YPOST

By the people, not their own

Indians are highly opinionated about everything. No matter how much knowledge an Indian possesses, opinions must always be put forth, and often with great gusto as well! And with the rising trend of conducting opinion polls prior to the Prime Ministerial elections, we now have loads to opine for!

Opinion polls are conducted to study the general shift of the masses towards a certain political head or party. But taking into account that this is India, should these opinion polls really be considered to be that important? Can decision makers really bank on the results of these opinion polls to plan for future scenarios?

At best, I believe that opinion polls in a place like India should just be taken as probable outcomes, not results that can be banked on completely. Indians are too swayed by the apparent. The majority of the masses do not have the necessary skills to debunk all that they see or hear, and generally, they go with the “seeing is believing” motto. They formulate images and decisions in their minds after watching what the media shows them, and what their political leaders shout out on the podiums. Pre-election opinion polling might show the general trend, but where opinions change at the drop of a hat, they really cannot be trusted all that much. For example, we can see the next to nil authenticity when it comes to the Indian opinion, when we look at how people react to the wins and losses of the Indian cricket team. When they win, people cheer. When they lose, people boo. The same captain who gains victory in one match can be termed the black sheep when he fails to repeat his feat the next time. And that is just cricket. We are equally , if not more,  passionate about politics, and even though one set of opinion polls may show leader A to be in the lead, he just might be behind leader B in the next polls, because B said something extra which the people wanted to hear. So, people like B more now, and A should go curl up in a corner and cry! Opinions in our country are mostly without much spine, and are subject to change at the slightest nudge. So authenticity of opinion polls, especially in the context of the Indian Prime Ministerial elections, is quite dubious, to say the least.

And far as relevance goes, some might argue that these polls are very important, etc. But in a way, our opinions are not entirely our own, but have been shaped in more than one way by our political heads, and of course, the media. We are injected with tailored information, which leads to opinions which are not entirely our own, but we are too engrossed in our fervour to opine to notice this. Relevance therefore is a hugely debatable area when it comes to opinion polls. The true strings which pull forth our opinions lie in the hands of certain megalomaniacs in the highest echelons of the state, and sadly, those of us who can see this great sham are far lesser in number than those who think that yes, we, with our entirely ‘individual and untarnished’ opinions, are making a difference by helping decide the next head of the country. Therefore, opinion polls, in my opinion (no pun intended) can never be concrete analyses, but can just mirror the polls, and at best, allow decision makers to gain faint ideas as to what can be expected in the elections, but nothing that can be taken as surety.

Pradyumna Dutta
M.sc Media P.G 1