The government’s fumbling effort to regain youth attention online

At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Union ministers were handed report cards. They were not being assessed for their performance as ministers but on how active and effective they have been on social media.

Each minister was ranked based on an evaluation of their social media presence between May 1 and August 15, a period that includes the nationwide youth protests over the alleged irregularities in competitive exams.

Each minister was compared not just with their Cabinet colleagues, but also against leaders of other political parties on platforms such as Instagram, X and Facebook, according to reports.

The parameters included average number of posts per day, engagement per post, the number of likes, number of followers their accounts have and the overall level of public interactions.

The ministers were told to step up their activities on social media and focus more on expanding their presence online.

Not everyone was impressed by this approach. The Modi government, it seemed, was privileging online engagement over real governance. “The priorities of this government are clear,” one social media user wrote. “It’s mostly about propaganda.”

Ministers have public relations teams to handle their social media accounts. But including their online presence in the matrix to evaluate their performance would incentivise them to spend more time recording vertical videos – presumably to...

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