incident in the past three months, it should have invited several sessions of intense debate on television.

It did not happen that way, as the AIIMS report came, as English poet TS Eliot had penned, “Not with a bang but a whimper.” The report was conclusive -- there was no evidence of poisoning. The AIIMS forensic team’s description has definitely taken the wind out of the sails to those having concluded that SSR was “drugged and murdered.” They would now have to invent new theories to keep themselves afloat.

Thankfully given the hunger the media has for the TRPs, the Hathras incident has come to grab the eye-balls, and most of the channels have conveniently decided to not play up the AIIMS report much. 

There was a lot of speculation whether the CBI, which is investigating the case, would accept the report or ignore. There is a precedence of another investigating agency, Delhi Police, not ‘collecting’ an AIIMS report of conclusively stating that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar had died of poisoning.