Society doesn’t have a single mind. It’s the collection of heterogeneous individuals. When politicians take the social factors to be granted and indulge in vote-bank politics, they fail to apprehend the pulse of the nation. This is exactly what we all realized in the recently concluded Assembly elections in five states- Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, and Telangana.
The recent elections showed us that the public doesn’t float in a fantasy world. Their voting is the reflection of what they see and observe. The propaganda, the made-up threats, and glory might influence elections to a certain extent but what actually matters is the underlying social forces working in the society. The voters in the Hindi heartland decided to show doors to BJP owing to the mounting agrarian crisis, joblessness, growing religious and caste divide, among many other factors. While the voters in Hindi belt opted another national party to replace BJP, voters in non-Hindi belt showed confidence in their regional parties- Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Telangana and Mizo National Front (MNF) in Mizoram.
These results are the testimony to the fact that the sociological and psychosocial forces determine the ‘rational choice’ of the voter. The influence of habitus (the way individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it; social class, religion, nationality, ethnicity, education, profession etc.) makes voting not an individual behavior rather a social action. Media penetration in the system of socialization and eventually becoming a political tool has brought change in the environment voters live. Media literacy has become more influential factor than mere literacy. It is “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media”. Whereas the ability to access and create media is growing, the ability to analyze and evaluate is poor amongst many Indians. And political parties are using this loophole to spread false propaganda. The two-step flow of communication model says that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media. Opinion leaders pass on their own interpretation of information in addition to the actual media content.
A famous historian, E. H. Carr has opined ” The great man is always representative either of existing forces or of forces which he helps to create by way of challenge to existing authority”, political leaders are riding on self-created social forces over which they have little control. Because they have tried to vandalize the existing social factors by feeding them on cheap communal hate.
The voting pattern in India is undergoing a change. Media outreach, political awareness, propaganda politics are the contributing factors for influencing the psychological makeup .It is true that the newly emerging social force that is social media initially favored the party in power but took no time to change the direction of the wind. Yes, it is time to realize the power of social forces instead of a political wave.
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