WhatsApp groups to drone videos, Maratha morchas found a force-multiplier in social media

With no centralised leadership to boast of, it was the social media that played a major role in the success of the huge Maratha morchas that have become the talking point nationally. Those driving the morchas say they found a force-multiplier in the organised use of social media, which successfully took the message to the largely depoliticised urban, educated and white-collar class. With weekend's rally in Pune witnessing the largest such rollout of an IT/social media-based campaign, they say this model will be used as a template for similar morchas to be held in cities like Mumbai, Satara, Kolhapur and Nagpur.

According to them, the fact that morchas did not have politicians with "personal agendas" in the front helped attract the middle-class. "The organisational strength (of pro-Maratha organisations) contributed to a mere 5% of the morchas' success, the remaining 95% came from the social media," said Pravin Gaikwad of the Sambhaji Brigade. Gaikwad said they had set up a 'war room' to push their social media campaign in Pune.

Shantaram Kunjir of the Sambhaji Brigade said they had roped in engineering students and those appearing for competitive exams to run the war room. "They handled social media updates, issues before the community and our stand and called on people to join forces," he added.

"Social media helped us reach out to the educated... draw in people who had never taken to the streets. Normally, they avoid crowds and even stay away from voting in elections," noted Kunjir.

Rajendra Kondhare of the Akhil Bharatiya Maratha Mahasangh (ABMM) said the war-room model would be replicated for the coming morchas too. "This is the first time that social media was used on a mass scale in these morchas," noted independent journalist Harshal Lohakare, who was among the youth leading the online thrust through the war room, which functioned almost round-the-clock.

"We had over 5,000 WhatsApp groups," said Lohakare, adding that this helped touch IT professionals, students, doctors, engineers, prominent personalities and even farmers. A missed call based push SMS service received around 14 lakh calls with Facebook pages and Twitter handles also meeting a response. The war room team also created online badges for supporters on Facebook.

"The Kopardi issue and demands raised by us struck a chord withpeople as these aspects are related to their daily lives... We also sent out messages about communal harmony and our protests not being against any caste or community," said Lohakare, adding that they also monitored content and tracked responses of government functionaries. Caricatures, GIF animation and photographs were also circulated.

Lohakare said "negative publicity" by traditional media and attempts to "polarise" Dalits and Marathas over issues like the atrocity Act, led to supporters turning to social media.

Gaikwad said they had brought in a team of photographers allied to the brigade from Beed and hired a drone and a helicopter to supervise and photograph the Pune morcha. "In case extreme opinions were voiced on social media, we set the record straight," added Gaikwad, stating that around 22 committees had been set up for purposes ranging from publicity, disaster management and prepare a memorandum to be presented to the government.

Kondhare, however, admitted that lack of control on the social media led to people from both sides of the ideological and caste divide putting forth extreme opinions on it. "There are people in every social group who put forth extreme views," he said. Lohakare too said that social media was a "two-edged sword" with great efforts being taken to control aggression on the medium.