“She breaks a bottle of oil/And that is enough to make you angry with the little girl/What about you, all you big babies, making pieces of Bharat, your bonhomie intact?” The grandstanding of the 26 political parties of the Opposition over an agreed acronym brought to mind these lines by Annada Shankar Ray, albeit from a different context altogether. The Bengali poem, Teler Shishi, was meant to be a critique of Partition, and here we are talking about a coming together. What is common is the idea of the nation-state as something to toy with, to make war or common cause, as the political forces please.
CoinAge
So what if the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance shortened reads INDIA? Yes, it is true that Prime Minister Narendra Modi too loves his acronyms. AK-49 for Arvind Kejriwal when the AAP government completed 49 days; ABCD for Congress — Adarsh, Bofors, Coal and Damaad; RSVP meaning Rahul, Sonia, Vadra, Priyanka... Not all of them are jibes though. Urban Jyoti Abhiyaan is a scheme to improve consumer connect on electricity-related issues and USTTAD stands for Upgrading Skills and Training in Traditional Arts/Crafts for Development; there are scores of others. But Modi did not come to be the juggernaut he is by virtue of wordplay.
The Countdown
The first winning step of the NDA was setting aside every kind of individual and party difference and agreeing to rally around Modi as the face of the 2014 elections. The Opposition has no face yet, and at the regional level the differences are one too many. There was nothing half-hearted about the efforts to build Brand Modi. There was a comprehensive media strategy and a clear-cut public engagement strategy, task forces were put in place, strategists were hired and advertising giants burnt the midnight oil. The BJP reportedly spent Rs 714.28 crore on the campaign of which one-third was spent on media advertising and a good chunk went towards chartering aircraft for campaigners. Between September 2013 and May 2014, Modi had attended 400-plus rallies and there were many “3D rallies” too. The Opposition parties need to hurry up and set up that coordination committee and the Delhi-based secretariat that will manage their unified campaign. Just by incantating “INDIA is India" little will be achieved. In fact, if you say “India" over and over again and very quickly, after a while it begins to sound like “NDA, NDA, NDA”. Just saying.
