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Campaigning logs on

When a democratic exercise is undertaken in the backdrop of events like Godhra and the riots that followed, votes tend to concentrate heavily at opposite ends. Every vehicle, right from your feet to the media, both electronic and print, is used to ferry poll propaganda.

Now there is an addition to that list -- the Internet.

It is for the first time the Internet is playing such a major role in any election. Never has there been a more concerted attempt to help elect or throw out a leader like that in the case of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi now.

In all fairness, the reason such sites came up was not the election, but the riots. But since the violence resulted in an early election, the sites that came up calling an end to the bloodshed became intrinsically linked to the election.

Hundreds of sites now talk of the atrocities that were visited upon the Muslims of Gujarat and how the state dispensation sat through, or worse, abetted the mobs.

The NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious India talk of what its members found on a 'humanitarian mission' to India. They begin by apologising to Swami Vivekananda, 'whose spirited and unabashed defence of Hinduism from yesteryear is being wilfully distorted by some into a hate campaign against the minorities of India'.

They say the 'elected government of Gujarat was happy to collude, encourage, or stand on the sidelines as mad men and women systematically destroyed human lives and property'.

Avi of the Coalition Against Communalism says, "We are not directly participating in the Gujarat elections, but are keeping people here informed of the events in Gujarat, especially the attempt to whip up communal tensions for electoral gains."

The Alliance for a Secular and Democratic and South Asia asks visitors to sign an appeal, which calls for a struggle for a just, secular and democratic India. It says, 'murder and mayhem gripped the state as mobs of fanatic Hindus instigated and led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad systematically hunted Muslims all over Gujarat'. Three hundred and fourteen NRIs have signed the appeal, which also requests donations for victims.

Insaaniyat is a small group of individuals 'horrified with what was happening in Gujarat and met to discuss what we could do about it'.

And it certainly did. It set up seven groups to obtain justice for the victims of the massacre. It issued an online appeal asking Gujaratis to 'think twice before you vote'. Signatories to the appeal are such people like movie stars Nandita Das, Om Puri and Shubha Mudgal. It also distributed, through 'campaigners of secularism', leaflets to voters in Gujarat.

Then there is onlinevolunteers, which calls for a stop to 'all bestial forms of sexual violence against Gujarat's Muslim girls'.

But  Modi's site rebuts all these charges. Hiten Shah, whose company Brand Aid manages the site, says, "It is a stupid perception [that Modi was behind the massacres]. Narendrabhai is a great leader. Through the site we are trying to tell the truth to the people. We don't get carried away by the attention of the world media."

He says over three million emails, including to 200,000 Gujaratis, have been sent, listing out the Modi government's achievements.

The site also posts any positive articles that appear on Modi, and hosts a fan club with 10,000 members.

All these are crude electioneering. But a level of sophistication is bound to emerge soon, and then you could have a scenario where this gargantuan task is reduced to an easily manageable one.

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