Into the mind of a BJP voter: The product of propaganda: Chapter 1

Introduction

Okay here goes: I'm an ex BJP supporter and in this post, I'll tell you how I and many others like me are brainwashed by propaganda. I know that there are many who will tell me that I have blood on my hands and that I'm among those responsible for electing this government to power. I hope you could for some time drop judgment and listen to understand why an educated (in my case MBBS who has never seen a patient through the prism of religion) person falls into the trap of propaganda and how active hacking of otherwise decent people happens.

I'll focus on the tools of propaganda used and how all of this can be deconstructed and prevented in the future by simple dialogue. In this post, I will stick to the politics of these 2 decades and how and why public perception has amalgamated the way it has today.

My first brush with politics in 2004 when I was in 8th grade and India Shining was the slogan for re-election. My friend asked me "If given a choice who would you vote for" I promptly replied "BJP" (i found the then Prime Minister Atal Ji to be this affable politician ."Are you crazy? BJP is not a secular party" he replied. I didn't understand the connotation of what he said back then as politics was not something we spoke of at home. Around that time there were satirists like Shekhar Suman who openly made fun of the then PM Atalji

Satire is a powerful tool that conveyed to the audience a powerful message in a palatable way. Unfortunately, Satirists like @TheDeshBhakt won't get a prime time slot on TV as people are too afraid to air such shows on TV due to backlash.

The Congress era managed to keep the narrative and performance up until the end of the second term. Here is where in my opinion BJP's rise to prominence lay and here is where we saw a slew of scams from Suresh Kalmadi's CWG scam,2G spectrum scam, Coal Gate to name a few. Make no mistake that BJP lackeys like Arnab Goswami went ballistic with this news and in those days were seen as heroes of justice. This era also saw a series of terrorist attacks on mainland India (non-border states) brazen attacks such as 26/11, Mumbai train blasts.I remember, my friends and I were to visit Cafe Mondegar, 2 shops away from Cafe Leopold which was attacked and how the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherji had reached 48 hours after the attack started and people booed him away from cama Hospital's vicinity. This fomented not only the sentiment that the Congress was a corrupt and weak party but also the distrust between Hindus and Muslims grew as in incidents especially the train blasts locals were involved and not Pakistanis.

Arnab Goswami The good Guy turned bad

During this time Arnab's credibility as a journalist escalated exponentially. During 26/11 he sat on his anchor's chair for close to 50 hours continuously till the attacks were neutralized, he was the one who used to break scams first.with this, a sense of trust grew in the audience that he really is a "saccha maanus" as is the term in Marathi. I will continue the post-2013 era to the 2014 general elections over the next few days