The results for the assembly polls in Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland were declared earlier this month and after being in power for 25 years in Tripura, the left front bowed out to the BJP. In Nagaland, pre-poll allies the NDPP and the BJP won 29 seats (in a 60 seat assembly) and formed the government with the support of some other MLAs.
The results were a little different in the state of Meghalaya though. The ruling Congress party didn’t do as badly in the state and returned as the single largest party with 21 MLAs. The National People’s Party (NPP) returned with 19 MLAs and the BJP won 2. The Congress flew in senior leaders like Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath to Meghalaya to see possibilities of forming the government in the state but it couldn’t beat the BJP at its game. Headlines read that the BJP and NPP formed the government in the state with the support of some other MLAs. Important to recall that the BJP has 2 MLAs in the 60 seat assembly.
This, of course, led to gushing commentary about how brilliantly strategic the BJP leadership (Modi and Shah i.e.) is with TV news anchors praying before Chanakya Shah. This dance in praise of power will be followed by a shaking of the heads when they refer to the Congress party. The story was framed with this juxtaposition. A brilliant BJP leadership strategizing, moving relentlessly in its pursuit of power against a Congress leadership that is lazy and not “power hungry”.
We saw similar commentary after Goa had given a hung verdict and the Congress was the single largest party but was not allowed to form the government. The commentary in both tv and print was about the incompetent Congress leadership since the BJP had managed to poach its MLA and form the government in the state. The blame, of course, fell on Rahul Gandhi, just as the credit for BJP government in Goa was laid at Amit Shah’s doorsteps.
There was a time when news of governments being formed with such maneuvering would be accompanied with derisive commentary about something known as ‘horse-trading’ with a garnish of the term ‘ayaram-gayaram’ to top it. This commentary would express its disapproval of such politics. This was considered amoral, corrosive and the parties or leaders who were indulging in it weren’t held up as political idols for other parties to emulate and for news anchors to genuflect in front of.
There are two kinds of opinion writings for writers to switch to. One is the moralising commentary in which the writer argues why an action or event or view is wrong and should be shunned. The other is the analysis in which the writer does not moralise but tries to turn objective and rationalises why something is the way it is and how it is beneficial or detrimental or likely to play out. Sometimes the same writer can be both a proponent of morality in one piece and an ‘objective-hatter’ in another (so many do this when it comes to actions of the Aam Aadmi Party for example).
The moralising derision of ‘horse-trading’ of the past has now given way to the ‘objective’ appreciation of the ‘hunger for power’. Like alternating current, this also reverses directions but the intervals aren’t regular. The ‘objective’ appreciation for how the BJP formed its government in Goa, for example, may immediately give way to raising questions on how the Congress party tries to prevent its MLAs from leaving the party by taking them to a resort in Karnataka for example. “Who is paying for this? Why won’t the Congress reveal this information?” or from the ‘shaking-the-head’ argument about how “politics had become so dirty now”. One expects the openly BJP-leaning journalists to use such arguments for sure but what about the ones who have been bitten by the equivalence bug? For them, there is little difference between the Congress and the BJP but the sermons are reserved only for one.
The entire narrative then gets framed in a way where the Congress can never do anything right and all of BJP’s successes are a result of its “brilliant leadership”. This is why framing matters.
Take a look at how widely BJP’s victory in Tripura and Congress’ loss in Meghalaya is covered in the national media. What would’ve been a footnote or a report on the inside pages in the past now plays out on the front pages. What has changed? Well, the BJP’s fortunes have changed. In the states where the BJP made huge gains in 2014 do not seem so receptive to it anymore. The Modi euphoria of 2014 has waned and worse still for the BJP, people seem to be catching on to this change. BJP ideologues, supporters have even written about 2019 not being a sure thing for the party. The Modi-Shah juggernaut cannot afford this. The duo has been able to increase their political gains in the last 4 years by projecting invincibility. Through a dominating narrative in the media and by reinforcing it regularly, they have been able to portray as if there are no political alternatives to the BJP. Just as this projection was getting seriously weakened, along comes the win in the Northeast of the country. The excessive projection of the hitherto backwater polls in the media is to wrest that dominant narrative back. This is a projection of the TINA factor. And the media is happy to aid the BJP in this campaign.
How important framing the political narrative in favourable terms can also be gauged from how the government has responded to the allegations of corruption. The Nirav Modi scam, the Rafale allegations, the Jay Shah revelations have damaged the veneer of honest government that the Narendra Modi government projected thus far. Despite the excessive controls over the media the opposition was able to punch holes in Modi’s image. The government was caught off-guard but it did respond eventually and the response was at various levels. Behind the scenes, the powers that be have leaned on the media to ensure that the Nirav Modi/PNB scam is not called a scam but a case of fraud. The headlines changed tack as demanded and a ‘scam’ became a ‘fraud’. In public perception a ‘scam’ is political but a fraud is something smaller and more to do with the bank rather than the government of the day. This was not a coincidence. While this happened behind closed doors, there was more direct action taken up in full public view. This was the arrest of Karti Chidambaram from Chennai airport.
Unlike a Nirav Modi or Vijay Mallya, Karti Chidambaram was not escaping from the country but returned to Chennai from abroad. The CBI could’ve asked him to surrender as he didn’t seem a flight risk. Instead, the agency chose to make a spectacle out of it and like a good orchestra, the media got into the action as the conductor gave the signal. Now, there is non-stop coverage of this issue and the suitable and wholly unverifiable ‘leaks’ are fed to the media to create a perception that Karti Chidambaram was super corrupt and a lot of money was being made through underhand means by the previous government. This shifts the attention from Modi government’s acts of omission or commission in the Nirav Modi scam to the alleged incidents during UPA. The attempt is to revive memories of 2011-13 when the media helped create a perception that the UPA government was indulging in wholesale corruption to the tune of many lakhs of crores of rupees. The manufactured disgust helped the Modi juggernaut in 2014. The aim now is to revive those memories and juxtapose that with the Modi government. Sometimes courts may demand evidence but politics is fine with just perception too.
If you wish to see how commentators help the government frame an argument in its favor, look at the views expressed about the SP-BSP coming to an understanding for the by-polls in UP. They believe it makes political sense to help each other but commentators (‘neutral’ or saffron) portray it as a compulsion (this could be accurate) but imagine if Amit Shah courts an individual or a party for a particular seat. Would the same commentators suggest compulsion or proactive, dynamic politics? You may not know how the BJP wins, but you can see who helps them for sure.
Bhumanyu is the son of Bharat and wants to restore India to pre-Mahabharat glory days. He does not smoke pot. He checks Twitter though and tweets at @bhumanyoo