@Kenny
I am sure you would take this discussion in the right spirit.
This is one among the innumerable posts that have dwelt upon the same topic . As someone said “Success has many friends and Failure has many Analysts.”
Everyone one is entitled to their opinions and posts and so are you , i dont refute the emotion but just the rationale and analysis.
1. On your assessment of the the adword campaign , before we term it as a failure lets try to see the objectives behind the campaign.
Only when we tally the goals vs results we could say the campaign was a success or not. The goal was to reach out to the tech savvy voters of india who may be a a minority by miles but still are a constituency (in congress terminology - a vote bank) . Another constituency was the NRI’s who could influence people back home. Did they succeed in that ? i think so …
Why do i believe so.
a. Im privy to the unofficial estimates of number of page visits to LKADVANI.in They have successfully managed more that 3 million page visits .
b. Lets look at the poll held by connect.in.com , LK Advani was way ahead of all other personality there by garnering 1 million + votes . Also have a look at the the MSN India article titled : Advani , a darling of the netizens . http://news.in.msn.com/national/indiaelections2009/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3006969
c. I am a registered user there and the communication and collaboration mechanism the campaign office had with the registered users was amazing , including getting campaign cadres , organising FOB meetings etc.
d. We hate AD’s .., Do we.. Would seem like a revelation for for ad agencies and marketeers in india. The Hive , the agency which handled BJP’s on;ine campaign is among the most reputed online marketing agencies and handles campaigns for reputed orgs like the MACY’s.
Well then question then arises , why did BJP not win. Ill discuss that at the end.
So if you look at what the goal was vs what was the achieved results for “That Goal” , the campaign was a success. The was you are looking at it is” goal displacement” - Adwords campaign was a contributor and facilitator to the total vote tally not THE ONLY factor.
Its like saying indian army should be discouraging football practice within its cadres since battles are not fought on basis of football matches. Playing football contributes to maybe physical fitness , which turn may contribute to the war.
Lets accept it BJP is apart which has a considerable number of intelligent men who have been in politics for long enough to know a election in india is not fought on the internet. Let us not try to trivialise things here.
2. The next reason for a online campaign was to correct the image of the BJP , very comfortably thrust on it by the media and fringe elements .
The the site has the agenda , manifesto and the vision for a new india. Kenny , you mentioned you had visited the site right ? by any chance did u keep your biases aside and read the BJP manifesto , or leave it just the IT vision document. believe me any Indian would be proud of it .
When i was a child i used to listen to lots of stories on monsters in the cupboard and was terrified of going near it. Its only when i went alone and opened it i knew there were no monsters there. Its important to break mental models and openly listen to point of views before we take a call.
LKadvani.in was supposed be such a platform.
The biggest charge against the BJP , the Sangh and Advani is that they are communal. let us see what do we mean by communalism and what does the BJP stand for.
BJP stands for Hindutva and not Hindu Theocracy as maintained by the opposition and the Media.
Hindutva as defined by the honourable supreme court itself is ”
Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind.”
Hindutva for a the BJP and the sangh stands for Integral Humanism , Cultural Nationalism and Social Justice. For the BJP and the sangh , a hindu is as those who consider India (Bharat, भारत) to be their motherland (matrubhumi), fatherland (pitrubhumi, पितृभूमि) as well as their holy land (punyabhumi, पुण्यभूमि).
There is no talk of hating other religions or driving them out of the country , who gives people these ideas? If these were the primary ideas i know a majority of current BJP supporters would not be with them , we dont like the idea of a militant Hindu organisation and it is not so.
Me as an individual have business partners who are not followers of Hinduism , my best buddies are not Hindus , i visit the Velankanni church with the same spiritual love as that of that i visit Vaikom Temple , I ran up the malayattoor hills imbibing the way the cross message as i do at sabarimala . I have attended every major “Urus” at Malik Deenar Mosque when i was doing my Engg. But i do believe in Hindutva - does that make me communal ? No i am proud to say i am religious , spiritual and a HINDU.
