RT If You Agree - Part 2

If you haven’t read Part-1 yet, I recommend you do. Story so far: Shashi Tharoor (ST) appointed Captain of the Light Brigade that will charge the Social Media (SM). He will be assisted by a team of 35 and other TwitterNREGA enrolments. There will be some celebrities according to the Indian Express report that I mentioned in part-1. Nice! So it mentions they will enrol Shabana Azmi. Huh? No comments. They will also enrol Shahrukh Khan. SRK? This guy agreed to be the Brand Ambassador for Bengal in February 2012. Any idea what he accomplished in that role? He was to do for Bengal what Amitabh Bachchan does for Gujarat. I guess we will have to wait and watch. There’s another problem though. Latest reports state that SRK has already quit Twitter over various controversies. Like I said, since the Captain was appointed it has been downhill. Never pin your hopes on a negatively controversial celebrity who is easy to pick on in a platform like SM. Even as the Congress TwitterNREGA gets underway SRK is embroiled in another controversy concerning IIPM.

A new recruit who is currently making comic waves on Twitter had a very innocent question to ask with this tweet. As a practice I black out names of private individuals and so no names will appear in certain tweets. While people had a good laugh over this comic question, it’s actually a very important question by a Congress supporter. Yeah, where is Rahul Gandhi? Why is he not on Twitter? Is he scared? Considering he is the ‘great white hope’ of the youth for the Congress how come the prince doesn’t find it necessary to be on SM but heads the SM committee? It’s not just RahulG. Where are people like Jyoti Scindia, Sachin Pilot and all the youth gang from Congress? Are they scared of facing the public too? Why does Congress have to recruit volunteers through Ministry of I&B and end up with people who are either comic or totally blank on issues?

Consider this: If the Congress doesn’t get positive reviews or tweets, the least they could do is request their staunchest supporters to stop tweeting idiotic stuff. But the party seems to like it. ST follows these supporters and makes sure they are emboldened to create even more comedy and laughter on Twitter. How can anyone explain these 3 tweets by a very devoted Congress supporter on Twitter? Silly mistakes and gaffes are not unusual anywhere. But this is an example of a pathological streak of moronery that damages the Congress. And they seem to love it. The first tweet implies RahulG is son of Sanjay Gandhi by the Mahatma’s design. The second one says SoniaG was killed by terrorists. The last one claims a prediction of Shinde being targeted by Hindutva at Pune. Mind you, I stopped at three, there are plenty more. Now Mr. Tharoor, do you blame all of this on the right wing or propagandists that the Congress complains about? This is your own guy. Why does anyone else have to make any effort to lampoon Congress at all?

If all that comedy is of Congress’s own making the bad sign is that ST himself is on course to erode his own credibility and respect. The SM and thousands of its members have convincingly countered the lies and propaganda of the media all these years against Narendra Modi. He remains the greatest target for the Congress and the MSM. There is nothing Congress or channels like NDTV, CNN-IBN, IndiaToday group, Times Now won’t do to cause liberal damage to Modi and through him the story of Gujarat. In this campaign they have resorted to thousands of distortions, wanton manipulation of statistical figures and even outright lies. A single example of how the media (Business Standard & BBC in this case) distorts the Gujarat story would be enough to demonstrate my point. In May 2012 the BBC had picked up an article from the Business Standard and carried a story. In less than 24 hours the story was challenged and the both media outlets had to make corrections. Silly BBC even had to dramatically alter their headline itself. From asking if Gujarat is a red hot economy the headline changed to a confirmation that the state indeed is a red hot economy. Does that tell Mr. ST that the MSM may pass spurious nonsense as gospel but it won’t pass on SM? So who is in the propaganda business? The MSM or SM?

