Some say, 'Raajneeti means- Bas Raaj Karo, koi Neetinahi'
However, Netas do have a fool-proof Neeti.
Neeti - NOT on how to better the lives of citizens in their constituency, but on, how to keep selling their political ambitions to the voters.
Marketing has been seeping through political mansions ever since India attained freedom. In fact, it has been there since freedom struggle. Politicians carved out their niche positions, with Jinna opting to focus his politics on Muslim diaspora and Nehru on the rest.
Today, to keep winning elections, politicians majorly concentrate on the 2 generic (Michael Porter's) strategies, notably :
-Mass marketing to a broad segment of population (which our national parties such as Congress and BJP do)
-Focused marketing to a narrow segment of population (which our Regional Parties such as DMK,NCP, Shivsena etc. do)
In pursuing this, they keep discovering new baits, to trap their Target Market Segment(voters), each time elections come. Just the way companies offer Diwali-discounts to customers, these politicians distribute television sets to poor and cycles to school children before elections.
When companies dole out discounts to their customers, they start price wars. Quality takes a back seat. Same has been the fate of politics; it is increasingly becoming more of a commodity. As the 5 year term approaches an end, politicians plan on how to draw voters near them. Just the way, marketeers devise strategies on how to gain market share, politicians too, resort to all gimmicks to capture maximum market share.
Marketing at play in the History of Indian Politics:
Peeping back into history, Congress had a monopoly that led the nation to freedom. Soon, Muslim League parted ways by creating a new market 'Pakistan', in just the same way as, companies such as Hindustan Lever create new markets to sell their soaps & detergents.
Congress was the tent-pole (as we say in marketing) of Indian Politics, under which varieties of values,culture and ideologies thrived and it encompassed the Rich & the Poor, the Industrialists & the Trade union socialists.
Each product has a Life cycle, as it travels across Development, Growth, Maturity & Decline stages. Post that, the process of Segmentation begins....
Congress too, had come of age. Indira Gandhi made the first major split in Congress. During the days of Emergency, Jan Sangh came into picture and later got transformed into BJP. Later on, Congress witnessed further fragmentation in the form of Sharad Pawar's NCP and Didi's Trinamool Congress. At BJP too, there was a split, with Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Jan Shakti. And parallely, regional segmentation brought about Chandra Babu Naidu's TDP, Lalu's RJD, Jaya Lalitha's AIADMK, Mulayam's SP, Mayawati's BSP and many more..
Too many competitors within a limited market space.... drive the players towards Differentiation.
In Strategy lessons, it is said that 'when the Concentration-Ratio (the sum total of Markets shares of top significant competitors) in the market reduces, monopoly diminishes’.
The best strategy then is to merge with key players so that each party in the merger benefits due to a consolidated chunk of the market. Think of how Petrol and Automobile complement each other. Imagine what if, all the Petroleum companies start venturing into Automobile manufacturing and vice versa. There would be utter chaos and total loss, just like what is happening in the Indian Aviation sector.
This is the age of alliances and Joint-ventures as resources are scarce and competition is high. Politics too is treading a similar path. National political parties form coalitions with regional parties and run the government through a Common Minimum Programme.
Social development has taken a back seat at the moment, what lies ahead on the road is for all of us to see... Who knows tomorrow there would be a separate Brand Modi .. Whatever the case maybe, the marketing gimmicks will keep on going.
- Malay Ghosh
Source : www.ghoshmalay.blogspot.in
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