TVCs and Elections
On flipping channels during elections, you’d always find some coverage or the other of the elections on news channels, or have tickers running on news channels giving updates on the elections. This year, it’s a little different. There’s dramatic advertisements of the two big parties contesting in the elections. There’s the good old right-wing BJP and the not-so-right-wing Congress. I was watching some film on TV when I came across the TV commercial (TVC) that BJP had launched as part of their election campaign.
It was a dramatic display of power and empowerment. The voiceover (VO) that ran throughout was a heavy male voice speaking in very rigid and pure Hindi. The gist of this VO was to spread a message encouraging the people to wake up and realise what’s going wrong around them. Of all the things that were going wrong, one of the most striking was a line that went ‘yeh kiske haath dor hai (who’s puling the strings)’. The visual supporting this line was that of two politicians as puppets hanging lifelessly. The camera slowly pans up to show a woman in a sari (face not shown) holding the strings. And if this isn’t blatantly indicative of the BJP’s hatred for the Congress and Sonia Gandhi, I don’t know what is.
There was something else that really caught my eye. The advertisement had a montage with quick cuts of people’s profiles. And the BJP was so kind and inclusive to show a Muslim woman as part of the Indian populace. Well, obviously, on a regular day she wouldn’t be part of anything. But since it’s election time and it’s absolutely pertinent that you show a Muslim and say “Oh! We’re the secular Gods of this nation!” and crap like that. Sure… go ahead! This sort of pseudo-secularism just adds to the humour. I think everybody now knows that the elections are a race for power, rather than a rush for responsibility. So what the hell, right? We may as well be pseudo-secularists. After that them Muslims can fight for their lives every single moment under a right-wing rule. Who cares about them anyway, right?
And of course, the most amazing part of the advertisement was the fact that it was completely in black and white save for the orange and the green of the BJP flag and our dear friend Mr. L.K. Advani – the light at the end of the tunnel. Pah!
These are some of the comments I came across while surfing youtube for this TVC:
“One of the most amazing videos i have seen in a long time….the passion and to the point message has made a mark in my mind for sure….”
“Now that is what I call a NO BULLSHIT and straight TO THE POINT add. My appeal to first time voters, please don’t get bogged down by our masala news channels and their pseudo secular anti bjp propaganda. If you are voting BJP, you are thinking, if not you are loosing.”
“Great Video. Effective lyric and very well choreographed. Let us all contribute and spread the message to make sure that Shri Advani Ji succeeds the ( Effete Prime Minion of Sonia ‘Maino Gandhi) as next PM – India needs”
Any views on the TVC if you guys saw it? I haven’t seen the Congress TVC too often, but the one time I saw it, it seemed equally ridiculous if not more. Any thoughts?
“Haraami hai woh”
It’s been a good two days. I met an old friend from Delhi last night at Bandstand and another friend at Marine Drive. A nice nostalgic trip happened in my head. Meeting Fuzzy and Dodo just took me back to good ol’ days in Delhi, sitting and chilling at the Nescafe joint at IIT, or sitting outside college waiting for the clock to strike a decent enough hour that says ‘not too early to go home’. But it’s all alright, this nostalgic trip, till you realise how disconnected nostalgia gets you from everything going on around you.
I had one big reality check today. So Dodo and I were sitting at Marine Drive clicking photos like there’s no tomorrow. And I feel something tug at my t-shirt. So I look left and there’s a boy about 8 or 10 years of age kicking around a piece of paper. He looked at me and said, “Didi, ise laat maro (Kick this)”. I looked down at the piece of paper and saw the photo of a woman with some text printed on it. So I asked the boy, “Yeh kaun hai? (Who is this?)”. To which he promptly replied, “Didi, haraami hai woh. Isko vote mat dena” (She’s a bastard. Don’t vote for her). I looked down at the paper and it read the contents. It was a little pamphlet of one of the independent candidates representing the South Mumbai constituency.
It was quite weird to hear a boy merely 8-10 years of age talking about elections and voting and who one should or should not vote for. He then looked at me and said, “Didi, aap Congress ko vote karna. (Vote for Congress)”. I was quite taken aback, so I asked him, “Yeh tumhe kisne sikhaya? (Who taught you this?). The boy quickly picked the paper up off the ground and tore it in extreme anger and replied, “Kisi ne nahin sikhaya. Woh kaun the… uhmmm… Jawaharlal Nehru. Wohi the na Congress mein? Woh bahut achhe the. Congress ko vote dene se sab theek ho jaayega. (Nobody taught me. Who’s that guy… uhmm.. Jawaharlal Nehru. He was in the Congress, right? He was very good. Giving vote to the Congress will set everything right).
I decided to ask him what he thought of the BJP and why he didn’t support the BJP. He replied saying that BJP is not good and causes a lot of fights in society. Then I asked what he thought of the Shiv Sena. All he said was, “Jai Maharashtra (Victory to Maharashtra)”, with a big smile on his face. It was weird, I thought, that the BJP came across as villians, whereas the Shiv Sena, another party governed by extreme Right-Wing ideologies, was a saviour of sorts for him. I looked up to smile at Dodo who was very busy taking photographs. I wonder if he was listening to the conversation. I was just so taken aback at how a little kid just knew so much about elections, in his own distorted manner, and enough to form such a strong opinion that he’d be kicking around pamphlets of first-timers in the election race.
It was also a reality check for me on how disconnected I was with the whole election process, myself. So much, that I didn’t have my voting card in place, nor did I know what party or what ideology I wanted to support. As he was getting up to leave, the boy looked at me and said, “Didi, main bada hokar Congress ko vote karoonga. Aap bhi karna, theek hai? (When I grow up I’m going to vote for the Congress. You also vote for the Congress, ok?)”. He then walked off, leaving me completely blank and dazed!