ST himself has now fallen to levels he had never imagined he would. In his quest to make a mark for the party on the SM and impress the High Command he has inadvertently become the MSM himself. He now tweets untruthful stuff about Narendra Modi. They already have NDTV, CNN-IBN, AajTak and ABPNews to do that, why should ST resort to such cheap tricks? This tweet of Tharoor will go down as one the most hilarious tweets of 2013. ST uses a 6-year old blogpost from Sulekha.Com (which is a Classified Ad specialist). The post is 6-years old and the data in the post is over a decade old when Modi wasn’t even CM. Was ST assigned to improve Congress image on SM or to generate more comedy like the party’s supporters have been already doing? But hey, keep going, no one is complaining. But in the instant that ST tweeted this he got immediate responses from the ‘Fact-checkers’ and here’s some of it:

And the hits kept coming throughout the day on March 15. The OneIndia news website quoted @Janlokpal with this mockery: “India's "Twitter Tendulkar"(that’s ST ) out for a duck”! But the best tweet lampooning ST’s misadventure was the one that said his account was probably hacked and Sanjay Jha was likely tweeting from it (although the handle mentioned is incorrect, the actual handle being @JhaSanjay). As Gargi Rawat of NDTV mentioned (see part-1) the SM is far ahead of MSM where speed is concerned and deals with facts and figures far more honestly. The problem is not Social Media, the problem is that the Congress leadership is totally out of touch with people. SoniaG, RahulG and MMS can only speak through written speeches. There is no warmth or spontaneity in their communication. And the comedy that RahulG and MMS provide when they speak is now legendary.  

Seriously, at the height of Delhi Gangrape protests MMS finally spoke to the nation on TV. What happened? I know it’s a blooper but finishing with a comic “Theek Hai” had the whole nation laughing for over 2 days and that term will forever be used as a sarcastic remark for all failures. Does that have anything to do with right-wing, Communalists, fascists or propaganda by anyone? That’s coming straight from Congress leadership. What can you do? MMS probably doesn’t himself tweet from @PMOIndia but a smart aleck who should be doing good for the PM sent out this moronic tweet on March 4. “There should be responsible dialogue and debate in parliament” it says. Really? Who is the PMO tweeting to? Kindergarten? And once again there is comic genius in abundance when the tweet is prefixed with “RT if you agree”. Naturally, people are going to pick up such comic stuff and enjoy it like a free party. The line has become a personal favourite of mine. (It appears the PMO has now deleted this comic tweet).

So the truth of the matter is that people don’t need to carry out an anti-Congress propaganda. The Congress leaders and their supporters cause the party enough damage on their own. This damage can only be undone by some work that demonstrates that Congress cares for all people and doesn’t hold the ordinary folks in contempt. For a start, the party and the Govt could repeal 66A and other such silly laws. RT if you agree! 

RT If You Agree - Part 1

You finish the day’s work. You walk back into your house. A handful of people there are mourning around a dead body. That dead body is YOURS. What are they saying? Are they saying good things about you or are they whispering bad things and saying this was a terrible man and it is good he died? If you want those mourners to say good things, you have the power to do those good things right now. That is the essence of the chapter ‘Begin with the end in mind’ from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits. Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) is most famous for inventing the Dynamite. He was also the owner of Bofors which is quite infamous in India. In 1888 a newspaper wrongly published news about his death and wrote his obituary. His obit was titled “The merchant of death is dead”. Hmmm! That sounds familiar? So you know where “Maut ka Saudagar” comes from now, right?

The only problem was that it wasn’t Alfred but his brother who had died but Alfred Nobel was shocked to find this is how people will remember him; as the “Dynamite man” or “Merchant of death”. It shocked him so much that he decided to do a few things different. When he returned home he assigned a huge part of his wealth to an endowment to honour people who have contributed to a better world. That’s now called the Nobel Prize. So Alfred is now remembered not for dynamite or as merchant of death but for the Nobel Prize. If you want people to talk good about you, then do good things. A lesson the Congress and the GOI don’t seem to ever learn.    

