Indian campaigns aren’t really designed in the usual sense, unlike in the US: logos, typefaces and imagery, thoughtfully created and effectively orchestrated. But widen the window of design to view communication, and the effectiveness of Indian campaigns pops into focus.

Consider the campaign as a totality of impressions: actions, statements, media reports, symbolism, and the like. Look beyond the fabulously chaotic visual arena, and attend to the theatres of message and rhetoric. Especially, listen for the unspoken: the signalling, or the suggestions beyond the verbal.

The campaign should include Mr Modi’s last tenure, His governance tends to be in campaign mode: carefully scripted events and messaging.

The winning campaign, defined like this, spoke better to emotion, using reason only to rationalise its appeals. By this reckoning, Mr Modi’s BJP was much the better campaign. Its appeal came from classic visceral, gut-driven methods. It played to the anxieties of millions, not always expressed (except in the last few years).

It sharpened these anxieties by underlining group identities, both of its flock and of its opponents. Moreover, it was coherent, that is, the messages across the ecosystem, from base utterances to presidential statements, reinforces each other and maintained consistency over time. The resulting grand narrative increased their effectiveness.

Central to the structure of the Modi-BJP campaign is the strong, muscular and decisive leader as a centrepiece. Populist toughness is the leader’s personal style which eclipses or subsumes the party’s. Tough talk on internal divisions and neighbourly relations was and will be positioned as a necessary antidote to impotent intellectualism.

The responses to the Uri and Pulwama strikes became perfect opportunities to display militarism. The film dramatising Uri became a top grosser. Pulwama’s timing halted the talk of opposition momentum. Personal credit was given and accepted, the strongman won the war.

Just as visceral was demonetisation, a daring display of will, regardless of its economic failure (or success) and its allegedly political intent. The signal is everything: bitter medicine, unconstrained by feeble intellectualising or corrupt interests (the opposition’s two faces). The film portrayal of Manmohan Singh as a weak PM came in handy as contrast.

Identity is tied to this by having the strong-leader-centrepiece represent a broad consensus of the anti-intellectual, unlearned, earthy common-folk, pitted against the previously ruling classes. To them, the speculation that Ganesha’s elephant head suggests ancient plastic surgery might well have been upheld as genuine theistic belief, rather than a lack of science. Likewise the prime-minister’s self-reported intervention, sending in fighters in cloudy weather to evade enemy radar may have demonstrated the victory of audacity and common wisdom over timid technocracy.

Mr Modi was, and is, pictured as celibate, an ascetic, a fakir, and thus a man of sacrifice. TV caught him meditating in a man-made cave, during, naturally, the ‘silent period’. The other side: all family skeletons, and atheism leavened with new-age Buddhism or new-found Hindu-ness.

Identity in this campaign was also signalled by actions that challenged nominal secularism as a criterion for leadership. The religious populism of a Mahant-strongman served as a trishul against other strongmen. Opposed groups were reduced to termites (or to Pakistanis) by various arms of the party machine, allowing a bundling of Muslims and their political support as the enemy.

An identity war needs an enemy. Its figurehead remains the purge-worthy Congress but also a spectrum of civil and political dissenters. Their supporters’ tags are designed to attack both class and politics. Urban Naxals, Lutyen’s types, Tukde-tukde gang, presstitutes—they are of a class foreign to the flock. Chaiwala and the chowkidar sub-campaign were more than deft retorts to a Congress slur in 2014 or a corruption charge this time around. The class resonance is unmistakable, and may have even earned Mr Modi some subaltern sympathy. I (we) are one of you; they are the opposite.

But their opponents were observably foreign in origin. Priyanka Gandhi’s playing with a snake was swiftly recast as oriental entertainment. The tagging of the young Gandhis as both un-Indian and baba-log resonates with earlier mocking references to ‘Italian uncles’, their mother and angrez-minded great-grandfather. This is coherence.

The closest the opposition came to a campaign theme was ‘the idea of India’, which criticised strongman-style nationalism,and purported to protect democratic principles (secularism, tolerance, dissent) and institutions (from universities to central banks) from Modi’s BJP. These abstractions don’t appeal to the visceral instinct. They require Class IX civics and some reflection to appreciate. Rafale corruption flew briefly, but was grounded for technical reasons. The Congress president did try to connect suit-boot ki sarkar to crony capitalism, a start of a coherent theme based on a potent visual (following the PM’s choice of suiting), but couldn’t sustain the connection.

Set against the chatterati’s clucking were the young voter who appeared regularly on evening television. He would admit that his lot is bad, yet underlined his faith in the potency of the national strongman, above his party, for reasons that seemed unnecessary to explain. Gut level feelings like these make or break election campaigns. Reasons are rationalisations, but emotions drive actions.

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If one sees design as a primarily visual field, the commentary on an Indian election might seem rather bare. Unlike, say the US elections, Indian election campaigns aren’t designed, or not in a sense that professionals or their audiences (that’s you) would recognise.

But seeing the deep design of things requires us to transcend appearance, and consider communication more broadly. It is the designer’s task to observe and interpret the world, keeping an ear out for the unspoken.

