Over the last decade, Indian election campaigns have been transformed by the rise of a new ecosystem of political professionals – spin doctors, pollsters, data analysts, and political consultants – who now play a central role in shaping how parties strategise, communicate, and mobilise voters. While such trends were once associated with Western democracies, in his book The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and The People Who Manage Them, Amogh Dhar Sharma reveals how this wave of “professionalisation” has taken root in India with astonishing speed. Moving beyond the surface spectacle of digital rallies and viral memes, the book offers a rare behind-the-scenes view of campaign war rooms and the new political culture emerging from these spaces.
Drawing on extensive interviews with top political consultants and archival materials spanning decades, the book argues that the professionalisation of Indian politics is not just a story of technological innovation, it is also a story about the changing architecture of power within parties, the rise of elite technocrats who now shape messaging from the top down, and the evolving attitudes of citizens towards political participation. The book pays close attention to how personalised political communication, fuelled by granular voter data, has enabled unprecedented targeting, but also created space for disinformation, voter manipulation, and declining democratic fairness.
In unpacking these shifts, the book contains many surprising insights: that the Congress party, not the BJP, was the first to embrace professionalisation in the mid-1980s; that the story of Prashant Kishor is only the most visible chapter in a much deeper evolution of political consultancy in India; and that the methods now seen as “modern” have long-standing roots. The Backstage of Democracy explores what is gained and what is lost when elections are managed less by party workers on the ground and more by professionals behind the scenes.
In an interview with Scroll, author Amogh Dhar Sharma, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he previously completed his doctoral studies, talked about the genesis of his book, the emergence of a new class of election campaign professionals, the evolving professionalisation of election campaigns in India, how disinformation is more than just politicians telling lies, and why new technologies like AI and data analytics will continue to reshape the terrain of political campaigning in India. Excerpts from the interview:
You write in the book that you began researching and collecting data for the book in the summer of 2014, which you call India's first social media election. Why was social media only the tip of the iceberg, as you note in the book, in that election that brought the BJP to power?
There’s no doubt that social media played a highly visible role in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections – there was no shortage of pro-BJP and Narendra Modi fan pages that appeared almost overnight on Facebook, digital hangouts and Chai Pe Charcha video conferences, and aggressive hashtag battles on Twitter. The BJP also had a highly organised army of digital foot soldiers who were tasked with spreading the party’s message online.
However, I think many journalists and commentators at the time fell prey to a certain kind of hyperbole. It’s easy to overstate the influence of social media without considering the actual reach it had. Let’s remember that back in 2014, fewer than 10 per cent of Indian voters had a Facebook account, and just under 3 per cent were on Twitter. The size of the digital user base at the time provides a sobering perspective on how many people were directly exposed to this content.
What I found more significant – and what I explore in the book – is how social media signalled the arrival of something much bigger: the emergence of a new class of campaign professionals. These were political consultants, spin doctors, PR experts, pollsters, and data analysts who were now being brought in to design and manage election campaigns. This shift represented a major organisational transformation in how Indian elections were run.
Focusing solely on social media risks missing this deeper transformation. Once you begin to pay attention to the new organisational infrastructure of campaigning – for example, firms like Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), which played a major role in PM Modi’s 2014 campaign, and then eventually evolved into the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) under Prashant Kishor’s mentorship – you realise that these professionals were doing far more than social media management. From securing police permissions for rallies to assisting in the ticket distribution process, they were reengineering how campaigns were run from the ground up. In short, what looked like a digital wave on the surface was only the visible face of a much deeper professionalisation of India’s electoral politics.
In what ways have political consulting firms, pollsters and social media tools transformed the landscape of Indian politics, especially post-2014, after the BJP came to power at the centre?
The professionalisation of election campaigns in India is still a relatively new phenomenon. The industry of political consultants, pollsters, and social media influencers is still evolving and there’s a lot of churn as it tries to define itself. But even in this short span, we can already see some clear and far-reaching impacts.
For one, this is no longer just the BJP’s story. Since 2014, almost every major party in India has adopted similar strategies. This shift is reflected in how political parties now organise themselves internally, with new departments or “cells” devoted to social media management, data analytics, and political research. These are technocratic enclaves that function largely apart from the traditional karyakartas, who have long formed the backbone of grassroots mobilisation. There is a new division of labour between the professionals, on the one hand, and the party rank-and-file, on the other.
This, of course, has also led to a further centralisation of power within political parties. Intra-party democracy in India is certainly not a new problem, but the rise of a small, elite group of consultants and strategists – often drawn from urban, upper-caste, English-speaking backgrounds – has deepened this trend. Because much of the new campaigning model relies on data analysis and technical expertise, party leaders now have a new alibi for why decisions are made in closed circles.
Another knock-on effect of this shift is the creation of a permanent campaign machine. Political activity no longer follows an “election season” cycle – campaign professionals now work year-round, monitoring trends, shaping messaging, and keeping parties in a state of constant mobilisation.
