US elections plays out on social media in India

Top business tycoons Harsh Goenka and Anand Mahindra led the ‘social’ brigade for Indian users on Wednesday, as Donald Trump ‘trumped’ Kamala Harris to claim the crown of the 47th president of the United States.

Goenka, chairman of RPG group, got poetic on social platform X (formerly Twitter), "Looks like Trump managed to ‘trump’ the odds—this time, not just in the land of stars and stripes, but winning over his friends in the land of sarees and spices too! #USAElections2024." 

Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra, sharing a protesting picture of Trump and a picture of Kamala Harris delivering a speech on the podium, noted, "It was a battle between these two images of identity. The one depicting America’s resilience & ‘never say die’ attitude won decisively. But America gains substantially from allowing both images to coexist in popular imagination…"

Also read | Trump’s win: India will have to adapt to a shift in how the US engages the world

Through the day, Indian social media users rolled out the memes and witty takes as the US presidential election results held the world in thrall.

Platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, in popular, were inundated with posts by Indian social media users to express their views, emotions, and humour. The top three trending hashtags on X in India on Wednesday were about US election results, with users sharing their views on hashtags #trump, #47thPotus and #USelection.

Apart from ‘regular’ netizens actively engaged with the US presidential election results, business tycoons such as Goenka and Mahindra, among others, and politicians also reacted to the news filtering in from the US, and influencers created content on it.

Trump, a prominent figure on social media known for his meme potential, ignited an exciting “meme fest” as the election results unfolded. Instagram overflowed with a multitude of reels and posts celebrating the incoming 47th US President.

“As Trump makes a lot of controversial statements and is generally funny on social media, him getting into power opens a whole lot of new content opportunity for Indian creators to create an audience to watch,” said Ayush Guha, business head of creator talent management agency Hypp told Mint.

Also read | US elections 2024 outcome is set to reshape India trade ties

Guha added that Indian users are creating content more for entertainment than news value, since the stakes are much lower compared to Indian elections, apart from any economic impact.

One of the standout creations was an AI-generated image featuring Trump and Elon Musk at a political rally, proudly wearing saffron kurtas in “the Indian way”. This image quickly rose to the top of popular meme pages across India, proving the global reach and influence of political discourse in the digital age.

Users shared their thoughts and expectations from Trump, who will take office in January 2025. 

Curiously enough, a common tweet in support of Trump read, “Donald #Trump has won the #Election2024, I will send $20 to 1000 people who like, retweet this post. That's a total of $20,000 ‘Go Trump’ #MAGA2024 #USAElections2024 #USAElection2024 #USPresidentialElection2024 #Trump2024 #Bitcoin #Vote2024 #Bitcoin #Bitcoin.”

Another tweet read “I thought this is fake, but it's dam true that, Elon Musk has changed the like button for the United State Elections. Like & Retweet for congratulating Trump #Trump #Trump2024 #Trump2024Vance #USAElections2024 #USAElections #USA2024 #USAElections2024.”

This tweet was uploaded from various Indian IDs, suspiciously making it appear like a paid effort, the head of an influencer marketing agency told Mint.

He added that social media users, who are mostly youngsters are mostly excited about the possibility of revival of cryptocurrency in Trump’s term, which is why many influencers are also creating content around it.

Also read: How social media fed politics and strained relations during 2024 polls

However, Archit Madaan, admin and founder of Indian sarcasm, who owns 15 meme pages, feels the posts were organic and motivated to go “viral” and were not paid, since US election candidates don’t need to influence Indian audiences to vote.

“In today’s day and age, meme pages are a medium of disseminating information so whatever is topical will go viral across social media pages as youngsters under 35 years of age consume their news on social media,” Madaan said.

Then, voices of disapproval, too, were out there on the social craze that gripped Indian users. Former IPS officer Yashovardhan Jha Azad took to X to express his concern on the active engagement of Indian netizens in the US elections, at a time when Russia and China have shown no such excitement. “Are we a vassal state?” his post read.

Pointing out that it is good enough that India’s larger interests and ties with the US would improve regardless of who wins, Azad fumed at the obsession with “irrelevant” issues.

“We obsess with trivia bcs (because) it’s more hep. After all discussing irrelevant US elections is more savvy than non sexy issues like pollution, disorder, political lowest depths, inflation, unemployment- which anyway have no solution. public discourse gone awry. We are 75 years behind,” his post said.