Skip to main content

Baba Ramdev, Anna Hazare & Social Media - Difference of opinion

While Anna Hazare's fasting won so many supporters including Indian social media users and celebrities, Baba Ramdev found little support from contemporaries. In the words of Abbie Hoffman, "Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit." Despite this same spirit, the dichotomy of reactions of social media users towards the leaders of these movements is surprising and calls for an in-depth understanding and discussion. Moreover, the government needs to criticized for taking a violent and forceful approach to this peaceful revolution. Coincidently, the crack down of Delhi Police on Baba Ramdev (also called "the midnight drama") happened on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. 

Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, (assuming there is no hidden agenda to Baba Ramdev's entry) despite having a common cause have witnessed a completely different reaction, more divided than what is being projected by the popular media. Celebrities such as Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan have come out in the open and mocked Baba Ramdev, whereas the opposition i.e. BJP and RSS are openly supporting Baba Ramdev's cause. It was diametrically opposite when Anna Hazare took on the burden of fighting for Jan Lokpal bill. He had celebrities backing him, especially Anupam Kher, he had the support of many more celebrities on the virtual media and most importantly the sentiment about Anna Hazare on social media was positive. 
Clearly Baba Ramdev's venture into the domain of Anna Hazare i.e. fasting and routing out corruption has gone on a different course. Although Indian twitter users are not a good representation of the Indian population they have given Baba Ramdev's entry a thumbs down. The sentiment is against Baba with a twitter sentiment analysis tool reporting the negative sentiment in excess of 70%. Popular media too has been criticizing Baba, but then it is hard to trust media guys after listening to the tapes of Amar Singh, Prabhu Chawla and reading the Nira Radia case. If Baba's movement is successful, then it clearly shows that Indian social media users and online opinion makers are elite and an incorrect representation of the common man. 
Difference in the sentiment of twitter users towards Anna Hazare & Baba Ramdev

More importantly, the thoughts of Social Media users are poles apart. Here are some of the opinions that twitter users had about Baba Ramdev.
@RightWing_Rants: The only Baba the CONgress has respect for is 40 yr old youth Rahul Baba! #Rahulfacts #Ramdev
@iDaAmar: Does that mean now #baba #ramdev enters d list featuringg likes of rakhi sawants ?? #nautanki Baba Ramdev cant make Gvt. run for his fast.. they know he is a freak and can live till eternity without food.
@KiranKS: Any 'intellectual', who pokes most fun of #Ramdev via #FastingBill2011, will get 3 biscuits under Rajiv Gandhi Brashtachar Bachao Yojna!
@taslimanasreen: If #Ramdev dies on hunger strike,who'll get his thousands of crores? Shldn't he donate all his money to charity bfor he starts fasting?
Baba Ramdev's has few but strongly loyal supporter base
@Kothari_AnkitIt's disgusting to c media criticizing #Ramdev. Rahul's eating Chicken Roll becomes breaking news, bt nt Ramdev's crusade against corruption
Anna Hazare's Social Media revolution
Anna Hazare had a greater base of twitter users giving him a thumbs up. He got positive opinions and a strong support base. Here are some tweets about Anna Hazare.
@Anupam Kher: Have decided to go to Jantar Mantar in support of Anna Hazare and millions of INDIANS who are sick and tired of corruption in our country.:)
@Farhan Akhtar:I support Anna Hazare. Our country has suffered from corruption for too long... NOW is the time we get together and do something about it.
@Rakesh Bhatt@narendramodi show support for Anna Hazare sir. It is time to support the great man.
The Reason...
I feel the reason for this difference is due to two possible causes - Firstly, celebrities don't find Anna hazare a threat to their own star power, but when it comes to Baba Ramdev, his follower base and fan following is seen as a threat. Since celebrities have their own vested interests such as launch of movies, like Salman khan all set for releasing "Ready", and Shahrukh Khan for Ra.One their coming in news is important. They cannot join Baba Ramdev since his personality will overshadow their support. Hence they are opposing them by alleging that the Baba has his own political ambitions. The second reason could be that the opinion makers on Indian Social Media are mostly journalists or elite educated people. They can be driven by news channels that probably have government's backing or can be out of sync with common man. The implications for this research are important. If the opinion on Social media differs from the opinion of common man, then my logic of Indian social media users being elitist makes sense. But, if that is not the case, then it means that the supporters of Baba Ramdev have been given incentives to come on this revolution against corruption. This would prove the Baba is fake. As of now both sides of the coin are equally potent because the complete picture of Baba's motives is not clear and so is the representativeness of the opinion formed on Social Media. It will be a wait and watch game. The important thing to note is that there are a set of leaders like Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare, independent of any political vendetta that have risen to the occasion that concerns national interests and a cause that will help India in the long run. Equal importance and criticism needs to be given to the government that has made use of brutal force despite a round of talks taking place and thus bludgeoning the spirit of world's largest democracy, India. In the words of chesterton, "You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution." Jai Ho!

Popular posts from this blog

Social Networking on Mobile - The Big opportunity for marketers

Facebook has been the dominant social network for quite a while and has an active user base of more than 1.3 billion. Its proliferation in the 18-35 years of age group (52%) makes it ideal for most advertisers. An interesting statistic to observe is the number of people accessing Facebook through Mobile. One of the biggest shifts in social media behavior has been its greater usage through mobile devices (in particular smartphones).  According to a report , the internet traffic on mobile accounts for one forth the total internet traffic. Even more important is its growth, which is over 1.5 times per year and according to analysts would stay the same way in the years to come. This shift is even more significant for emerging economies where in a sector such as e-commerce organizations are witnessing close to 65% sales through mobile.

7 easy Instagram Marketing tips for beginners

Instagram started as a iOS only application and quickly became a huge social networking website with a presence on Android and the web. An active and rapidly growing user base has made marketing on Instagram important for brands, small businesses and startups. Instagram has more than 75 million daily active users, with a total user base of over 400 million. Instagram users in 2015 were sharing over 70 million photos per day.  Given its growing importance we'll explore some easy tips that can help you with Instagram marketing.

How do brands use Instagram to connect with fans?

Instagram is increasingly becoming a favorite platforms for Brands globally to engage with their customers. It's importance can be gauged by the fact that it is the world's largest mobile ad network. Instagram now has a community of over 500 million users liking over 4.2 billion photos and sharing over 95 million pictures daily. The format of Instagram makes it a great medium for visual story telling.