Like many of you I have avoided social media content produced by those referred to as “right wing influencers,” more colloquially called “bhakts,” but referred to in this column as RWIs. There was no occasion to do so in the period after 2014, because we already had the government beating its own drum. Why listen to the melodies of those participating in the chorus? But after the Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority on 4 June, I felt I should examine the prime minister’s most dedicated ambassadors. So much of the last week has been spent in watching this content and what follows is a collection of reflections on it.
First, it is important to note that the major figures among them are not large in number, many are anonymous and the most popular among them often struggle to get a fraction of the views that people like Ravish Kumar and Dhruv Rathee get. The reasons for this appear to me be two things. One, that at the core they repeat the government’s claims (on things like its performance and delivery) and so their base audience is limited. Why should one listen to sycophancy second-hand when the primary source is available? The other is that they seem to be always angry or sulking, and that does not make for particularly watchable content.
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The second thing, and this is unfortunate, is that the RWIs remain even in the first week of September quite shattered with the results of 4 June. Supporters of another party, any other party, would be delighted to have retained office and kept all the ministers. But the RWIs require the master to have total domination of the sort that 240 seats cannot give him or, by extension, them. They are baffled at the result and unable to contextualise it because all the “new India” stuff and the rest of it have vanished overnight.
The third thing is that RWIs are convinced that it was conspiracies by the Opposition’s social media teams that led to the loss of the BJP’s majority. In particular the two things that were spread as fake news were that the BJP would end reservations and change the Constitution. Indeed it is extraordinary the extent to which they seem to think that narrative and media affect voting patterns. Their belief is that if this “fake news” had received firm response from the BJP it would have won 300 seats again, if not more.
It should be noted that these creators are themselves anti-reservation. This is because they are urban upper caste people protecting their class interests. It does not appear that they are conscious of the fact that they, Modi’s bhakts, speaking angrily against reservations would likely affect voters. Their sentiment is also targeted at an individual named Amit Malviya who apparently runs the BJP’s social media, but I could not understand why they were angry at him.
The fourth thing is that they have a dislike of turncoats that the BJP has taken into the party, in states like Maharashtra. Here one must agree with them that it has harmed the BJP, however their sentiment is driven as much by a rejection of corruption as by a desire for ideological purity.
This is linked to another aspect, which is their hatred of any talk of inclusion and secularism by the BJP. The party president JP Nadda spoke during the campaign of the BJP not needing the RSS, of the BJP not being synonymous with saffron and following “sabka saath.” This has not gone down well.
The fifth thing is that the RWIs appear to feel personally humiliated at all the U-turns the Modi government has taken since the results. They have not registered the fact that the decade of top-down ideological government has concluded and a new form of working will need to be found by the prime minister. On matters like the Waqf bill and on lateral entry they are particularly agitated.
The sixth thing is that Modi’s image remains intact with them. Perhaps they see this setback as a passing phase, but it is hard after having gone over hours and hours of their content to find any criticism of the prime minister or his manner of functioning. Actual issues, like employment or inflation do not seem to them to be important. They have only praise for his ability to govern. Corporate capture of politics and media and nepotism inside the BJP also do not seem to register with the RWIs. Perhaps that is one reason for their bafflement: that the election result was voter rejection of Modi, his performance over the decade and his guarantees for the future do not appear to have crossed their mind.
The seventh and final thing is that they are quite rabid. And this is not only because of their views but also their words. The language they use for minorities, for marginalised communities and so on is nasty. Their worldview is dark and does not accommodate middle ground, compromise or moderation.
I have come away from the experience with disappointment at how shallow the RWI environment is. Intellectually, it is stunted and does not offer to the viewer or listener (or reader) anything particularly useful. It does not and will not be able to offer support to the prime minister as he navigates a new path of inclusion. Indeed, RWIs will likely add to his troubles as he tries to do something fresh while his devotees ache for an era that has passed.
