India, the world’s largest democracy, prepares to kick off its election season in just a matter of weeks. But activists and experts worry that the government is cracking down on platforms and internet service providers to silence critical voices, and tighten its grip on the information ecosystem.
On January 16, Raqib Hameed Naik, an Indian journalist and founder of the website Hindutva Watch, received a notice from X, formerly Twitter, that the website’s account had been blocked, by order of the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). “I received frantic messages from people in India saying they cannot access the Hindutva Watch Twitter,” says Naik
Hindutva Watch, along with its sister site, the India Hate Lab, tracks incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government, helmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Press freedom declined under Modi, leaving fewer spaces for those reporting critically of the government and the impact of its policies on the country’s minorities. In the lead up to elections, where Naik predicts a “surge in hate crimes,” Hindutva Watch’s information may be more critical than ever.
How did India get like this? I imagine it’s the TV and news and now internet sites that pushed a large potion of the population into this extreme right wing?
The answer isn’t that simple. India always had its share of bigots. But until a decade ago, the same level of hate speech would have ended them up in jail.
The ruling party back then (congress) was a bit corrupt and the opposition back then (BJP, the current ruling party) used it to dethrone them. So you would expect the BJP to be less corrupt? No - they are much worse. But the BJP’s strategy was to subvert any institution that could challenge them - media, judiciary, CAG, investigation agencies…
Eventually the bigots realized that hate speech received no punishment. Meanwhile, BJP ensured that critical media was severely punished and oppressed. This is what led to the spread of bigotry in the media. While the crimes of their opponents are often exaggerated, their own crimes are rarely even mentioned. In true Nazi style, people were exposed to lies and half truths over a decade.
So, BJP are basically India’s equivalent of America’s Republican Party. Am I understanding this correctly?
Roughly, yes.
From independence this movement has been there. One must remember Gandhi was killed by them.
Wow thanks I had not realized this.
This is the oldest trick in the book: Scream ‘victim’ while doing horrible shit.
It’s all the fault of anteeefa! /s
If India is like every other country on Earth, most of its population are mouth breathing morons.
The idiocracy is spreading everywhere, the idiots around the world like idiocracy. See india, trump, orban, brexit boris, putin, ans other so called “right wing illiberal”-s. BTW orban was actually a commie back in those days… and still he is, see the govermental prices, everything centralised government, goverment success propaganda and demonization, etc, he work exactly like his commie predecessors, except of saying about himself “i am anticommunist right wing conservative”. He also voted down 24 times the opening of the communist agent files…
This really is accelerating.
Horseshoe theory strikes again
Its not a theory, its a fact for orban and its comrades. They were all in high function in hungarian “communist youth organization” (KISZ), or the older ones in “hungarian socialist people’s party” (the state party), until the fall of iron curtain. And now they more-less rebuilt that system in hungary. But now there are some demonstrations, because orban’s puppets as it turned out tha pardoned a convicted pedophile assistant, and released him from prison. The pedo helper K Endre is a good comrade around the orban family.
What do you think communism means?
Everyone is equal, in theory, which was never became reality. Thats why i call orban, stalin, putin, etc as commies, not communists. These are doing the same things: rule, and exploit people.
Well, you’re not using the typical meaning of the word.
Communism is really just a “stateless, moneyless, classless society”, built on the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. “Egalitarian” gets thrown around too but is considered inadequate by some for often meaning an equality of sorts between classes rather than the abolition of class.
“Commie” is just a derogatory word for “communist”. The distinction you’re making isn’t really meaningful.
Stalin and Mao were Marxist-Leninists. Perhaps they truly believed that a “vanguard” party controlling a totalitarian “socialist” state was the best way to reach communism. History of course proved them wrong - the way that they structured their states and economies unsurprisingly resulted in state capitalism.
Idk enough about Orban but he strikes me to be the same as Putin, a totalitarian capitalist.
Greed.