I do believe the need for a organisation to fight for the rights of the Majority community in India.YES very much…
India needs welfare and well being of all communities living in , there depends the success of the nation and that includes the majority. When even a section of the community feel they are being suppressed there would be automatic outbursts and “acts of anger”.
Secularism should mean equal opportunities to all and not appeasement of any community. Sadly thats what happens in out country. Because political parties take the minorities and steadfast vote banks and work hard on social engineering.
I think speaking in favour of any religion then should be communalism.
Then the congress is the most communal of the lot , we have a prime minister who says Muslims and other Minorities should have FIRST right on national resources-http://pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=464.
That would mean i dont care about what situation a citizen in i would look at the religion tag and and allot resources . If any one should have first right on national resources it should be the poor and destitute of this country not X, Y , Z community. because of this kind of communal and caste alignments we have majority seats having reservation based on religion and caste ad not on economic conditions. Revolting!!!! and then these parties call themselves secular.
There any many other reasons why an ordinary hindu would feel angry.. and if these points are not address u would see many more spontaneous acts of anger.. and everyone wants to prevent that.
Do u think every organisation which speaks up for a community s communal ? In that case IUML and MIM- All India Majlis-e Ittihad al-Muslimin , who are both UPA allies should be communal right ? Making UPA communal ..
Do u know the word secular was not in the preamble of the constitution , it was inserted by Ms. Indira Gandhi by the controversial 42nd amendment in 1976 , when she had dictatorial powers during emergency .
No one wants to cause any harm to others or snatch their rights away , just want to ensure everyone has equal access to rights and resources .
The moment you say the word Hindu in India you are branded communal by everyone. And a very important part has been played by the media in it.
Every time they talk about communalism they talk about Gujarat Riots , no body talks about the godhra carnage.
Nobody talks about the 1984 sikh riots where congressmen hunted down Sikhs and murdered them . Why are Sikhs not human beings. When sikh riots happened our Great Rajiv Gandhi said ” when a tall tree falls , the earth shakes” Oh that sounds very secular to me.
Why does not congress and so called secular parties speak of Marad Massacres , Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri pandits , 1998 Chamba massacre , 1998 Chapnari massacre , 1998 coimbatore bombings…Why because of fear of loosing their vote banks.
Hope u remember the Shah Bano case where the passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 by Rajiv Gandhi government to dilute the secular judgment of Supreme Court under pressure from the conservative Muslims. The new act, in tune with the Shariat, denied even utterly destitute Muslim divorcees the right to alimony from their former husbands. That was secular right…
So in india for the opposition and media secularism means anti hinduism .
3. Is the Mandir issue a non issue? Well so they why dont we go ahead a build a temple and mosque there. I would not like to go into the historical significance of Aydhoya and Ram Mandir here.
Why is there devasom boards for temples and not for other religious set ups.
The Point is for the deeply religious all these are symbols of faith. Didnt we have many fights of claim to churches in Kerala among peple of same community. The most recent being valiathura church issue. Well every place of religious worship holds significance lets not refute that
The other issue that BJP raises is Uniform Civil Code - what is communal in that . Same laws for all communities , how does that become communal. A country like the US has uniform civil code. Why does the congress oppose it?
Guys , every major country had parties with religious leanings like
a. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany , whose leader Angela Morkel is the current chancellor of germany
b. and The Republicans of the US who are more christain jewish leaning one.
That doesnt term them communal in their countries. During the last election campaign when evangelicals and catholics endorsed Ma Cain . it was not termed communal. When Republicans spoke out against abortion terming it anti christian no one said they were communal.
We need to throw these definitions we have invented back in india and think in perspective
3. Acts of Fringe outfits not related to the Sangh.
For example the media and congress very conveniently put the Mangalore Pub Attacks where attributed to the Sangh and BJP. While the Media hid the fact that Sri Ram Sene was not related to BJP and had contested against the BJP in many constituencies in the Karnataka Assembly elections.
The Sangh is a nationalist cadre based outfit and their contributions during national emergencies and calamities have been commendable. Infact Pandit Nehru had invited them for republic day parade in 1963 for their help in Indo China War.
