Saffron XML, Hindu Coding!

'Election PR management and marketing' has to be a huge market in India. Every time a major election comes calling we see extremely innovative campaigns from various parties, some of them like the modi masks, phone with Vajpayee's messages, VCD propaganda by the BJP, youtube campaigns etc. Most of these campaigns have targetted the general public and might have had varying dgrees of success.
But, what do you feel when you are in the w3c schools website (w3c schools is the world's largest free e-learning site on web technologies and a pioneer in building most of the latest web protocols) and suddenly you see a banner urging you to vote for the BJP? I can see that the BJP has done some clever market segmentation and strategically placed the 'LK Advani for PM' campaign in one of the most popular technology sites on the web. But I found it extremely intrusive and out of place.
'Context' is very important for our mind to form an impression about a campaign. An out and out political campaign is not something I expect to see in a pure technology blog. Moreover, I cannot associate the image of 'internet technology, web2.0' etc with a party like BJP. For me the word 'internet and the world wide web' throws up images of freedom, creativity, expression, collaboration, a world without boundaries and discrimination etc. and on the other hand the term 'BJP' brings to my mind images in complete contadiction to the earlier term - 'religious fanaticism', 'fear', 'discrimination and non-tolerance', 'hatred', 'me put in a jail and being watched and dictated all the time', 'control', 'idea paralysis'.
When your brain receives contradictory images and signals - it should go into a state of confusion and denial. That's exactly what happened to me after I saw that extremely brash and intrusive BJP campaign on a w3c schools page. Sample these images and think whether the w3c campaign by the BJP will ever appeal to you:

Enticement of Hindu religious sentiments through the Rath Yatra and the destruction of Babri Masjid catapulted BJP from a party that had merely 2 seats in the lok sabha in 1984 to 119 seats in 1991.
























Though the main party has toned down on it's 'Hindutva' propaganda after it started backfiring in recent times, the fact remains that BJP is part of a saffron conglomorate deeply rooted in the idea of a Hindu nation with labyrinths of radical, violent and armed idealogues.

And there you go - Advani featured on the w3c schools website. Sorry Mr. aspiring PM - I can't associate you with anything progressive, leave alone a 'western' website that advocates free learning and creativity.
Reposition yourself as a tolerant, forward looking, inclusive party that does not breed religious animosity and may be then this campaign might work. But, that is a long drawn out process and till then you should be rethinking your web campaign strategy.