BSP rally, “भाईचारा कार्यकर्ाय सम्मलेन” at Mohanlalganj, Lucknow Uttar Pradesh : Navneet Mishra

Media and Politics|Azim Premji University| Law & Policy Hub: Clinical Research
Media and Politics
Report
Date: 18 November 2016

Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), on 18 November 2016, held a rally at Mohanlalganj which is located at 20-25 Km outside from the city Lucknow. Our group covered this rally on the reference of Ramendra Singh, is a correspondent editor of the Indian Express, Lucknow edition. The rally was named as “भाईचारा कार्यकर्ता सम्मलेन” and it was headed by Satish Chandra Mishra, is a Brahmin face from the BSP and elected thrice as Lok Sabha Member of the Upper house. He addressed the rally starting from emergency like situation in India due to Modi Government and its decision on demonetization. He said, “Brahmins are responsible for the protection of atrocities against Dalits and very poor political representation in politics in other parties”, referring BJP and SP at central and state respectively. Further he added that, BJP and SP are more attracted towards Yadav/Kurmi and other backward classes in their party at multiple positions but very less faces are Brahmins and Dalits. He claimed that BSP is the single party who posits higher values to Brahmins and Dalits in the party and while BSP in 2007, UP government holds 40 Brahmins faces in legislative assembly of the UP government. He targets to capture 16% Brahmins in total population of the UP, to connect with BSP for vote and jointly focused on Dalits. He criticizes BJP President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi for their cruelty against Brahmin through which 25% IAS/IPS are in jail. He added to that, both of the leaders from BJP are trying to diminish the Brahmins face in BJP and Murali Manohar Joshi, Kalraj Mishra are great example of that. He raised the issue of poor law and order situation in UP during SP government and state government is responsible for increasing crime rates and riots occurred. He said that people have strong belief in Mayawati as a leader of the State and it is required that her party should win the election with greater majority.
The rally was covered by media like NDTV/Hindustan Times/ AMAR UJALA (Local Hindi Newspaper)/ and the Indian Express. Our group tried to connect few local resident who were attending rallies and acquired their views on such political events. They said that the population of the area is largely covered by lower caste and BSP has announced
Media and Politics|Azim Premji University| Law & Policy Hub: Clinical Research
their candidates from the lower caste only. The present MLA of the area is also from BSP
and the caste equation in the politics forced political parties to decide candidature for
elections based on the caste. However discussing on the importance of media for their
decision on voting pattern is very less dependent. While interviewing one person who
said that media largely affects the party’s image as it highlights the good points about the
party. But he also said that these rallies won't help BSP because “Bhaichara” is just good
to hear, Brahmins still won't vote BSP. Demonetization will also not let Modi lose. He
also said that the reason of Modi being in power in 2014 was all the good work done by
him in Gujarat which was portrayed massively by the media.

An Introduction to the project: "Media and Politics"

'The Media and Politics' is a research project under Law and policy clinic of Azim Premji University, Bangalore. The project is followed by a group of student including three student of MA Development Astha Bahuguna, Ganesh Pol, Navneet Mishra and one student of LLM programme Satabish Ajjarapu. 

The group is supervised by Prof. Vishnupad and Rachel.

The project aims at conducting an empirical ethnographic study in the state of Uttar Pradesh in context to the upcoming state assembly elections.

The hypothesis lies in the fact that media has a significant effect and involvement in the present political scenario and therefore the group aims at relevant findings for the same.

The focus of the group is to understand political communication, news production, and news consumption through a field-based research.

The field work is split into two months- in the first month the group will be based in Lucknow, visiting nearby constituencies whenever needed, attending press conferences, election campaigns, meeting party people, interviewing the public and the people from the media. In the next month (December) the group will try to collaborate with a media organization either in Lucknow or in Delhi to understand the production of news in deeper ways.The expected outcome of a project is an academic paper which purposely will try to deliver the link between media and politics. The intervention lies in the fact that many people remain unconscious about the various biases that takes places and the project tries to present a detailed explanation for the same.