It?s been called the reality TV without pictures, and politicians have embraced it with the same fervour as filmstars and ordinary folk. Nothing could prove Twitter?s ?arrival? better than John McCain?s having climbed on its bandwagon. This, after all is the guy who was being ridiculed for being averse to emailing, forget tweeting, till last year. Why have political crews embraced this bandwagon? One?s talking about a 32.1 million constituency here, which was just 1.6 million strong a year ago. So, it?s a fast-growing demographic and it?s dominated by that hard-to-get-hold-of young electorate.
That?s true of India too, where the largest audience category comprises males aged 15-24. There is of course the intriguing fact that the most active females are instead in the age group of 25-34. But, putting this mystery aside, how well have Indian politicians been swimming with the Twitter tide. We know of only one MP who has taken to the sport: Shashi Tharoor. And the CM that has shown good form is?somehow this is not surprising?Narendra Modi. Now, over in the West, there are multiple forums grading politicians? twittering savvy. Granted the field is thinner than thin here, let?s give this a shot. Modi?s tweets seem dry as dust policy updates. No point mining these for Freudian slips or titillating personal tidbits. Tharoor is more interesting, mixing up schedule details with juice on his tailor, gym and suchlike. But where?s the Zen zing of Sharukh Khan tweets: ?I want to believe? or ?Rebirth?? Or his sharing of: ?Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood on the spinner.?
On the other hand, restraining from stream-of-consciousness twitters is definitely a politic choice. Think of why words like twitterversy and twittergate have entered today?s lexicon. Think of Peter Hoekstra, a ranking member of the US House Intelligence Committee tweeting from Iraq: ?Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here.? These details were supposed to be kept secret. Or think of a couple of German politicians breaking constitutional protocol by twittering the news of their president?s re-election ahead of the official publication of results. Think of all those political aides that are not going gray in India.
renuka.bisht@expressindia.com
