Should children be involved in political campaigning?

Should children be involved in political campaigning? left Children at a TVK campaign in Chennai. B. Jothi Ramalingam B. Jothi Ramalingam JOTHI RAMALINGAM B CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU, 15/04/2026: School childrens at the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam founder C. Joseph Vijay campaign at T.Nagar in support of TVK candidate for Thiyagarayanagar assembly constituency N.Anand on Wednesday. Photo: B.

Jothi Ramalingam / The Hindu PARLEY Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy of the Madras High Court recently said that it was for Parliament to consider whether involving children in campaigning should be made a ground for setting aside the election of candidates Tamil Nadu recently witnessed a game-changing election wherein the brand new Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party won the State elections in May, largely on the strength of its appeal among young people.

The younger the people were, greater was their enthusiasm for the TVK and actor Joseph C. Vijay, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In the run-up to the elections, many older voters told journalists that their children and grandchildren were telling them to vote for Mr. Vijay. Nation, Parliament must debate political appeals to children during elections: Madras High Court storyline 1 Recently, a candidate from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) went to court, arguing that Mr.

Vijay had appealed to children to persuade their parents to vote for the TVK, and that this was wrong. The High Court dismissed the petition but made some very critical remarks about the trend. Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy said that the entire act of involving tender children in elections “is in bad taste, and the tasks they are made to perform at home for making YouTube reels reflect poor parenting, besides being a cheap and politically motivated act.” He said that it was for Parliament to consider whether such acts should be made a ground for setting aside the election of candidates.

So, should children be involved in political campaigning? Andrew Sesuraj and Anil Pillai discuss the question in a conversation moderated by M. Kalyanaraman. Worth examining Vijay’s appeal to children to convince adults to vote for him, says judge citing personal anecdote storyline 1 What is your immediate take on this issue? Andrew Sesuraj: First of all, children do have the right to participate in politics.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child makes this clear. The problem here lies in the last leg of the election campaign. After actor Vijay appealed to young people to insist that their parents vote for his symbol, the whistle, saying, in effect, “pester your parents and elders to vote for the whistle, just as you pester them for a well-known chocolate brand”, I saw a large number of videos that same day of children at home arguing with their parents and the adults in their families that they should vote for Mr.

Vijay and the whistle. On polling day, I checked with some people about whom they had voted for. They said, “I voted for the whistle.” When I asked why, they said, “My son asked me,” or “My daughter asked me,” or “My granddaughter asked me.” They voted simply because the children pestered them. If my child speaks about school, about the food at school and at home, about the clothes she wears, the games she plays, or about going out to play on the playground, all of that matters, because these things affect her directly.

What matters is whose voice they are speaking in. They should not be tutored. Anil Pillai: This is a very common method in consumer marketing. You release campaigns and incentives aimed at children so that they will pester their parents and elders into making particular purchasing decisions for the household. What we are seeing now is a crossover from consumer marketing into electoral marketing, where a campaign tries to influence voters’ behaviour this way.

If you stop and examine the proposed influence pathway, it runs like this. The child has an attachment to a celebrity. That attachment produces enthusiasm in the child. The enthusiasm then leads to the pester effect, or “pester power” as it’s usually called: repeated requests to the parents. And that, in turn, puts pressure on their voting choices. Such a campaign is not merely persuading a voter; it is recruiting someone the voter loves to carry forward the persuasion.

Should children be involved in political campaigning at all? AP: To my mind, we must draw a useful distinction between helping children develop a political voice and using their voice to deliver an adult’s predetermined message. The UNICEF’s participation framework explicitly distinguishes between genuine participation and manipulation and tokenism. While children have a right to a political voice, they should not be turned into instruments of political persuasion.

I find this method of election marketing quite disturbing. Typically, a candidate goes to voters and says, “You should vote for me, and here are the reasons why. This is who I am today, this is what I will do tomorrow, and this is why you should support me.” Here the route is indirect. The message is: “Someone you love wants you to support me.” To my mind, that is highly manipulative and very problematic.

But isn’t that fairly common in campaigning? With adults, too, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? AP: No, it isn’t, because adults have agency. In many households, siblings, spouses and parents vote for different candidates in the same election, because each of them has agency. A grandchild does not have the agency to convince their grandfather on the merits of a candidate. The appeal is purely emotional: “I love this person for X, Y and Z, so if you love me, you should support him.” It’s a kind of perverse law of transitivity at play.

AS: Democracy cannot be strengthened on emotions. It depends on informed choices; choices you actually believe in. Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act deals with undue influence. The petitioner argued that telling children to persua…