By Pallab Bairagya

Electoral Victory and the Rise of Political Visibility 

With the emergence of the electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, there has been a significant increase in the visibility of political expression in the public sphere. In particular, support for the ruling party has become more visible on social media, in neighbourhood relations, public festivities, and conversations in daily life, while the Trinamool Congress opposition’s expressions have mostly been subdued and cautious. More than being a direct reaction to the victory, this was a result of the change in the context in which the political stances were being articulated and negotiated publicly.

However, the increase in the visibility of support for the ruling party is not an indicator of a change in the ideological stance of people. The victory of a party creates a climate of legitimacy, stability, and power in the minds of people, and in this situation, it becomes more socially rewarding to identify oneself with the victorious party. This may reflect social conformity, the perceived need for safety, or the social and political benefits associated with aligning with the winning side. Therefore, an increase in the visibility of the support does not necessarily indicate a change in the political conviction of the individuals.

This dynamic is not unique to West Bengal. In South Asian democracies, election results shape both the institutional configuration of power and the norms around public speech. A similar pattern was evident in Bangladesh following the recent election. The newly victorious party determines who is bold enough to speak up, whose opinions gain legitimacy, and whose voices may be repressed or recede from public discourse out of self-concern. Consequently, the public sphere becomes a battlefield in which political authority is performed, recognized, and negotiated.

With these considerations in mind, the article tries to answer a series of interconnected questions. Why does the visibility of the victorious party increase after an election win? Is it ideological change or a matter of strategic adaptation to social conditions? Who is heard and who is silenced in the public sphere? What part do digital platforms play in elevating one political narrative and suppressing another? Finally, how do such transformations redefine democracy and citizenship?

It is evident that political speech is determined not just by personal beliefs but also by social dynamics and power dynamics. Political opinions are not expressed in a void of society. On the contrary, people adjust their social behavior according to changes in the political environment.

Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) idea of hegemony provides a vital theoretical tool for examining this issue. In essence, Gramsci claimed that political rule does not derive from state institutions and coercion but rather from the creation of consent via the transformation of particular ideological ideas into “common sense.” It can be argued that political dominance often leads to enhanced legitimacy of political slogans, symbols, language use, and other elements of political discourse. This implies that increased visibility of political allegiance after elections does not indicate an increase in actual political support but a legitimization of political discourse in the eyes of the wider public.

Political psychology theories provide a useful addition in this context. The bandwagon effect, along with the spiral of silence, allows one to understand how political outcomes affect political discourse through the following process: as citizens view particular ideas as politically successful, they are going to be more likely to identify with them while at the same time not wanting to voice their opinion on an issue viewed as politically incorrect or unpopular. It means that victory in elections can change not only political power relations but also the positioning of individuals in the public sphere.

Digital media accentuates these dynamics even more. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X do not just enable political communication but also shape how the visibility of such discourse is generated by algorithmic amplification, whereby content that garners higher engagement gets amplified, whereas other views are relegated to oblivion. This means that the digital public sphere generates a technology-driven understanding of politics, which makes some views so dominant even when there is diversity of opinion in the public realm.

The three dimensions of legitimacy, adaptation, and algorithmic amplification work together to determine how new patterns of political visibility emerge after electoral success. It becomes especially important to consider these dynamics in South Asia, where elections coexist with patronage systems, regional power dynamics, and identity politics. This means that political expression is shaped not only by ideology but also by legitimacy, adaptation, conformity, and algorithmic amplification.

Ideological Change or Strategic Adaptation? 

This expansion of political legitimacy through electoral success takes place concurrently on psychological, social, institutional, symbolic, and technological planes. The process starts with the achievement of symbolic legitimacy. In democratic societies, electoral results can be taken to mean a confirmation of popular sovereignty, giving the victorious party an appearance of being not only politically successful but also socially legitimate. Social acceptance of identifying with the successful party thus becomes ever more legitimate and rewarding.

For example, after the BJP’s electoral success, phrases like “Jai Shree Ram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” became more visible on social media, at public celebrations, and even in daily discourse in West Bengal. The online discourse often frames them in the context of their association with Hindutva and cultural nationalism. Whether there was any increase in ideological legitimacy is questionable; nevertheless, the increased public usage gave the impression of higher social legitimacy. Symbolic legitimacy was also reflected through the use of the saffron colour, references to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, and the selective use of historical narratives in political discourse in Bengal, such as memory of the 1946 Calcutta killings, Partition, and the political history of Hindu–Muslim relations in Bengal.

These forms of political symbolism also involve changes in perceptions regarding political power and expressive safety. Perceptions about the shifting power of politics can affect the degree of confidence with which people would express their political preferences. In light of the BJP’s electoral success, people began to think that slogans like “Jai Shree Ram” were more openly accepted than before, when they were used with caution in certain situations. A similar shift can be seen in Bangladesh, where “Joy Bangla”, the official slogan of the Awami League, had been highly prominent in public political discourse, while “Bangladesh Zindabad” became more visible following the subsequent change in political power. Furthermore, people started to talk again about the previous intimidation that people experienced regarding their political views in educational institutes, political party circles, and even neighborhoods. Whether the stories shared were representative or not is not a decisive factor; however, their mere sharing added to the perception of the shift in terms of political confidence.