So consider the campaign not as designed object but as a totality of impressions: actions, speeches, statements, media reports, advertising and the like. Upon reflection, the signalling value of these acts appears. Their diversity coalesces into a grand narrative, the meta-communication behind the words.

the campaign not as designed object but as a totality of impressions: actions, speeches, statements, media reports, advertising and the like. Upon reflection, the signalling value of these acts appears.

Marketers will recognise this as way brands come to take root in a genuine, cultural sense. as a whole comprised of its many acts: advertising, products, pricing, distribution, the company image and many others.

In recent US elections, graphic design has been conspicuously recruited in the service of the campaign. Big name talent is called in. Perhaps it’s intuitive that these examples of designed campaigns are from Democrats, the side of the fence more readily associated with the intelligentsia and by extension, the arts. Here, relatively arcane things like typeface choices have been noticed and commented upon enthusiastically, as in Obama’s campaign, to which the cult street artist Sheperd Fairey contributed a memorable image. The Hillary campaign employed a sophisticated visual identity system designed by Michael Beirut, a celebrated designer.

On the other hand Republican campaigns, from Reagan onwards have tended towards visceral nationalism. Here, overt visual design seems beside the point, and even weak. Trump’s campaign, visually speaking, was criticised as crude. Did design cost Hillary?

Indeed, visceral campaigns and leaders of this sort have been a feature of recent years. Many, including this column, have commented on the rise of a certain type of leader: anti-intellectual, earthy strongmen who speak plainly and speak tough.

Visceral campaigns and leaders of this sort have been a feature of recent years. Many, including this column, have commented on the rise of a certain type of leader: anti-intellectual, earthy strongmen who speak plainly and speak tough.

They speak of trade isolationism, and an inward looking view of national self-interest, with a suspicion of multilateralism. They promise, and invoke a populist toughness, often reflected in the leader’s personal style. This toughness is positioned as a necessary antidote to impotent intellectualism. Their opponents are a foreign or sinister enemy presence; while opposed groups are de-humanised (macaques, termites, and so on) by various arms of the party machine.

Narendra Modi’s campaign, in which we must include his years of governance (much of it in campaign mode) are an example of this phenomenon. On the basis that emotions rule our preferences, the Modi campaign looks a far better bet than the opposition’s. It’s not just the PM’s oratory skills, and ignore the lows to which the speeches (on both sides, to a degree) have fallen. Admire the coordinated way in which national interest has been framed to tap into anxieties, and the opposition positioned as arrayed against it.

Thus the responses to the Uri and Pulwama strikes became the perfect opportunities for a public display of militarism. The film dramatising Uri become a top grosser. Pulwama’s magical timing, in this way of thinking, seems to have reversed the opposition momentum that sections of the press were talking up. Fear stokes, and belligerence quenches.

The stance on Kashmir may be criticised as insensitive but can be read as precise signalling to a certain popular mood. Demonetisation was a high impact display of visceral action in the same vein. Ignore the economic analysis of it as a failure (or success) and the political tactic it was alleged to be, as side-effects. The signal is everything: tough action unfettered by wimpish objections bleated by those entrenched in the black money system. The film portrayal of Manmohan Singh as a weak PM comes in handy as contrast (BJP supporter Anupam Kher played the ex PM).

Demonetisation was a high impact display of visceral action in the same vein. Ignore the economic analysis of it as a failure (or success) and the political tactic it was alleged to be, as side-effects. The signal is everything: tough action unfettered by wimpish objections bleated by those entrenched in the black money system. 

The opposition counters these by positing an ‘idea of India’ (other attacks are tactical). It accuses the BJP of attacking institutions, both abstractions (democracy, secularism or liberal thought) and organisations (from film institute to central bank). But these are higher-order constructs, appealing to urban audiences and to considered, learned judgement rather than basic instincts. Corruption is a more workable route, but Rafale may have peaked too early. The opposition’s calling-the-referee type protests against distasteful language only signal weakness in the eyes of those who yearn for a strong leader.

Cultural referencing is the PM’s area of mastery, much more than the opposition’s. Chaiwala, and chowkidar may have caught the eye, but notice how Priyanka Gandhi’s playing with a sapera’s snakes was swiftly reframed as a colonial entertainment for the oppressors, by the oppressed. The analogy fitted poorly but the consistent painting of the young Gandhis as un-Indian resonated with decades of earlier references to their Italian-origin mother and English-minded great-grandfather. But it’s the young Gandhis’ very Indian grandmother that Modi channels: opponents as puppets of a foreign hand.

This is the cult of the strong leader capable of strong medicine with shades of adventurism. Evening television shows us citizens who acknowledge, but seem willing to ignore great gaps in their welfare, appearing to cling to the promise that the muscular leadership represents. If these gut-level feelings are indeed persistent, they will trump any appeal to reason. The Congress president had his moment when the PM’s wardrobe went wrong, but it is the sarkar, with a more emotionally directed campaign, who has the stronger suit.

This is the cult of the strong leader capable of strong medicine with shades of adventurism.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘Emotion Trumps Reason’ in Business Standard, 11 May in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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