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Indian campaign takes to the Internet

BOMBAY: The world's communications revolution has caught up with India as political parties post their propaganda on the Internet for national polls that began this weekend.

When the national opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) set up its World Wide Web site recently, it was the first Indian political party in cyberspace in an ambitious effort to carry its message to the world.

Few people in the world's most populous democracy have Internet links, but the BJP is targeting the hearts and minds of a large Indian diaspora based in America and Europe who support the party back home with funds.

"We are trying to build bridges between intellectuals based abroad and the motherland," said Madhu Upadhyaya of the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), a U.S.-based organisation.

The Web site sponsored by the OFBJP was set up late in January, ahead of the country's general elections spread over six days between April 27 and May 30. The New York-based OFBJP, formed in 1991, runs chapters in London and Canada.

To date, the BJP Web site has had 4,000 retrievals since its launch, indicating the growing interest of net surfers. It has stolen a march on the other Indian political parties, the ruling Congress and the left-centrist coalition, who have not yet come up with a cyberspace strategy, according to party members.

The BJP, which promotes Hindu cultural nationalism and wants to channel foreign investment away from the consumer sector towards infrastructure, has emerged as the favourite to win the largest number of seats in the 545-seat Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

The latest poll published in the Times of India shows the BJP poised to win 180-195 seats, as compared to 135-150 seats of the Congress party.

According to Prakash Jawadekar, a BJP spokesman, the party aims to address a huge and important intellectual audience through its cyber campaign.

"As we are the party-in-waiting, the international business community is quite eager to know our policies, particularly the economic policies," says a confident Jawadekar.

Analysts interpret the move as one projecting India's modernity to the world, in the wake of the five-year-old programme of economic reforms gathering momentum.

"It is very technology savvy and sends a clear signal about India to the outside world," says Jasmeet Singh, product manager at Rediff on the Net, an-online magazine.

Analysts say that the Internet may give the BJP an edge over its rivals but it is too early to be viewed as an effective vote-catching tool.

"A political party can reap the benefits of the easy spread of information without boundaries on the Internet, but not in terms of any significant address to the electorate due to the nascent development of the Internet," says Bhupesh Trivedi of Nilima & Associates, an Internet publishing company.

There are an estimated 7,500 individual Internet users -- from businessmen and students to computer fanatics -- in India.

Trivedi has started "Elections on the Net", an on-line service targeting the non-resident Indians.

"It is hardly going to make a difference. After all, how many people are logged onto the Internet?" says political commentator M J Akbar, editor-in-chief of the Asian Age newspaper.

The difficulties of making use of an Internet connection, given India's chronic shortage of telephone lines -- there is one telephone for every 100 Indians -- will limit the enthusiasm of net surfers for the forseeable future, experts say.

"Internet definitely has to be there and will be omnipresent in the near future. But, in a country where many people still do not have a telephone connection, it is difficult to envisage a fast growth of the Internet," said Miheer Mafatlal, president of the Internet Users Club of India.

It is relatively easy to get an Internet connection -- it takes about three days. But the volume of traffic ensures that many who have Internet connections are unable to use them.

Experts see the rapid pace of technological change forcing more and more political parties on to Internet.

"Parties will have no choice but to go on. It's a matter of survival. They have to place their information on the network," said Singh.-Reuter