One in three Cabinet ministers increased Instagram activity after Modi's push
In today’s age, when parents send their children a WhatsApp message and hear nothing back, they recognise the disconnect. Young India is forever on its
In today’s age, when parents send their children a WhatsApp message and hear nothing back, they recognise the disconnect. Young India is forever on its phones, but it now communicates on Instagram, Snapchat and other spaces where parents often cannot even find their children. That is the divide between the WhatsApp and the Instagram generation. The same disconnect was mirrored between the BJP-led NDA govt at the centre and the young protesters at Jantar Mantar. It became evident when a movement of “cockroaches” took to the streets and protested for education reforms for more than five weeks, culminating in Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. Cabinet ministers posted 13 per cent more on Instagram, rising from 374 total posts to 423 Read Full Story Instagram became the ground where whispers turned into a movement. Then PM Modi’s selfie-styled video drew huge engagement on Instagram. Perhaps that was the moment the BJP understood that the landscape of political conversation had moved for the young India.
Soon after, the Prime Minister reportedly asked his ministers to become more active on the platform. The government had finally entered the room. India Today’s Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) analysis found that 11 of the 30 Cabinet ministers increased their Instagram activity, pushing the overall posting volume up by 13% from the previous week. The analysis covered the ministers’ individual Instagram accounts between July 13 and 26, excluding the Prime Minister. After the violence during the Chalo Sansad march on June 20, the Instagram activity of PM Modi’s Cabinet ministers saw a noticeable spike. An online Instagram scraper was used to collect data from the ministers’ public accounts. Top 10 most active Cabinet ministers on Instagram showed sharply different posting patterns across the two weeks The clearest outlier was Virendra Kumar, the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment. After a silent week between July 13 and 19, his account produced 60 posts over the next seven days, that is, more than eight posts a day.
Mansukh Mandaviya, the Union Minister for Labour and Employment, went from one post to 20, and Sarbananda Sonowal from one to 13. S. Jaishankar and Giriraj Singh roughly doubled their output, while Kiren Rijiju, Manohar Lal, C. R. Patil and Bhupender Yadav also became more active. J. P. Nadda and Jitan Ram Manjhi, both absent from Instagram the previous week, returned to the platform with 3 and 1 post each. Giriraj Singh and C. R. Patil remained the Cabinet’s most prolific accounts, with 92 and 82 posts respectively. Ministers such as Nitin Gadkari, HD. Kumaraswamy, Piyush Goyal, Ashwini Vaishnaw and G Kishan Reddy also remained among the top 10 overall, largely because of their high posting frequency in the first week. Top 10 Cabinet Ministers by Instagram Engagement, July 13–26 The engagement figures add another layer. Over the two-week period, Pralhad Joshi and Chirag Paswan drew the largest share of interactions, while Amit Shah, Ashwini Vaishnaw, S.
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