Whatsapp “Twiplomacy” And 2019 General Elections

In recent years, technology has not failed to influence every aspect of human life, including the election process. We’ve seen the evolution from the traditional ballots to the Electronic Voting Machines(EVM), which amongst them is a better option, well that is a debate for some other time.

- Harsha Prerna

In this article, we’ll discuss different aspects of the advancements of technology, and how heavily the political parties and leaders rely on them. The 2014 General elections in India bears the evidence. It was the largest on record, with over 800 million citizens eligible to vote in elections spread over nine phases, in what is considered the world’s largest democracy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, managed to eke out a majority government.

The 2019 general elections just a few yards away, international media’s attention is shifted to India, in recent months. The role that social media has played in events in the country, is being analyzed. Over 50,000 WhatsApp groups have reportedly been created, earlier this year to spread campaign messages during State and other elections. In the past year, the country has witnessed the aftermath of rumors and false information propagated through WhatsApp. The gullible public has been mobilized and instigated resulting in the killing of more than twenty innocent people since April. Many incidents were reported from all over the country of lynching and mob attacks, of law and order gone haywire.

Although none of these incidents has been directly connected to campaign created WhatsApp groups, they reflect how political and social divisions have been propagated and inflamed by digital technologies.

A marked shift in election strategy was seen in the 2014 General elections. Data and social media platforms occupied a central role. The upcoming 2019 elections are expected to rely even more heavily on social media than those in 2014, with video content playing an even more prominent part, according to the experts.