View: Are election campaigns more of a performance than real public speeches?

BY-Anuvab Pal
Earlier this week, in the middle of what already is an insane election season, a BJP politician in Meerut, during a political speech, went on a now viral rant repeating the words ‘Kamaal kar denge’ (We’ll do wonders), suggesting that if elected, his party will do fantastic stuff.

Alot of people on social media jumped on the guy and exclaimed that politicians today are replacing issues with ‘performance for an audience’ at rallies — that spectacle has become more important than the substance of policy et al. The repetition of his sentence had an almost rhythmic rapping quality, which came in for even more criticism (‘Why is a politician rapping?’ etc).


While many seem to be arguing that this is demeaning the political discourse in India, I’m of the opinion that discourse is already so demeaned, that political rallies as entertainment are far better than some policy-ridden nonsense that may bear little truth anyway.

So, what kind of entertainment am I talking about? Something closer to a world I know: stand-up comedy.

I’ve been to a bunch of political rallies in India. The millions you see standing are mostly there for a packet of free food and a pick-up/drop-off. No right- or left-wing ideology is strong enough to get the common man out on aworking day in the March sun to listen to a man or woman who looks like a speck from the distance, barely audible beyond the first 10 rows of the dais in all that din.

So, till the mic and sound systems improve substantially, the politician is better off doing jokes and mimicry and noises than an actual political speech at rallies. It explains why BJP spends most of their political speeches berating Congress than talking policy.

The same holds true vice versa. At one rally I went to in Bihar, the incumbent spent the entire speech mimicking his rival, throwing in a Shah Rukh Khan impression as a bonus. He won by a landslide. I’d once seen a well-known footballer campaigning in the northeast. This time, his audience begged him to do his signature header-move rather than a speech. In a democracy, you have to listen to your constituents. So, the footballer-campaigner balanced the ball on his head. Result: a huge margin win for the candidate he was endorsing.

In the absence of simply bribing the voter with mobile top-ups, free data and pressure cookers, which are still popular, convincing them to vote for one’s candidate/party is tragically the only option left. And if that is indeed the world, why not give the voter some fun in the sun?

In some parts of the world, this approach has already yielded results. US President Donald Trump’s rallies are just mad rambles. Ukraine just elected an actualstand-up comedian as its president.

Why is India behind? My request, therefore, through election season is more performance, not less. Maybe more one-liners. Maybe a rap contest judged by Badshah. Maybe a dance-off judged by Navjot Sidhu. Maybe a wrestling match between an actual chowkidar against a Twitter chowkidar.

Sure, there have been memorable political speeches: Indira Gandhi talking about every drop of her blood being in service to the nation; Narendra Modi saying economic growth is for everyone; Manmohan Singh quoting Victor Hugo — ‘No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come’ from The History of a Crime — when liberalising the economy; John F Kennedy’s ‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country’ speech.…

Even a few years ago, audiences had attention spans. Today, you’ve got only five seconds when the citizen is not watching Akshay Kumar punch a bear on his smartphone. Do you want to waste those five seconds quoting from some boring manifesto? Or are you better off repeating the words ‘Kamaal kar denge’ over and over again, really loudly, all the while shaking your head?