Prajakeeya: reputation and reachability

Last Updated on June 12, 2023

There is no doubt that Prajakeeya’s ideals – Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency are well established and implemented in its SOP – Standard Operating Procedure. This is the key to a better and bright future – a more humane, equal, inclusive, just, and prosperous society. And, also this has already given power back to people where it has come to power. However, with the ideology being too abstract, with no clear policies and positions on issues, I feel that people are having a hard time relating to the party.

People who can understand the ideology and more importantly-its SOP without any bias from Rajakeeya are surely seeing Prajakeeya’s true potential. However, there are many who still couldn’t understand the benefits clearly if the party comes to power- How is it going to touch their lives?.

In this post, we are going to look at the Prajakeeya party’s reputation, how its ideas are reaching people through social media and what are the challenges it faces while doing it. We are going to try to answer one of the most important questions – is Prajakeeya defenseless to smear jobs?

I have written another post about Prajakeeya’s ideas being not really mainstream and thereby, facing cultural hegemony, written from Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci’s POV. Click here to read it.

Reaching people with Prajekeeya’s Ideas on Social media.

Social media is not really the best place for Prajakeeya’s Ideas. An official Facebook or Twitter page might serve as a source of updates and announcements. But, when it comes to promoting Prajakeeya’s ideas and making them go viral or at least, reach more people, these platforms don’t really serve the purpose. In fact, these ideas on the platforms could simply lose significance when it is seen against other controversial and sensational posts getting more engagement.

Social media is built for engagement. More engagement they get, the more ads they can show, thereby, the more money they can make. This is the business model on which social media platforms run. They crave engagement and do, in fact, use techniques from gamification with instant gratification for more engagement as testified by top brass in Facebook like Tim Kendall and Chamath Palihapitiya. They may say they have AI filters for fact-checking, hate speech, and online harassment. However, in practice, we have all seen that they only want to show more sensational and divisive content based on negativity and hatred and violence.

These platforms have an algorithmic bias that only shows skewed or limited information on your feed, or on search engines – Filter bubbles like in Google’s or Social media’s search results page. You also see content and posts in your feed that only confirm your existing beliefs – Echo chamber. By having you trapped in filter bubbles and echo chambers, they can keep you hooked to their platforms until your battery dies – either your phone’s or …your eyes’. This is pathological not only at the individual but also societal level.

The echo chambers invoke strong emotions within you. This makes you stay on social media for a much longer time. You have these addiction-causing emotional reactions only when you see divisive content. This extremist content may not always be so straightforward but, subtly embedded in a post like when you see a moderator “destroying” or responding to extremist politicians. This is why clips of inflammatory speeches by politicians usually go more viral than the contents of unexciting and unemotional ones but nevertheless more relevant to pressing issues of society. No wonder experts on TV repeatedly say that social media has been one of the major contributors to political polarisation and fractured societies around the globe.

The Prajakeeya ideas don’t really fit well in the mechanics of echo chambers. First and foremost, as per one of the Prajakeeya rules, there are no blame games or wars. While this rule was made with good intention that real issues should not get sidelined, this doesn’t really help create divisive content needed for engagement on social media. No engagement means No promotion. No promotion means No Prajakeeya posts reaching as many more people as it organically should.

The other rule of the party – “No leader” – means no followers either – only Prajes(citizens). The Prajes may be responsible and follow up with their representatives but do not emotionally engage with their statements. This means that platforms don’t have any incentive to show posts from representatives to Prajes unless the Prajes are directly “following” these representatives on the platforms. In addition to that, “no campaigns” means no clips of attractive rallies and powerful speeches by politicians either for more engagement.

In conclusion, the rules like – No blame wars, No Leader, No Campaign doesn’t really help much in effectively promoting and spreading Prajakeeya’s ideas to new people. Nonetheless, I am in favor of these rules, but we have to accept the challenges that come with them. Therefore, we should work accordingly keeping these limitations in mind.

The party’s reputation and smear campaigns

As per one of the party’s nine principles, we cannot blame others – politicians and their parties. Of course, it doesn’t stop others from blaming Prajakeeyans. No blame war encourages blame wars albeit one-sided. In fact, this encourages others to make all kinds of verbal attacks, especially unfair ones because they know that they are not going to be blamed for their attacks and they can easily get away with it. This is a vulnerable position for Prajakeeya to be in.

Unfortunately, In the current political scenario, the ability to respond to one’s blames(criticism) with blame or criticising critic is one of the ways one can hold the blames or criticism in check. We know that if the criticism is constructive, we can happily accept it as feedback. Otherwise, it is just a part of a smear campaign to ruin one’s credibility and reputation.

So, the Prajakeeyans have been receiving a lot of flak for some time now like – being out-of-touch with reality or living in a dream world. I think this has resulted in Prajakeeya getting a lot of bad rap – an undeservedly poor reputation. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in the rule that – No blame games (We believe in finding solutions instead of blaming) is a good one.

I am afraid if we don’t take any steps, there might come a time when nobody likes to associate with Prajakeeya. Already, many Prajakeeyans have to now hide their identity in the clubhouse and on Twitter. To be fair, many members from the other parties do the same. However, it is not so easy for a Prajakeeyan to say that the party is about bringing transparency when they themselves are hiding behind a Fake account, which is not so transparent. I totally understand why they are doing it. To ensure the safety of themselves and their family, they cannot reveal their identity. This is a practical compromise. Just imagine the level of comprising one has to make when one’s and their family’s identity is not hidden.

