Democracy and the Indian idol

His opponent in the final round was Amit Paul of Shillong, the capital
city of the North-eastern state of Meghalaya, where equally determined
locals canvassed and worked to get their candidate to win.

It was striking that both candidates vying for the title of Indian
Idol were from the North-east of India, a region that has been
historically marginalized and neglected by the Indian state and by the
mainstream media.

Prashant
Tamang of Darjeeling did become the Indian idol and of course, the vote
was not based on the democratic principles of one vote per person. In
practice, you could send as many SMS messages or phone calls per
person, so the vote for the Indian idol was based on the sheer volume
of calls made and text messages sent throughout the country.

The
picture shows one of the many “free SMS booths” that we saw during our
stay in Darjeeling. This one was set up in a police booth, which was
only one of the many bizarre places where you could cast your vote for
Prashant.

It would be easy to dismiss all of this as another case of media
commodification involving the dilution of democratic principles, or as
another instance of `money power’ winning elections.

But there’s also the question of why people in Darjeeling and Kurseong
were choosing to spend their money in this way…the huge numbers of
often very poor people who came out on to the streets to spend precious
time and resources to work for their Indian idol, and the reasons that
they gave for their passionate involvement.

A complete disenchantment with the existing political process and the
sheer lack of charismatic leaders; the need to reinforce community ties
and create a sense of “Nepali unity;” the assertion that “Nepalis were
not just sepoys and durwans” but could be Indian icons - in the end
this is what was really at stake in the Indian Idol competition.

On a completely different note, here’s an important article on Indian democracy by Smitu Kothari in Hard News.