In recent years, Prashant Kishor (PK) has achieved coveted status as an ace political strategist. There has been a scuffle between political parties of different ideological persuasion to hire his services. Both national and regional parties have made secret and secret deals with him and his organisation, the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), in their quest for success in assembly and parliamentary elections. Although PK’s magic wand doesn’t always work, that doesn’t affect his popularity. Often conversations in the drawing rooms of the middle class turn towards his ‘talent’, as TV anchors tirelessly live-stream strategic ideas and suggestions from Trinamool Congress, Hindutva, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, communal polarization and PK. We do. to like. It is rare in the history of independent India that a management graduate without credible political training—such an undisputed authority on Indian politics and its almost immeasurable complexities—became an enviable brand. This is an era of data crunching by back-room boys and political advisors like PK, who have perfected the game of bombarding voters with flashy personal messages. Not only this, his one-liners like “It’s out in Bihar, Nitish Kumar is there.“(Bihar’s wind is behind Nitish Kumar), for example, is credited with turning the fortunes of Janata Dal (United) in that state in 2015.
The phenomenon of PK, for whatever it is worth, has made election management not only desirable and beneficial but, unfortunately, an end in itself. Simultaneously, it has turned politics into a simulation, something that French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard defines as a sign without a copy of the original.
For PK, politics mostly seems to be about media spin and the launch of some lucrative government schemes ahead of elections. Stops doing politics about competing avenues to achieve common goals and a democratic society. It loses its historical connection with the continuing quest for justice and secular emancipation. It no longer interacts with those whose daily struggles bring humanitarian concerns to the political agenda. It replaces the real public and their varying interest constellations with a fictional hyper-real audience, impressing the audience with bold colors on banners or flashy font sizes on glossy pamphlets. Jan Sangharsh around real-life issues of agrarian distress, unemployment, health, education, nutrition etc, yielded to well-planned media programs like Chai Pe Charcha or Didi Ke Bolo. Certainly, it is time for us to take stock of the damage done to Indian politics by all this.
Firstly, the PK model limits politics to just gains/losses in elections. The political institutions that run through any healthy civil society become irrelevant. The need for constant debate, discussion and political mobilization on everyday issues loses importance as media acrobatics take over them during election time. Second, the PK approach makes politics important. Politics becomes about entering the houses of the law. It turns into a well-played game about looking smart, accessible and friendly, and becoming a minister or official. Any political activity that does not produce a tangible electoral result is seen as inefficient. Third, this model exposes and disrupts the politics-governance loop. If elections can be won by perception management through technology-driven, media-savvy campaigns, why worry about effective governance or the administrative expression of a political agenda? Fourth, it does a lot of damage to the grassroot level workers and the post and file of a political party. The clever PK-IPAC people have little room for the latter, and neither the patience nor the time to draw upon their accumulated political knowledge has been honed through years of hard work. In addition, the normal process of upward mobility within the party set-up is blocked as the PK-IPAC sets about recommending a list of winnable candidates. This may explain the resentment towards PK-IPAC in every political party it has worked with. Fifth, the PK model empties the whole notion of modern citizenship by turning citizens into mere customers. In computing this, the state has to ensure efficient delivery of services only for customer/voter satisfaction. And, finally, the PK method negates the reality of politics beyond the comprehension of PK-IPAC. PK-brand politics runs from its reality, even without the imitation (pale or bloated) of real politics, as is done in most parts of India. This removes their millions of agency, as they are seen as puppets that are tilted to one side or another.
Arguably, the IPAC has been less than transparent in making public the details of its dealings with various political structures. Reportedly, its team members have impersonated real voters to interact with a cross-section of the society, for example, Goa’s recent assembly elections. Even otherwise, IPAC maintains a veil of secrecy as to how it functions which is not conducive to our democracy.
Now is the time for us to take a good hard look at the PK phenomenon, along with an assessment of its ethics in practice. There has always been a spin doctor in politics. But their influence can stifle the very soul of democracy with its shallow and minimalistic view of public life. Kishor is keen to cast himself as a new-age political messiah, a new Gandhi, with a new padyatra (walking expedition) starting from Champaran, Bihar on October 2. But the spin-led flair for politics in India needs to be thrown out.
Nabanipa Bhattacharjee and Manish Thakur are Professors of Sociology at Delhi University and IIM Calcutta Thakur respectively.