We have to understand that in this social-media age where the news cycle is so fast, it is easier to lose one’s image even though you have a good idea, solution, or product. You might have already seen many examples as such. if not, make no mistake, we know that many innovative good products have simply failed people because of bad advertisements. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we have to do marketing. All I am saying is it is not just “What” the idea is, but also, more importantly, “How” the idea is presented.

It doesn’t matter how much people understand and agree with the party’s ideology and also see through the smear jobs, they will always be afraid to come out and lend their support to the party. They will be afraid to associate with the party because they might also be seen as “Crazy” or some other terms from smear jobs. This is why just like Prajakeeyans are now using fake ids on social media & Clubhouse, Prajakeeyans also have to secure the party’s reputation before it is too late.

There is no wonder why we have a proverb in Kannada for reputation – ಅಡಿಕೆಗೆ ಹೋದ ಮಾನ ಆನೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟರು ಬಾರದು – Adikege hoda mana ane kottaru baradu. All political parties and candidates and also businesses run propaganda campaigns to influence public opinion. You might think how are business advertisements going to hurt a party’s image? Well, Businesses might run Ads if the party takes even a slightly “anti-business” or anti-profit position like free or affordable quality education and healthcare to all.

Prajakeeya posts against Paid Political Ads

Prajakeeyans believe in technology. Prajakeeyans believe in social media to reach people to bring party ideas to them. You have already read in the previous paragraphs of this post – how social media posts about Prajakeeya are not favored by their platform algorithms.

Let’s assume the ideal scenario for Prajakeeya posts from a Social media algorithm perspective. That is there is no algorithmic bias against Prajakeeya’s posts. That means there is no aspect of the Echo chamber and Filter bubble. This would result in treating the posts related to Prajakeeya the same as any other posts – sensational, controversial, etc that is shown in more people’s feeds than Prajakeeya posts because of the Echo chamber effect – Algorithmic bias.

Even then, when there is a level playing field and Prajakeeya posts are equally treated and shown, other political parties buy Paid ads, which are artificially promoted by the platform. These paid political Ads and the additional noise it further creates alone are enough to drown out the Prajakeeya posts during election time.

Drowning out and silencing only by the sheer number of other political paid and non-paid posts. What if they also attacked Prajakeeya’s ideas? This is why we have to reconsider the rule banning campaigns completely.

Solution: A self-defense campaign as a party’s safeguard

As I believe in the rule-No blame games (We believe in finding solutions instead of blaming), I will discuss a solution to safeguard the image and reputation of Prajakeeya. The solution is actually a special one because it kills 2 birds with one stone. But,it does come with a cost. Prajakeeyans have to bend a rule – from a Cashless party to a Cashless party except for safeguarding the party’s reputation.

Like in any campaigning strategy, we can break it down to offensive – an attack on others and defensive – safeguarding our image and strengthening our position. There is no scope for the offense because Prajakeeya doesn’t believe in blame games. But, this doesn’t mean we cannot have the campaign to self-defend the party’s position. Prajakeeyans should not ever make the mistake of misinterpreting all kinds of campaigns as only blame-games type or serving caste or religious interest type.

Rajakeeya ads are usually based on celebrating the party leader and the candidate. But, Prajakeeya ads could limit themselves to protecting its party’s reputation. Think of Prajakeeya ads are like PPTs in schools and colleges, educating people about the party’s ideas and ideals. Later, It could also be about socio-economic issues and policies.

The solution is not so difficult – raising the funds online through crowdfunding for the campaign. This way we can not only save the party’s image from getting destroyed but also it shows that by using a crowdfunding platform, the party achieves transparency by embracing technology.

To be frank, I am not sure if the party’s image is as bad as I think it is. I know that it is already taking a lot of hits. We can try to quantify it. Prajakeeyans believe in polling. Every now and then, We can use this tool effectively to keep a track of the party’s reputation. But, it should not be limited to just social media. If we don’t have the human resource to do it, then we should hire an agency temporarily for it. If we don’t have the money for the agency, we should try to raise it again in crowdfunding platforms.

In conclusion, the rule – No blame games leave Prajakeeya open for attacks with no safeguards on. This is a vulnerable position to be in. Nobody wants to associate with the vulnerable, especially the weaker and marginalized sections of society because by doing so, they will likely be more vulnerable. Therefore, we should also have at least a mechanism to protect the party’s image before it is too late.

We can only fight bullets with bullets, not peace talks. ಮುಳ್ಳನ್ನ ಮುಳ್ಳಿನಿಂದಲೇ ತೆಗಿಯಬೇಕು …..ಇಲ್ಲ ಅಂದ್ರೆ ….ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ ಹಾಕೋಬೇಕು – Mullanna Mullindale thegibeku …illa andre.. chappali hakobeku. – A safeguard.

In one line, as cliche, as it sounds, it is true that if we are in a battle & can’t fire at someone, at least we should have bullet-proof jackets on. So that, we can live to serve another day.