Gallup is probably the world’s best known poll organisation. It is also
one of the most trusted research organisations when it comes to opinion polls.
But even polls by Gallup may sometimes not be an indicator of the grave impact
of events. This is not to suggest that their polls are flawed or unreliable but
that current events and trends may not have such an immediate and influential
impact. Therefore, some poll results may end up being merely academic or a test
of trivia. In the last dialogue in ‘All the President’s Men’, Ben Bradlee,
editor of the Washington Post, chides his two journalists, Woodward and
Bernstein, thus: “You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll? Half the
country never even heard of the word Watergate. Nobody gives a shit.” Richard Nixon became the only American
President to resign office. That many major scandals since then would be
routinely suffixed with ‘gate’ is an impact that could not have been measured
by the poll conducted by Gallup at the time.
That’s right; nobody gaves a shit till it finally hits the ceiling. Has
corruption hit the ceiling under Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi? Not if you go
by the CNN-IBN polls, which is presently airing on a daily basis as ‘State of
the nation’ polls. In contrast to the Gallup poll I've mentioned CNN-IBN is busy indulging in trivia when the shit has already hit the ceiling. Much of the poll is based on questions that can best be
described as ‘trivia’ or if you’re in school you might get to answer a GK
question of that nature. The man leading the venture is Yogendra Yadav. He has
a record of sorts for polls that have gone terribly wrong and has ended up with
egg on his face on many occasions. When this happens all too frequently one
tends to suspect the motive and aim of the poll itself.
I call the whole exercise ‘Stupefy the nation’ polls. The second
instalment of their polls is on ‘Corruption’ and here are some interesting
facts from the poll. In the previous poll in which Rahul Gandhi was declared
the most popular choice for PM, CSDS (who actually conduct these polls) had
clarified that over 70% polled are from rural areas. I’m no poll scientist but let’s look at some
of the questions asked in this poll on corruption:
Q. Have you heard of these names? : A. Raja, Kanimozhi, Suresh Kalmadi,
Dayanidhi Maran. And the max that have heard of them is 27% and those who
actually know them is 22% If you look carefully, none of these are national
level politicians in the real sense. Three of them are from a regional party (DMK
members from TN) and one Congress member from Maharashtra. Well, why didn’t they
ask about Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram or Praful Patel. First,
has CNN-IBN given a clean chit to these people? Secondly, the more relevant
question would have been if people knew about 2G, CWG, Adarsh and the actual
scams rather than names involved in those. There is no need to preclude that
only some individuals are involved in the scams as the poll does. This is hardly a popularity contest.
Q. Who is more corrupt – Centre, state or local government? – Now, this
is how they fool people by asking a question that measures degree of corruption
between various forms of government rather than each government separately. How
is the perception of which government is more corrupt relevant at all to the
study? It’s like asking you a stupid question: Do you like milk, coffee or tea?
Chances are your vote will be divided between the three. In contrast if I asked
you if you are a regular coffee drinker or not you are likely to give a more definitive
answer. This is nothing but wilfully clouding the issue of corruption to
indicate that one is worse than the other and covering up the severity of
corruption of each one of them. As a consequence the All-India perception of
the centre being corrupt is 35% when the answer to a clear single question
would well have been 82%. This is a good hobby to play around with numbers. Alright,
so between Manu Sharma and Vikas Yadav you choose who is a bigger murderer.
Q. On Anna Hazare, Ramdev, Lokpal etc ….. How is this relevant at all
except for knowledge of trivia or general awareness? And does awareness of
these people or their attributes have any significance to corruption? Frankly,
I am confident that a huge population from the sample wouldn’t know who
Pratibha Patil is. Considering that a majority of the sample is from rural
areas it is not even clear if they have access to TV, national newspapers etc. Then,
questions about Lokpal etc. Well, if there is a question about Lokpal it would
have been worthwhile how many know there is a ‘Prevention of Corruption Act’ or
a comparison with it. On a question about the polls Rajdeep Sardesai had
tweeted a message to the effect that ‘there is a universe outside of TV
channels and Twitter’. That should tell you enough.
Q. Is UPA very corrupt, somewhat corrupt, not much corrupt, not
corrupt? Of all the questions this one has to qualify as the most stupid one.
Is there a degree of corruption that can somehow be justified or condoned? Is that
what these researchers are trying to establish? So in all discussions you will
be told about the figure that 28% think UPA is very corrupt. Which clearly attempts to cloud reality and actual facts.(Didn’t they also highlight
Rahul Gandhi has popularity of 42% when the real public figure was 19%
according to them?) Therefore, the basic message is not everyone really thinks
the UPA is that corrupt. Get that? The joke around is that MMS must simply
release the names of ministers who are not corrupt. That would be easier. This
method of polling almost reduces the exercise to a movie review by a critic who
would rate it from 1 star to 5 and reduces the seriousness of the issue of
corruption.
When Ajay Maken tried to pin the appointment of Suresh Kalmadi as CWGOC
chairman on the NDA the media went to town with his statement. Now that Arun
Jaitley has completely destroyed and exposed his lies, the media looks like a
fool as usual. The intricate nature of documents and forgery that are used are
not easily comprehensible to a majority of our population. That makes it easier
for the media to conduct fake and motivated polls to stupefy the nation. You
never know, for all that matters the NDA itself might have bid for the CWG
hoping to make a kill but then they lost power. The UPA came to power and made
a killing with all the scams. There is no need to rate corruption by number of
stars as the CNN-IBN poll attempts to do.
 |
| From Lensonews |
In another poll by Lensonnews website one will find quite a different
picture. That is mainly because that poll is only from 5 metro cities. But what
Lensonews does is that keeps a clear focus on critical issues rather than
trying to flavour the issues with some agenda. There are many issues that a
government handles but some are critical to ordinary citizens. To confuse that
by multiple choices or choices of degrees is a clearly dishonest poll. That
poll also indicates Narendra Modi as a clearly popular choice for the next PM.
But that can also be set aside as urban bias
CNN-IBN isn’t yet done with these polls. They will carry one segment
each night till independence day. By the time they finish you might find it
hard to remember what people’s opinions really are. And, of course, they will
tell you Manmohan Singh is still an honourable man.
