DISCLAIMER: It has been a long time since I have typed out my thoughts, more familiar as I am with verbal debate. The latter offers a comforting fluidity and the ability to spontaneously modify arguments and generate new ideas when facing an intelligent opponent by using their own worthy counters. Apologies on the length of the article, I find it hard to express myself concisely. It may be that my argument may lack coherence – I urge you to ask me in this case, and apologize for it, I’m really out of practice. Criticism and feedback always appreciated. Opinions expressed here are personal, and readers are of course free to agree/disagree. My only request is to keep your opinions civil, as part of my aim in writing this is to expand my own horizons by hearing others’ views.
I was having a conversation with my friend Arushi the other day in which we were discussing the fairly broad spectrum of Indian politics. A point that came up in our arguments, that since has stuck with me, is the power of social media in creating, shaping, or warping public opinion and how this Pandora’s box has been opened at possibly the worst time for India. I am perhaps being alarmist and too harsh on my fellow youth, but hear me out please.
The Arab Spring and the uprisings of Tunisia and Egypt specifically first alerted the world to the potential political weight of social media. More, it proved as THE gateway to bringing the attention of the youth to mainstream politics. In India, we had our own revelations during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. For the first time in a generation at least, a political movement united vast numbers of youth with manic fervor. This, in a country where if you walk an average uptown market and ask young people the names of prominent political position holders of the country, they are usually clueless (this is me quoting a fairly popular video, I’m sorry I don’t have the link at the moment).
As the movement spun off into the Aam Aadmi Party, and as the focus of both the media and the general populace shifted to the party, they (very intelligently, it must be said) continued to use social media in an extremely effective fashion to further solidify their credibility: they quoted government sources, reports, independent experts, and exposed corruption and inefficiency at many levels. Remember, this was the original party before even the first Delhi elections, back when their agenda was fairly clear and straightforward, and their political ambitions had only begun to evolve. What they later became is another discussion that will be far too large a digression for this article.
It cannot be denied their tactics were successful. Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter were filled with Kejriwal and his colleagues’ latest exposes, and these were effective. Now I reveal some personal opinion, against which I am sure many voices will be raised, and my only request is that the arguments stay civil and avoid ad hominem attacks, strawmen, tu quoque and the like. So, unfortunately, this power of social media was keenly observed and subsequently used by the BJP as well when campaigning for the 2014 elections began. The reason I use the word “unfortunate” is because of some very key differences in how the BJP used social media and how the anti-corruption movement and the original AAP had done so.
When BJP began its campaign, it used social media to promote its message as it would use any other medium. This one simply allowed it vastly improved reach. The problem lay in the fact that political campaigning in our country starts off in a very benign fashion, but rapidly degrades into a slander-fest. The same happened in this case as well. Originally, it was the BJP’s official handles that started quoting instances of misgoverning by the previous government in an effort to turn public opinion against them. Afterwards, however, the various unofficial handles run by supporters and/or sympathizers turned to these tactics as well. As the wars of opinion began in the comments sections, the posts started becoming more and more virulent and slanderous. “Truths” were dug up and pasted across Facebook about Nehru and Indira Gandhi. “Horrors” committed by the RSS were tossed out in response.
The problem worsened when labelling started permeating the discussions. BJP supporter? Nationalist, bigot, “bhakt”, anti-poor. Congress supporter? Pro-corruption, “Congressi”, “Pappu”, anti-development, “sickular” (I intend to devote a future entry solely on how much I loathe this term). AAP supporter? “AAPtard”, wasted vote (this was 2014, remember), idealist idiot, naïve. The list is virtually unending. I have a fundamental problem with the concept of labelling: it degrades an individual/entity by highlighting only a single view and completely disregarding everything else. Was the UPA an inefficient government? Hell yes, but at the same time UPA-I had very well-established relations with the US thanks to Manmohan Singh’s personal efforts, that allowed the current day BJP to reap the benefits in the form of the civil nuclear power agreement. The National Food Security Act was also their brainchild and did indeed help thousands of people in the country. Is the RSS responsible for heinous acts of violence and bigotry? No doubt, but they are also responsible for a significant amount of charity work, especially when natural disasters strike the country (e.g. Bhuj earthquake, Uttarakhand floods, etc.). Was Modi the mighty terrorist behind the 2002 riots? I cannot say for sure, but let us not so easily dismiss that when he asked for help in maintaining law and order from the neighbor states of Maharashtra and MP, the Congress-led governments there gave him the cold shoulder. Was voting for AAP a wasted vote and naiveté in the extreme? Maybe, but my vote is for me to cast for what I believe in. Since when did that become “wasting” a vote?
