A relatively new trend
that is gaining much popularity in the Indian online journalistic media is the
posting of vituperative comments anonymously.
Most such comments are overtly communal in nature and support or attack
a particular religion. If these comments
are analysed in sufficient detail, we may suspect that there are paid writers
who post comments for the sake of defending a particular party and its
religious ideology.
Some comments by one 'Ram' in the Indian Express |
Hitler and his Nazis made
use of similar strategies for propaganda.
Some of the most effective strategies used by the present dominant
ideology in India which considers certain animals more sacred than human beings
are very similar to those employed by the Nazis. For example: Posters and
slogans, Anti-Semitism/antinationalism, Use of the mass media for propagating
distorted truths, Mythologising the political party and its history, Projection
of one individual as the only efficient leader.
The Congress had become
too corrupt and inefficient without a ‘strong’ leader and India needed somebody
to pull it out of the quagmire in which it had been languishing. People saw such a leader in Mr Narendra Modi
in spite of his track record which carried a serious black stain in the form of
the 2002 Gujarat riots. Many Muslims
voted for Mr Modi thinking that the country would progress economically and
technologically. The Dalits certainly
voted for him. Unfortunately the Brahminic
underpinnings of the Sangh Parivar have bared their claws and fangs and the
very same people who supported Mr Modi are being attacked today in the name of
certain holy cows.
Unfortunately the holy
cows are gaining too many defenders in the mass media, particularly in the
comments spaces of leading newspapers.
This is a dangerous trend. It distorts history, creates new myths,
spills venom on people belonging to other religious communities, and vitiates
the very air of the country. It does a
lot of injustice to the economically weaker sections in the country that are
not able to defend their perspectives simply because they don’t have the access to such digital spaces.
What is happening in these
spaces is no less perfidious than the terrorist attacks which are more
conspicuous.
I feel that there is no transparency, there is hardly anyone to guide you right but more than hundreds are there to mislead. One needs to really have an open mind and an unbiased approach.
ReplyDeleteWhen the dominant ideology is rooted in hatred, nothing good will come off it.
DeleteThis is definitely a dangerous trend. In the cover of anonymity, lot of injustices are bound to happen.
ReplyDeleteIt's happening too.
Delete