JAY JOSHI
Elections are a time when the whole country is electrified as political parties try a number of innovative ways to convince the people to vote for them. In the early days, as the budget was limited, and penetration of audio and visual media was low, poster ruled the roost. In those days, parties relied mostly on catchy slogans to attract people to their cause. Later, as the reach of radio, TV and Internet spread, political parties who now had money to spare, thanks to generous donations from home and abroad, added a new trick to their campaign gimmicks: songs.
Mainly since the 1990s special campaign songs have been an integral part of the election exercise, and some have become cultural phenomena over the years. In fact the song named ‘Ravali Jagan, Kavali Jagan’, the campaign song of YS Jaganmohan Reddy became the most watched political campaign song in the history of Indian politics with over one crore views!
Based on the tone and type of their political songs, one can also sense a few things that parties leave unsaid. For instance, in the year 2014, the BJP had created a song out of its slogan ‘Abki Baar Modi Sarkar’. At that time, Congress sought to respond to it with the song ‘Har Haath Shakti, Har Haath Tarakki’. In the current season, the BJP has only made slight changes when coming out with its new theme song ‘Chalo Phir Ek Baar Modi Sarkar Banate Hai’, while Congress has banked on the issues of unemployment and haphazard development and created a new song ‘Ab Hoga Nyay’.
Also, the kind of music and visuals the two parties have used also makes one curious on many fronts. If you look at the visuals, you can say that the BJP’s positioning has an urban flair. There are visuals of cities, bridges, metro rails and other urban infrastructure, while Congress visuals focus more on people for various walks of life, not directly taking a rural or urban flavour. However, even while its video shows urban visuals, the BJP’s music uses a fusion of rock and folk music. Congress on the other hand draws on the surging popularity of rap music brought on by the film Gully Boy. On the lyrics front, Congress video performs way better than BJP. When it could have touched a number of relevant issues, the BJP’s song instead wastes a lot of its time in glorifying Narendra Modi till a point where it feels irritating.
Another phenomenon that is set to create waves in election season is parody songs. During 2009 election, the song Jai Ho from the film Slumdog Millionaire was a hit, and both BJP and Congress made parodies of the song. Here, the Congress made a smart move and bought the copyrights to the song, severely limiting BJP’s advantage. Later, when the then prime minister Manmohan Singh successfully made a nuclear deal with the US despite pressure from the Left front, the hookline of song ‘Singh is King’ was played by many media channels.
This time, parody songs are yet to make an appearance in North, but the scene is already being set in the South. Reports abound about the parodies of song called ‘Rowdy Baby’ from a 2018 South Indian movie Maari 2 being made for the elections.