Their role in helping victims of natural disaster has been exemplarily. One of their worst detractors India Today made this statement
“It is conceded by even their worst detractors that the RSS has been in the forefront of the non- official rescue and relief (operations). This has led to an upsurge of goodwill for the Sangh”
– India Today
RSS has adopted 100 children, most of them Muslims, from militancy affected areas of the region to provide them education at least up to Higher Secondary level.They have also taken care of many victims of the Kargil War of 1999
Many such instances can be stated. Please visithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh with an unbiased mind.
4. I have been hearing media reports on how india voted overwhelmingly for congress and how there was wave for Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and how BJP was routed out. Well in that case Why did BJP do extremingly well in MP . Karnataka , Chatisgarh , Assam ,Gujarat and Bihar??
I would take no credit away from the congress for this win and i am happy for it , but let us not try to undermine the ground realties of each state wise and region wise politics. The media said the India voted in new way irrespective of Caste or Religion . Then how do you explain congress saying they could garner the majority Muslim votes in WB and UP and that made the difference. We still live in Vote Bank Era.
Kenny , you mentioned we all know who that Bugger Ad-Vani is , unfortunately in-spite of the ad words campaign we could not get people like you to click on those links with an open mind and read through.You still believed there were monsters in the cup board and hence didnt open the cup board. There was the real failure of the Ad- Words campaign. I believe i know who that “bugger ” is , he was the best PM india never had.
Many of us suffers from Information Asymmetry , we need to change that.
Let noble thoughts come to us from all side - RigVeda
And what would i do to ensure this does not repeat i will work at the grass roots and with the professionals to spread the message. This has been a beginning thanks for the opportunity .
Jai Hind
Jayapradeep J
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Jayapradeep,
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog. The important thing is Hindu community needs to be united irrespective of caste and creed.Infact that is not being the case and that is being exploited by those champions of Pseudo secularism. I can tell you without any kind of prejudice that 90% of jacobs and mohammeds will not vote for BJP or any other Nationalist Party regardless of whether BJP is good or bad. They may deny it outside with a humble smile,but thier religious teachings itself is not favourable for another religion.That is the reason thier erstwhile emperors ruined our ancient temples and religious sculptures across India. Official statistics says almost 60000 temples are being demolished between 1000-1900 AD. Even today that is happening in Cambodia,Indonasia,Afghanistan,Bangladesh,
Malaysia. Cambodia was a Hindu dominated nation, today people are forcefully converted to other religions there. elsewhere in asia ,even in India the same thing is happening. Anti social Evangelical organizations in India funded by missionaries across Europe and America is actively involved in forcefull conversion in India. No Media wasnts to discuss that, No politicians wants to talk about that. I am not trying to divide people based on religion.Rather we need to learn from our history. We shouldnt forget our root.Whereas Hindu religion is based on Sanathana Dharma. It accepts and recognize other religion based on the humanity principle. We need to realise that.The otherway Hindu community votes are getting divided among other parties. So that fraction only BJP is getting. So please don't argue with those Jacobs and such people.It is of No use. They have their instructions coming in from thier religious masters sitting in Vatican and Sudi Arabia. That is being read out in Churches and Madrasas.I can tell you what exactly the congress is following is the Divide and Rule adapted from British Raj.Sadly people of this country falls prey for that. They are infusing fear on people about Nationalists. What we need is we need to build up a strong foundation of unity among our community. The younger generation of our community is not all interested in our history,tradition and intellectual power ness.They are easily being carried away by the western hip hop life style and propoganda infused by the crooked English Media in our country. We need a collective approach to counter these kind of dubious agenda of such outfits. Surely We need to be progressive and inclusive but not at the cost of our tradition and cultural identity. Do you know how many of our youngsters read our vedas,how many of them read Gita or Ramayanam? Whereas you look at the Christians and Muslim people that they read their holy books regularly. They offer prayers everyday as a strict routine. But our own people are in disarray! What a pathetic condition! We need to be awaken intellectually.
Very thoughtful post by the unknown indian.
ReplyDeleteRanjith's comment too.