Spider-Man, Motu-Patlu, And A Greek Drama: BJP Casts Insta Meme Net For Gen-Z Attention

The BJP's main handle is depicted as Agron, a warrior from the series Spartacus. State-level Instagram and X accounts are lined up as soldiers. And their supposedly Greek war cry in English is Indianised for effect, complete with pledges to protect "Maa Bharati" (Mother India) against "Dimagi Naxals", the latter a recent coinage by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for those considered "anti-national".

This meme-cum-motivation speech is quite the capsule of the BJP's renewed social media strategy as the party hopes to deploy pop culture references and Gen-Z slang to connect with younger Indians.

It's not all Greek. Motu-Patlu and Spider-Man have made appearances in their own posts lately.

Digs at Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi are dressed as AI-generated cartoon strips, and dialogue boxes appear on photos of Rahul and his sister, fellow Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi, to show them rattled by a website "launched by Gen-Z" to challenge their claims and allegations against the BJP and its government.

Motu-Patlu, who've transitioned from being a millennial-favourite comic book to Gen Alpha's much-loved TV show, are shown praising infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh.

Rahul is taunted by using a bit from the movie American Psycho, too, in which Christian Bale's character cries in the lift; the on-screen caption reads: "RaGa realising yet another propaganda narrative failed!" The allegation is that Rahul has been hypocritical, selectively using Hinduism-related references, in his "Smash The Patriarchy" call at a Pune event for students.

Rapper Drake makes an appearance, as do words and expressions like "Borthaa", "It's Kinda Chic", and "It's Done Bro". The last of those carries a connection to where this Gen-Z focus apparently began. During the Cockroach Janta Party protest that forced the resignation of the education minister in July, actor Salman Khan had used "It's Done Bro" to ask activist Sonam Wangchuk to end his hunger strike. It was during that time that PM Modi took to using vertical selfie-format Insta videos to speak to the youth, whom he addressed as "Friends".

More recently, the BJP changed its social media head too, from long-time acolyte Amita Malviya to Deepak Mhaske, who earlier managed the party's social media in Chhattisgarh. The BJP's Chhattisgarh handle made national news amid all this when it shared a post contrasting "two types" of Gen Z. It juxtaposed a national award-winning young judoka with Mumbai-based dancer Urwashi Palandurkar, who'd made a viral video during the recent anti-government protests in Mumbai.

"Brothaa", for instance, is used in a caption highlighting a speech by Home Minister Amit Shah.

Clips from PM Modi's speeches, memorial posts for freedom fighters, and bullet-point graphics on government schemes are some formats the party continues to use as before.

The Congress's content is focused on the youth, too, since Rahul Gandhi's entire recent outreach has centred around the 'Chhatron ki Goon' ('Voice of Students') series of events, including the one in Pune exclusively for girls and women.

There is synergy, at least in visuals, in how both parties show their leaders interacting with younger people, such as PM Modi celebrating Raksha Bandhan with school students.

BJP's Mhaskey spoke to NDTV soon after his elevation, on August 18, and said Instagram is where his main focus will be. "Young people are mostly on Insta, so we will focus on disseminating information on government policies more via reels. We will work on specific content targeting young people on Instagram," Mhaskey said.

Gen Z - those born between 1997-2012, in case you did not know - makes up around a quarter of India's population. Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, make up at least another quarter.

Rahul Gandhi, 56, has termed the BJP, its parent body RSS, and PM Modi, 76, as "stuck in the past", quipping that "the past can never fight the future".

The BJP seems to want to focus on building bridges, and not fight, stringing memes together.