In January 2013 during the ‘Chintan Shivir’ at Jaipur the Congress decided they had fallen way behind on the Social Media (SM) and have to do something about it. They decided it would take an expense of 100 Crores to combat what they determined was “propaganda” on the SM. That’s starting on the wrong foot by itself. When you decide to “combat” something you are in “defence” mode and not in proactive mode. In a response to this campaign plan by the Congress I wrote a post “How To Buy Friends & Influence Elections”. Among other things, I had suggested people like Digvijaya Singh or Kapil Sibal are the wrong people to lead any campaign on the SM. I had suggested Shashi Tharoor, instead, would be the right man. He is admired by even those who don’t like the Congress party and he absorbs criticism quite well. Looks like the Congress listened and put the man in charge. But since then, it has been downhill.  

Even the soft-tweeting Gargi Rawat of NDTV couldn’t help noticing how far behind the Govt really is. Actually, she meant Congress when she said “Govt”. She tweeted about the Indian Express story that laid out the Congress plans. So the Congress, like Alfred Nobel, discovered people weren’t saying nice things about them. So they brand them “propagandists”. That’s the first mistake. So why aren’t people saying nice things about the Congress? Umm.. let’s see! Endless scams, attacks on women, Gangrapes, frequent terror attacks, misuse of 66A and other such laws, caning sleeping protesters at Ramlila, banning cartoons, arresting cartoonists, defence of all the misdeeds. Remember the classic Manish Tiwari statement? Here’s what he once said about protesters:  “.....consists of "armchair fascists, over-ground Maoists, closet anarchists...lurking behind forces of right reaction and funded by invisible donors whose links may go back a long way abroad".

If you describe your critics and opponents with such hatred and contempt you can’t expect to go back and make friends on the SM. Can you? And in the IE article the Congress notes that people like Manish Tiwari have become active on the SM. Welcome! The servantile MSM will absorb and pass such nonsense for sound-bites, the SM won’t. This same Manish Tiwari who is so brazen and contemptuous in the MSM is so scared of the SM that he has locked up his Twitter account when I last checked (@ManishTiwari08 – which appears to be his account). He’s the I&B Minister. Is this how he’s going to communicate with the general public?

Another tweet by the same Gargi Rawat is stunning. MoS RPN Singh claimed Narendra Modi lifted the line “secularism means India First” from his profile on Twitter. The SM was quick to expose the fake claim of RPN Singh in no time. Mr.RPN must realise that the SM is not his backyard called NDTV or CNN-IBN. Now are these SM guys propagandists and armchair fascists? Unlike the MSM where lies are peddled as news or gospel, these will be exposed very quickly on the SM. So if people like RPN Singh are going to dish out silly stuff, the SM will be unkind and not drool like NDTV. This is the difficulty for the Congress which is long used to a slavish MSM which will bend, crawl and fall at its feet anytime. But I did point out to Gargi that it’s not just that people are ahead of the Congress in terms of online space but that they are far ahead in putting out facts and truth. Facts and truth are now largely incompatible with the MSM. 

People opposed to the Congress were blanked out from the MSM. For long they didn’t have a voice in the establishment. Technology sets the truth free as well. All the lies of MSM are now being exposed on a daily basis by people on the SM. Unfortunately, because Congress happens to be the GOI and MSM their slave, they are facing the brunt of these exposes. The other thing that the Congress overlooks is far more serious. They forget that among the large population on SM there are people who are far more educated, far more knowledgeable. They can any day beat the likes of campaigners like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Ashutosh, Nikhil Wagle and many more with their sheer knowledge and capabilities in articulating their arguments and articles spectacularly. I can name more than a dozen sites that are far superior to MSM propagandists any time.

The problem for the Congress also is that even the 100Crs, which is being jokingly called #TwitterNREGA, cannot buy these people. They may get hired hands but not the knowledge required to separate facts from fiction. This is the tough challenge that Shashi Tharoor faces. Thus, the newly joined campaigners for Congress on Twitter create far more comedy than any genuine communication. Congress has a plan to mass-RT anything that their leaders or campaigners tweet. That RT bit can easily turn into comedy. In the second part we will look at quite a bit of that comedy.

To be concluded…