You see how the perspective gets distorted here. This is exactly the kind of base libel that started permeating social media, and revealed a characteristic flaw of our generation. As long as the message resonated with our own beliefs (which were themselves at least partially influenced by popular opinion), the post was further shared without any confirmation or fact checking. Because who will take the trouble of doing this? After all, if some noble soul has taken the effort of going into the personal life and history of Nehru and penned down the sordid details so efficiently, then it must be true, right!?
Another thing that came about (or shall I say resurfaced) is the pervasiveness of false dichotomies. Not supporting BJP? You must be an anti-development Congressi then! Voting for BJP? Sanghi terrorist. This phenomenon is related to the previously mentioned point on labelling. Since when did political opinion become so simplistic, especially with parties as diverse as they are in our country? For this one, I squarely blame the BJP’s media wing. BJP was leaps and bounds ahead of the Congress when it came to social media, and consequently this labelling began from their camp. Of course, counters soon came up from the Congress and other parties as well, but to me, it seems quite clear where it started.
The internet promises anonymity, and that is something that has always brought out some of the worst in humanity. Flinging arguments, abuses and personal attacks is always easier when your opponent is just a name on a screen, rather than a living, breathing person. The cognitive load in shouting someone down with abuses is so much lower than refuting an argument by doing research and using facts. Facebook has bred in us this insatiable thirst for maximum likes and maximum shares, and of course, a humorous or caustic one-liner is just so much more eye-catching than a wall of text of facts, figures and sources. It is also easy to refute arguments by using personal attacks, respond to criticism with criticism, and reduce complex arguments to black-and-white loaded questions like “so rather than vote for BJP and development, you would vote for Congress and keep the country poor?” I wish it were that damn simple. Supporting some policies DOES NOT mean that you support EVERYTHING a party stands for, and as a responsible voter it is your DUTY to publicize what you do not stand for, so your elected representatives are able to modify their policies to suit their electorates’ needs (talking ideal world here).
Arushi made a very valid point that this eminence of social media as the dominant forum for political debate, and its subsequent corruption, was inevitable. Perhaps she is right. After all, the tool had been used and was easily available. But by tossing the admittedly sick flavor of Indian politics into it, I believe the BJP’s actions may have forever tarnished its inherent ability to affect real social change and promote inclusion and healthy discussion. If today you are to step forth with differing opinions into the increasingly murky waters of Facebook and Twitter, the best you can hope to receive is derision, and the worst, death threats. When people talk about intolerance these days, I think not of the polarizing communal incidents that have been in the media spotlight, as these have been sadly happening in our country for decades; I think more of the fact that voicing a differing opinion today means inviting a dissection not of your argument, but of your character, your religion, your background, your career, your education (or lack thereof), your family, and damn near anything else that can be used to erode your argument EXCEPT facts themselves. This is the real intolerance in this country: that we as a generation fail to respect the power of social media as a tool NOT for shouting our opinion at those whom we disagree with, but as a tool that collates perspectives from people of vastly differing backgrounds and offers more agreeable solutions to the population at large. My opinions on which side is currently “winning” and why I may express later in a separate post, as this one is already too large.
Why I feel this twisting of social media could not have come at a worse time is because we are a transitive generation. The ones coming after us will be much more immersed in technology than we are, and already it pervades their daily lives even more than ours. After all, the major leaps in social media have only happened in the last decade. Is this really the kind of legacy we want to leave behind for future generations? That the loudest, most aggressive opinion is the right one, and disagreeing with it is foolishness? Culture and political debate are a fluid playing field, and are influenced by the people while influencing them in turn. If all our generations know is the worth of aggression, repetition, and virulence, then I shudder to think what kind of politics this country will see a decade from now. As it is, we have too many Owaisis, Sadhvi Prachis, Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musalyars, and Yogi Adityanaths than we need.
the credible hulk 