When Religion Becomes a Weapon
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| Image by Gemini AI |
Social media was meant to connect us, but in recent
years it has become a powerful amplifier of sectarian anger and abuse in India.
I have chosen to lie low on Facebook, the only platform I used actively. I have
an X account meant for blogging-related activities. My Instagram account is used
only to connect with my former students. These platforms are all dreadful
places, that’s why I chose to sit in the shadow.
The kind of language people use on
these platforms to uphold their religion and gods and their “glorious ancient
culture” is alarmingly shocking. Apart from the abusive and crude language are
the various kinds of distortions. Often the context is removed or altered in
order to make someone’s utterance sound antinational or anti-Hindu. There’s a
lot of doctored media circulating in these spaces. Specific persons and
communities are identified and attacked.
Who benefits out of all these?
As far as I understand, only politicians of a particular party and religious community
benefit; they use these to consolidate a base using fear and intimidation.
From 2014 onwards, India has been
using politics to spread hatred against non-Hindus. Modi’s BJP has been
wielding the ideology called Hindutva to portray Muslims and Christian as
outsiders or threats. This framing has now moved from fringe rhetoric to
mainstream political discourse, shaping how voters and partisans see each
other.
In 2024, parliamentary election year,
266 anti-minority hate
speeches by senior BJP leaders – mostly in the April-June election period –
were live-streamed on YouTube, Facebook, and X via official party/leader
accounts. High-profile leaders including Modi, Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath
have leveraged their massive digital following to amplify exclusionary,
fear-based narratives.
In 2024, the BJP organised 340
hate-speech events, a 580% increase from the previous year. The party was
behind one-third of the hate-speech incidents, a near sixfold rise from the
previous year. Most of these events took place in Maharashtra, UP, Assam,
Bihar, and Delhi.
Of 1,165 hate-speech events in 2024,
995 were first uploaded or livestreamed on social media. In the following year,
1,278 of 1,318 events were shared online. Facebook topped the statistics.
What’s frustrating is that most of
the hate-speeches are delivered by Union/state ministers, governors, or elected
representatives. When leaders in power reiterate tropes like Muslims as
infiltrators and Christians as converters, it legitimises prejudice
and embeds discriminatory rhetoric in mainstream discourse.
Imagine a union government pursuing
or enforcing laws and policies meant to disenfranchise its own people who
belong to minority communities. And that’s just what the Modi government did in
the name of CAA, NRS, UAPA, anti-conversion and cow-slaughter laws.
Human Rights Watch reports that the BJP
governments in various states have vilified religious minorities, cracked down
on critics, pressured media to self-censor, and carried out unlawful
demolitions targeting Muslims.
It is at once shocking and farcical
that everything in India today – from stone to animal – has a religion. Religion
is the biggest killer in India now! Social media is the battlefield of these
killers.
Animal and stone has and had a mystical aura. That is the secret of Hinduism's pluralistic outlook and it's tolerance... What it has become now under Hindutva is magical obscurantism, reifying symbols into weapons of intolerance.
ReplyDeleteThat Hinduism discovered the sacred in all that existed - in theory, at least - was great. Now it discovers enemies and threat in almost everything and everyone.
DeleteThat is not Hinduism, but a pretender.
DeleteReligious extremists have always distorted their faith to further their own ends and social media is making it possible for them to reach a wider audience of susceptible people. Hatred is on the rise the world over.
ReplyDeleteIndeed this malady has spread all over. God must have died of grief by now.
DeleteReligion is the opium of the people.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of communist saying. Of course communism tried to copy religion in many aspects. Everything that people organize serves themselves. It's the same with religions. They serve to rule the masses.
Communism is a religion! It believes in the possibility of a utopia though they don't call it Paradise or Heaven. However, Marx didn't wish to discard religion which he thought of as a painkiller (opium).
DeleteTwitter was destroyed when Elmo took it over, and now it just amplifies a certain rhetoric. That's why I jumped to Bluesky. If you have access, you might want to try them. Of course, social media is a mess anyway, so I can understand if you don't want to partake of any other platforms.
ReplyDeleteElmo - I wasn't aware that he's also known by that name. Apt. I'll just have a loot at Bluesky, though I think it isn't popular here in India.
DeleteMy main grip about social media is algorithm, it like be caught in an echo chamber. But i don't see my self giving it up. But I sure cut back.
ReplyDeleteI might as well give my one hoot. It sure can feed ones ego. Sure glad I'm not all the fragile.
I'm like you in this regard - I don't like social media but also can't live entirely without it.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteaha... I find that several of your posts have not reached me... (other blogs too.. naughty Blogger!)... yes, there is no doubt that those channels such as the infamous X and other quick-fire social media lines have permitted all sorts of nonsense in the world. Even over the past day or so in the USA there has been an attempt by the government there to do something of the same sort that Modi and his ilk have been doing in India. I continue to despair... YAM xx
I reported a few posts on Facebook. But the platform told me the posts conformed to its community standards. If Modi is criticized they will block that. But most other toxic material is permitted.
Delete