From Tamil Nadu To New Delhi: How Instagram Reels Are Rewriting Indian Politics

Chennai: About 80 days after Instagram reels catalysed the unprecedented victory of Tamil Nadu CM C Joseph Vijay, the social media app hitherto dismissed as the abode of non-intellectuals was instrumental in bringing about the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Political observers, analysts and older voters are astonished at how it wasn’t media reports, opposition protests or a corruption scandal that forced arguably India’s strongest Prime Minister Narendra Modi to drop his cabinet colleague, but thousands of boldly irreverent short videos watched trillions of times.

This was evident as Modi himself put out a reel in the goblin hours two days before the protest ended, employing a frame and lingo (Friends, not Mitron) to reach out to the Gen Z. Even as this reel set new records with a viewership of 300 million, his cabinet colleagues were instructed to engage with youngsters on Instagram.

This newspaper had foretold this on May 30 pointing out that TVK’s win had transformed electoral politics. “The next disruptor is not the politician who draws the biggest crowds, but the one who trends across Gen Z insta reels. In modern politics, rallies still matter, but reels may increasingly decide who gets heard,” is what FPJ wrote

In TN, it helped TVK win the election, while for Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), it led to something not witnessed during the 12 years of the Modi regime, said Hamraj Singh, founder of election strategy firm JanSoch Consultancy. “This is a clear indication that narratives earlier built on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook have now shifted to Instagram. Today, almost every political leader and party has been compelled to adapt their communication style through short-form videos and reels to remain relevant with younger audiences,” he said.

Sample this: the fledgling, un-registered CJP has 27 million followers, while BJP has only a third of that. India has over 50 crore users, the maximum for any country. Around 70% of them are from 18-35 age group, the demographic that landed up in Jantar Mantar in Delhi, Shivaji Park in Mumbai and Balan Illam in Chennai.

This is primarily because Instagram is simple to use and as on date remains equal opportunity with respect to organic reach; absolutely anybody’s reels can go viral, especially if you remix it with trending songs or sound effects.

For instance, dance reels of the fashionable and the impoverished are equally popular. Apart from giving Gen Z a platform to express their uninhibited views, Instagram also made protesting look cool, aided by visual effects and youth anthems.

What Instagram has also done is eliminating the amplification provided by mainstream media, who have become obsolete, said Piyush Rai, an Uttar Pradesh-based independent journalist. “It is a direct dialogue between politicians and their constituents,” said Rai, who worked for a decade in mainstream media, but now has an Insta page with 1 lakh followers.

Rai believes that it was Vijay’s TVK which made politicians and analysts understand that what was trending on Instagram was a reflection of the ground sentiment. “The Union government failed to read the situation as they didn’t take the Insta traction seriously,” he said.

What has also stunned even millennials and older generations is the colourful language used by the Gen Z in their reels against even PM Modi, which was not witnessed in the protests against the Farm Bills in 2020-21.

“Today, Gen Z speak far more openly across the political spectrum and unlike others they are less vulnerable to pressures from agencies or institutions, allowing them to express themselves more freely. Also, such a large mass cannot be branded as anti-national,” Hamraj said.