This is pretty passé to Twitter. It’s more used to shaking up entire governments. In India, it’s still just a Minister of State. Well, not bad for a start, eh?
Now, to de-glamorize the role of Twitter in the entire IPL muck carnival: at least this time round, Twitter had very little to do with @Shashi Tharoor’s predicament. But that’s not the point, really. And I don’t want to push any more IPL stuff down your throat, I’m choking, too.
The point is that thanks to the IPL-Modi-Tharoor-Pushkar-Kochi-and other skeletons in there set, when you next say Twitter in India, no one’s going to think you just came in from Mars. It’s no longer just what the hip set keeps jamming away their mobile phone buttons for, but it’s also something that has made it to Indian newspapers, prime time TV, even Parliament.
Of course, Twitter hit the India jackpot right from the day Tharoor was made a Cabinet member. He is the first politician in India to use social media, including Twitter and his site, to put his views across on things governmental or otherwise. If he thought the new visa rules sucked, he tweeted so.
We as a country are not used to such openness, and we almost expect our politicians to be lying or diplomatic, or anything else but speaking their mind out. We are used to their double-speak and any blunt talk jars.
But more than the mannerisms of politicians, this points us towards a broader and more important issue: will more politicians embrace social media and dare to connect directly to their electorate? They don’t have to be glib, they don’t have to be un-tactful, but do they have it in them to speak to us, the people, without the protective mediation of mainstream media?
Because, remember social media is 2-way, it’s not your typical press conference, where you use the media to plug your point.
When you go out there on your blog or Twitter or Facebook, you have to brace up against the swipes and support that will come your way. There’s nowhere to hide, and you may lie and speak in couched terms, but that’ll only make matters worse for you.
Of course, it is just a miniscule section of the Indian population that tweets or blogs, or even sends e-mails for that matter. But then, not everyone in India reads newspapers, either. And, my question is, do our politicians have it in them to face even such a small, but very vocal, section of the population at all?
Social media in governance has the potential to realize the potential of the Right to Information Act in real time. But will our politicians bite?
