By Rita Cardeira
New Delhi, Apr 23 (EFE).- Political parties in India are resorting to memes, viral videos, appearances in popular programs, comic images and quotes with pictures of public figures to attract Generation Z in the ongoing general elections.
In a country where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 35 – and hooked on to a smartphone for most activities -, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first to take steps towards reaching out to them using social media.
In 2014, the Hindu nationalist leader used social media “for the first time to build the narrative of the country, and that impacted the outcome of the elections and the mentality of voters,” professor and head of the Department of Political Science at Delhi University, Sangit Kumar Ragi, told EFE.
The prime minister’s digital campaign, “My First Vote For Modi,” has a series of videos of 15 seconds each about the achievements of his government, which aim to convey to young people that their lives have improved in the last 10 years under the leadership of the Hindu nationalist leader.
On social media platform X, Modi – the political leader with the most followers (97 million) – is shown in photos piloting a plane, strolling on the beach, meditating and conversing with popular figures.
While neither Modi nor his close allies are open to meetings with the independent press, Youtube or Instagram influencers with millions of followers often secure extensive interviews with top politicians.
In addition, video game streamers such as Naman Mathur, known online as “Mortal,” and Payal Dhare, known as “Payal Gaming” – each having more than three million followers on Instagram – were among the prime minister’s seven honored guests at a roundtable last week.
Opposition parties such as the grand old Congress Party (INC) and the Aam Aadmi Party too are upbeat about using social media to reach out to the youth, even though they lag behind in the number of followers.
The INC has come up with catchy songs and animations depicting the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi, standing up to Modi and the alleged misdeeds under his rule.
Meanwhile, unemployment has been at its highest in decades, with 44.49 percent of the people aged 20-24 without a job, according to data from the think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
For voters such as 28-year-old Ashwini Shukla from the eastern state of Jharkhand – one of the poorest in the country -, unemployment is among the biggest problems of his generation.
“But still the young people vote for Modi. There is a contradiction here and it is due to all the kind of advertising it does,” Shukla told EFE. EFE
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