And quite significantly, the professionalisation of politics has driven campaign costs even higher than before. Hiring consultants, running endless public opinion polls, and producing targeted digital content all require serious funding. This inflates the already massive campaign expenditures in Indian elections, making it harder for new or smaller players to enter the field and raising concerns about the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
How do you see the emergence of new political professionals as the new movers and shakers of India’s election campaigns and what kind of influence and impact they have had on election campaigns and the poll results in recent years?
In recent years, India’s election campaigns have not only grown longer in duration but also more intense and high-pitched in tone. The industry of campaign professionals thrives in an environment of competitive electoral battles. And this competitive pressure has created strong incentives for them to continually raise the stakes. As a result, we’ve seen a wave of campaign innovations, from 3-D hologram rallies and AI-generated memes to hyper-personalised content tailored to specific voter segments. Much of this is made possible through large-scale data harvesting and micro-targeting techniques, often enabled by the absence of robust data protection laws in India. Consultants routinely combine this harvested data with granular booth-level results to develop sophisticated voter outreach strategies.
That said, it’s important not to overstate the power of these professionals. One of the most striking findings in my research is that hiring a political consultant has very little correlation with whether a candidate actually wins the election. Many senior politicians privately admit that they’re not entirely convinced by the strategic advice they receive – and they often choose to ignore it. Even political consultants themselves are sometimes candid about this, acknowledging that they can never guarantee a win for their clients, notwithstanding the bold claims often made in media interviews or on their websites.
So, while these professionals may be the new “movers and shakers” of Indian election campaigns, it would be a mistake to assume they can make or break a politician. What we’re seeing is a shift in how campaigns are managed and executed – but ultimately, politicians still retain the upper hand. In that sense, India’s political class has adapted to the age of professionalisation without surrendering control to it.
How has the professionalisation of politics in India, as you argue in the book, led to a creative reworking and rebranding of old practices of party politics?
One of the arguments I make in the book is that it’s a mistake to assume that Indian politics only became sophisticated with the arrival of political consultants and data-driven strategies. There’s a common belief that, before professionalisation, electioneering in India was somehow rudimentary or chaotic. But this isn’t true. Even during the first general election in 1951–52, politicians were already using the most advanced technologies available at the time – the Congress party was using everything from gramophone records to short documentary films to spread its message among the voters. So, what we’re seeing today is not a complete break from the past but rather a creative reworking and rebranding of older campaign practices, tailored to a new media environment. The transformation lies not just in the message, but in how that message is packaged, delivered, and scaled.
Take the BJP, for example. While the party’s core ideological messaging around consolidating a “Hindu vote bank” has remained relatively consistent since the 1980s, what has changed is the institutional machinery behind it. Pollsters and data analysts now help disaggregate the so-called Hindu voter into finer caste, class, and demographic segments, allowing for more targeted outreach. Simultaneously, the use of YouTube influencers, WhatsApp groups, and algorithmically amplified digital content now complements older networks of the RSS pracharaks and the daily shakha. These diverse information nodes are how the ideology of Hindu nationalism trickles into our homes and becomes part of the everyday ideological common sense. In that sense, the professionalisation of Indian politics hasn’t replaced old ways of doing things – it has reinvented and supercharged them for the digital age.
You write in the book that not all parties have an equal degree of access to political finance and that professionalism is likely to disproportionately benefit the established parties and politicians who have a greater amount of wealth at their disposal. Why do you think such professionalisation is a “severe health hazard for India’s democracy”?
For any electoral system to be truly resilient, there needs to be a level playing field – where candidates, regardless of their background, have a fair shot at competing. That’s one of the basic principles of electoral integrity. In the long run, the vibrancy of India’s democracy also depends on whether new parties and fresh voices can enter the system and challenge the status quo. But this is exactly where the professionalisation of election campaigns becomes a health hazard for Indian democracy. Today, the average candidate contesting an election in India who can afford the services of campaign professionals tends to be someone with deep pockets and access to big donors. Hiring an entire ecosystem of professionals – from data analysts to video editors to social media influencers – demands serious money. Unsurprisingly, this gives a major advantage to established parties with large war chests, often backed by corporate funding, while newer or smaller parties struggle to keep up.
Of course, as I said before, hiring campaign professionals doesn’t guarantee electoral success. There will always be outliers – candidates from humble socio-economic backgrounds or challenger parties that defy the odds. But over time, these will become exceptions rather than the norm. The structural bias in favour of the wealthy and well-connected will only deepen. There’s also another consequence we need to take seriously: the professionalisation of disinformation. What was once the work of fringe actors has now become a full-blown industry. Misinformation campaigns can now be outsourced, scaled up, and tailored with disturbing precision.
What are the consequences of the concentration of real political power in the hands of a small technocratic elite corps and how can it affect the potential of India’s party system?
