Messengers of Hate

Social media of late has emerged as an important alternative platform of reaching out to people. And for the 2014 elections, BJP used it to its optimum potential for campaigning. The dividends did pay well and BJP won with impressive numbers. However with an extensive use of social media as a socio-political platform, another trend became very common – the trend of decimating one’s ideological opponent by using vile, illogical, abusive language. Online abuse and being trolled by people espousing extreme ideologies is nothing new for those of us who have an active online presence. But what has changed in recent times is the organized way a particular person is targeted, the abuse often translates into death and rape threats and the online abuse at times spilling into real time violence.

Journalist Swati Chaturvedi’s new book I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of BJP’s Digital Army tries to substantiate this very claim. This book is largely based on the experience of Sadhavi Khosla, who volunteered and worked for two years with BJP’s digital wing under Arvind Gupta. Khosla who genuinely hoped for a transformed India was disgusted with targeted attacks on minorities, women journalists and finally called it quits after two years. The book traces how BJP’s ‘Digital Army’ works. These tech savvy young urban volunteers are very active as well as vociferous on websites and comment sections of news.

Swati Chaturvedi herself has faced vile sexually explicit threats on social media. In her book she tries to show the organized nature of such attacks. What makes it dangerous is that a specific target is chosen and then hounded in the most vociferous way. Chaturvedi also talks to some volunteers who work for BJP and tries to gauge the psyche of these people who can spew anti-minority, anti-women venom on demand. Chaturvedi takes up few specific incidents, like the targeting of actors Shahrukh and Aamir Khan who commented on the growing intolerance in the country. The e-commerce site Snapdeal was forced to drop Aamir as its brand ambassador and made to give a clarification that it was ‘a proud Indian company started by proud young Indians’.

The book also shows how a number of abusive twitter handles are followed by the Prime Minister himself and how when such an abusive handle was suspended, top notch BJP leaders were vehemently opposing the suspension quoting ‘freedom of expression’. However the book has seen mixed reaction from people. BJP was quick to dismiss the claims that trolling is done on the order of BJP leaders and they are just spontaneous response of people. Smita Barooah of BJP soon said Sadhavi was a nobody and never worked for BGP’s Digital Wing. She was a Congress ‘agent’ working on their payroll. Twitterati however was quick to quote a number of events in which Smita Barooah got together with Sadhavi Khosla to plan political propaganda of BJP.

The book reproduced screenshots of a number of whatsapp messages which asked volunteers to target specific individual, journalist or political opponent at given times. However the book has opened doors to claims and counterclaims. It also fails to prove the organized hounding on social media based on the testimony of Sadhavi Khosla and a few ‘anonymous’ volunteers.

Nonetheless the book focuses on a subject hitherto left unexplored – the use of extensive social media by political parties especially BJP. In its limited way it tried to understand the psyche of young men and the source of such masculinist pride which romanticizes mother India on one hand and issues rape threats to women on the other. It hints the possible connection between online hate campaigns and offline violence. Here Chaturvedi gives the example of how doctored videos were circulated and a hate campaign build against the ex-JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar and how it led to his physical assault by lawyers and BJP leaders like O P Sharma.

The book focuses on the role that RSS and its IT Shakhas play in training new recruits on how to use the platform of social media. This is also an aspect that needs to be looked into more closely. While most of us will agree to what the book says because of what we see around, the book opens a new avenue of research on right wing politics in India. Testimonies from diverse sections and a broader study carried out over a period of time will help in making a stronger case of how established political parties unleash organized hate campaign against opponents. Otherwise claims of different books will be reduced to mere war of words.