The Nominate Me Selfie made the issue of female underrepresentation in Indian State Parliaments impossible to ignore. Female political party workers spread across 45,000 villages used WhatsApp to create personalized selfie resumes–citing their credentials–and bombarded male party leaders with them, during a large-scale, coordinated moment. These thousands of women demanding their overdue nomination to contest state elections triggered a massive response by the male party leaders who couldn't ignore the groundswell. As a result, a record number of female party workers was nominated, leading to a 25% increase in elected women.

In India, women make up over half of the grassroots political workers below state level working tirelessly in the field, but they’re dramatically underrepresented in Indian State Parliaments. As a result, critical women's issues like education, property rights, and safety are systemically overlooked. To move up, these women need to be nominated by their party leaders, 90% of them men.

Shakti, an NGO fighting for gender equality, and Times of India, India’s leading daily, wanted to make it impossible for male-dominated parties to turn a blind eye towards available female candidates and to nominate them to contest state elections.

Our challenge was to motivate female party workers–victimized by years of systemic bias–to ask for their due, while making male party leaders look up and acknowledge women party workers’ achievements and potential. For this, a classic campaign approach would not suffice.

We took an accessible and universal concept––the selfie––and used WhatsApp to turn it into a resume citing each female party worker’s credentials & accomplishments, alongside the ask for a long-overdue nomination to contest the next state election. We called it the ‘Nominate Me Selfie.’

We partnered with 140 NGOs on the ground and mobilized female party workers in 45,000 villages to create their ‘Nominate Me Selfie’.

Then we collected them all and–during a large-scale coordinated moment––bombarded male party leaders with ‘Nominate Me Selfies’ in the one place they couldn’t ignore, their phones.

Our solution needed to be simple, accessible, and scalable given the vast spread of the audience across 45,000 villages and multiple languages being spoken. The high penetration of mobile, WhatsApp (largest messaging platform in India) and the ubiquitousness of the selfie phenomenon, made the campaign strategy transcend skill, geography and language barriers.

Our approach also needed to be assertive without challenging authority given the hierarchical nature of party leadership and the cultural sensitivities involved.

The campaign mobilizes women to ask for their due without vilifying any party or party leader, simply flipping the narrative bias of women’s unavailability or readiness on its head by showcasing their presence and their noteworthy skills and achievements in a way that can't be ignored or discounted by male party leadership.

To create a sustainable movement that could span India’s vast geography, and many communities and languages, we partnered with over 140 NGOs across sectors. These trusted volunteers who–with their grassroots influence–have access to many households went door to door showing female party workers how to create Nominate Me Selfies.

To support them in their nomination bid, we then made sure all the selfies were sent to party leaders at the same time, creating an impactful moment that was impossible to ignore. Simultaneously, we sent the selfies to journalist and ran the “Half is us, half is ours” video campaign on social media, to increase the pressure.

The Nominate Me Selfie started in the state of Bihar (99 million residents), followed by West Bengal (90.3 million), Orissa (43.7 million) and Tamil Nadu (67.8 million) and can be rolled out in states wherever future elections take place.

Response to the campaign was immense. Initially, by local and national media, who picked up the story, amplified our message and increased visibility of the women party workers. Then, by the male party leaders who reacted to the many selfies they received by nominating a record number of female candidates.

In all states where the Nominate Me Selfie was used, the number of female candidates across political parties increased, resulting in elected female legislatives going up by 25%, the highest ever. In Bengal (90.3 million residents), the campaign resulted in the ruling party giving an unprecedented 45% of its tickets to women, while in Bihar 72 women were included in public policy committees. A crucial milestone.

More importantly, a pipeline of future female leaders was created, paving the path to a true democracy where women across the nation will have an equal voice, their issues addressed, and their rights respected.