One of the key findings in my book is that the workforce behind India’s growing industry of political campaign professionals is drawn from a remarkably narrow slice of Indian society. These are overwhelmingly urban, upper-middle-class, and upper-caste individuals, with access to elite education and technical skills. It is also a highly male-dominated space. While this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise – access to such skills is still deeply shaped by class and caste privilege in India – it does raise serious questions about who gets to influence the democratic process from behind the scenes. What should concern us is that this small technocratic elite now enjoys disproportionate access to the top leadership of political parties and plays a crucial role in shaping the strategic direction of election campaigns. That means the actual content of campaign messaging – what gets said, how it’s said, and to whom – is increasingly filtered through the lens of a very privileged few.
This development is particularly troubling when viewed in contrast with one of the most important shifts in Indian politics since the 1990s: the process of mandalisation, which increased representation of the backward castes and Dalits in legislatures across the country. That expansion of political inclusion was hard-won. The rise of shadowy campaign professionals who shape narratives from boardrooms – often without meaningful ties to the constituencies they target – risks undoing some of the progress that mandalisation helped usher in. Although these professionals often present themselves as neutral, “data-driven” experts, my research suggests otherwise. Their elite backgrounds subtly but powerfully shape the kind of political communication they produce. For instance, pollsters routinely use caste categories to segment voters, yet the deeper ethos of caste-based social justice rarely features in their strategic thinking. What results is a form of technocratic politics that is efficient on the surface but hollow at its core.
How do you see the evolution of political campaigning in future elections as we are witnessing rapid developments in the field of AI and data analytics. What are some potential risks to democracy and party politics from such rapidly evolving technologies?
As AI and data analytics continue to reshape the terrain of political campaigning, we’re seeing growing pressure on campaign professionals to constantly deliver the “next big thing” in political communication. Their incentive is clear: the more dazzling the innovation – be it a 3-D rally, a viral AI-generated meme, or a persuasive deepfake video – the more likely they are to attract new political clients. That’s one reason why the 2024 General Elections in India witnessed significant hype around AI-generated content: it promised novelty, speed, and emotional impact.
But beneath the surface, these tools are set to intensify two existing problems that I noted before: the growing imbalance of political finance and the chaos of information. Wealthier candidates and larger, more established parties are far better positioned to deploy these technologies, widening the gap between them and their less-resourced rivals. At the same time, the scale and sophistication of disinformation – especially when cloaked in humour, satire, or catchy visuals – will only grow, making it harder for citizens to distinguish between what’s authentic and what’s fabricated.
There’s a deeper risk here as well, one that goes beyond the question of who wins an election. In one of her last public interviews, the philosopher Hannah Arendt observed quite presciently that “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.” I think we are entering a similarly perilous phase. The danger with deepfakes and constant disinformation isn’t that Indian voters are gullible or too prone to be misled, it’s that the endless cycle of fake news, fact-checking, and more fake news breeds a toxic cynicism – people begin to disengage, to feel that truth itself is inaccessible, that nothing in politics can be trusted. In the long run, this kind of disillusionment may be even more damaging to democracy than misinformation itself.
There is a marked rise in disinformation campaigns and the spread of fake news via social media platforms when it comes to political campaigning during election time. How do political consultants navigate such ethical challenges and how can this impact the trust of voters and the overall democratic setup?
In the public domain, political consultants are quick to disavow any association with disinformation. But the reality is quite different. Within the industry, it’s an open secret that disinformation tactics are part of almost every political consultancy firm’s toolkit. In private conversations I’ve had during my research, the top leadership of these firms tend to adopt a range of responses to the problem. Some brush it off as a minor issue that will eventually fade away on its own as voters become more circumspect. Others take a more cynical stance, admitting they feel no ethical compunction in using such methods if they serve the interests of their client. That said, it’s rarely the senior leadership that executes these tasks themselves. The job of managing campaign operations – including the more ethically dubious tasks – typically falls to middle-rung employees embedded at the grassroots level of a constituency. And from what I’ve observed, this is where the discomfort often lies. Many of these staff members express real unease with the tactics they are asked to implement. It’s not uncommon for them to quit their jobs in the middle of the campaign, contributing to the high turnover that plagues political consulting firms in India.
Additionally, one of the things I try to do in the book is to expand how we understand disinformation. For me, disinformation is more than just politicians telling us lies. Disinformation also hides in plain sight – in the form of algorithmically driven micro-targeting, in the clever meme that cloaks a communal dog whistle, or in the forwarded WhatsApp joke that subtly normalises prejudice. These tactics are often so seamlessly integrated into our media diets that we don’t register them as manipulative. The real challenge, then, isn’t just regulatory – though that’s important – it’s about cultivating more critical and discerning citizens. Voters need to ask not only what is being communicated to them, but how that message reached them and why they were chosen to receive it. Without that kind of awareness, trust in democratic processes will continue to erode, even as campaign innovations reach new heights.
