All I can understand after watching some Indian TV news today is that the BJP and its spokespersons are really really afraid of Rahul Gandhi. Why else would they build an entire institution called the IT cell do defame him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

The entire purpose of the IT cell is to ensure that no other leader, who is on the verge of emerging as a mass leader, can ever acquire the legitimacy that they need to become serious contenders.

But you have to see the work of the IT cell in tandem with the work of the local institutions of law and order. Those nascent leaders that the IT cell can't make fun of regularly (for fear of isolating certain voting populations), they basically imprison those guys or attack them

Their spokies spend more time talking about Rahul and Sonia, like obsessive stalkers. This is because they're deciding the shape of debates on primetime. There is virtually no useful information coming to the public through these debates.

They're not there to inform the public at all. They're there to keep repeating the one message "congress is awful and its leaders are awful". That's literally the only message they give out. There is nothing else they ever say, zilch.

It is going to be difficult to maintain this messaging because the nature of the message is such that it is completely invisibilizing all other important local players in Indian politics and all other local issues. At some point one can hope people will be able to see through it

The IT Cell's messaging has basically flattened every single identity in India by making it BJP+supporters vs. everyone else. And all issues as National security > all other issues.

Pretty darned devious.

But what people should be asking is hasn't this focus on National Security (and all the things being done against Indian citizens in the garb of national security) actually made Indians a lot more insecure?