Public figures including politicians are switching to social networks to keep on posting and tweeting their views and ideas about the ongoing national and local issues. This is really bringing politicians and leaders close to their people. For instance, a Member of Parliament in India is at an average representing a couple of millions of people and in no way can reach them all even if he/she goes on rallying daily. He cannot do that, by the way, has to do other stuff too!

Though politicians across the ages are joining the social networks, but it is common among young and forward looking leaders. They are tweeting and posting every day; their views, interpretations, ideas and comments. The goodness is that people, not only can read them but also counter-comment them. This makes it interactive. So how a democracy should have been functioning, Internet is enabling it. This is clearly giving the voters, particularly the youth of India an idea to make a personality based selection of a leader and we could soon be seeing the end of polarization towards parties. Instead, people will be liking a particular person in the form of their representative. In case of routine matters, localised leadership is definitely needed, so we cannot expect a person from Delhi selecting a leader from Mumbai, but surely in case of expressing a desire to have a particular person as the Prime Minister or any other functionary.

Some might argue that it isn’t going to make any difference as the Internet penetration is still too low for it being considered as a mass media in India. But I argue, it is the beginning, a good beginning. It is also giving a platform to express to the population of India that has been shying away so far and are now somewhat ‘repenting’ of not taking the right steps at the right time. Had they been actively participating in elections and selections, Indian leadership would have a different kind of group of people at the helm of affairs.

This social network politics might be useful and limited only to some metros or large cities, but even if it makes a difference to around 100 odd MPs of the total strength, its a good beginning. In urban India, we are facing with complex issues and the major one is competition at work; not allowing people at large to spare some time to attend to politics, which is at the end of the day affecting them a lot. But with these social networks, they are at least able to track their leaders and interact with them.

So we must encourage leaders to tweet and interact with them. This will definitely help India grow as a democracy at the level that it should be.

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