These challenges become even more acute in digitally mediated settings. Conformity pressures increase through processes of trolling, ridicule, and organized cyberbullying. Individuals criticizing the BJP, especially about the theme of religious majoritarianism or intolerance, have in some instances faced bullying via online comments. On the other hand, in the aftermath of the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, some supporters of the BJP found themselves ridiculed with terms like “chaddi” or “gomutra drinker” in the wake of the Trinamool Congress victory. While the process occurs with only some members of the online community, the publicity associated with such incidents leads to an increased perception that challenging the dominant party involves social repercussions.

In addition, institutional visibility reinforces such ideas. Victory marches, slogan campaigns, media visibility, symbolic performance, and even digital amplification all serve to enhance the visibility of the winning political organization. In West Bengal, the sight of saffron flags, images of Rama and Hanuman, victory marches, and the use of saffron-colored Abir were instrumental in creating the perception of an increasing BJP presence in the wake of their electoral gains. Similarly, the same sort of symbolic performances preceded the 2021 Assembly election in West Bengal, wherein green flags and “Joy Bangla” slogans became prominent in the wake of a Trinamool Congress victory. Altogether, offline performance and digitally augmented representation can create the illusion of consensus that goes beyond the reality of public opinion.

While there is no doubt that the increased visibility does not necessarily reflect a corresponding increase in public support, there is no reason for the rapid ideological conversion to be expected immediately after the election. Indeed, ideologies tend to develop slowly, with socialization, education, family influence, and material conditions playing a role.

This is reflected in the concept of preference falsification developed by Timur Kuran (1995). An individual often hides their true preference while making a public statement about a position considered safer, more beneficial, or more socially acceptable. In situations where political power comes with opportunities to access patronage, institutional benefits, and social safety, such an adaptation of behaviour may start as strategic, eventually develop into ideological commitment because of continued performance in public.

In the process of participating in politics, one’s beliefs regarding political matters themselves might be transformed. Those individuals who keep engaging themselves in certain political statements, symbols, and rituals will eventually adopt an identity that they previously used out of strategy, and thus, make a behavioural adaptation an ideological commitment.

Voice, Silence, and Digital Visibility

Consequently, the distribution of voice and silence within the public sphere cannot simply be viewed as spontaneous and politically neutral processes. Instead, it must be seen as something that results from the interplay between power, legitimacy, social conformity, and visibility facilitated by technology. Silence must not be defined as mere lack of participation, but as a tactic that is applied in the context of the unequal opportunity to express oneself. People constantly decide when, where, and under what conditions political speech can be made without facing unnecessary social or political consequences.

Visibility is further accentuated in the context of digital platforms because it turns into something that can be quantified through likes, shares, comments, and other types of engagement. Views that receive more visibility start to look like opinions shared by many people, whereas less visible views slowly disappear from the public eye.

The imbalance in this distribution has serious repercussions for democracy. Not only does democracy require the existence of the right to freedom of expression in the constitution, but also the ability of the citizenry to speak out without fear of being ostracized from society. Even in cases where these rights remain untouched, people can resort to self-censorship due to the fear of social isolation, exclusion, or other negative social consequences. Once certain positions in politics begin to be seen as socially normative, dissenting opinions are silenced to an increasing extent, without there being any need for any restriction on the freedom of speech.

The effects of this evolution are felt outside politics, redefining the concept of democratic citizenship itself. Political citizenship is increasingly becoming something that happens through catchphrases, profile pictures, hashtags, symbols of flags, and participation in various symbolic acts.

Together, however, these changes present a critical democratic dilemma: Is democracy best conceptualized as a mere system of institutional rule by electoral majorities, or does it have to sustain those circumstances within which opposing voices can maintain their social visibility and legitimacy? If political visibility is unevenly distributed, then a democratic system can sustain its legitimacy even as it systematically undermines its own pluralism.

This set of consequences calls for a more comprehensive rethinking of electoral politics as a mechanism for the redistribution of not only political power but also the very circumstances of political visibility and participation. Here, then, elections transform democracy both through the redistribution of political power and the public sphere itself.

Democracy, Citizenship and the Politics of Visibility

This analysis shows that electoral success does not merely change the institutional arrangements of power, but also the symbolic conditions under which political expression is made possible and legitimate in the public sphere. Electoral success changes who gets visibility as speakers and whose political expressions get relegated to the strategic silence that follows. Thus, political expression is constituted by a combination of ideology, social norms, strategic response, institutional legitimacy, and algorithmic visibility, and not mere ideological commitment.

The rise in visible political support after the election is not simply a sign of ideological change. It is, more significantly, part of the larger reorganization of the public sphere that takes place as a consequence of the legitimizing effects of elections on voice and silence. The analysis of democratic practice must go beyond the results of elections to look at the production and legitimization of political visibility. Democracy is sustained not only by competition in elections but also by the public sphere, where competing political voices are equally capable of visibility and legitimacy.

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Author’s Bio

Pallab Bairagya is a student of History with a specific interest in the modern era. He graduated from Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math, and completed an MA in History from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. He is currently pursuing a B.Ed. at Baba Saheb Ambedkar Education University, Kolkata. He is also a Volunteer Teacher at eVidyaloka, a not-for-profit organisation working to expand access to quality education for children in rural India through technology-enabled learning. His research interests include Modern India, Postcolonialism, South Asian Studies, Subaltern Studies, Cultural Studies and Film Studies.