India: Meet the 'Internet Hindus'
Decried by more liberal Indians as anonymous trolls and serial abusers, Hindu nationalists and other right wingers are making a serious play to dominate social media.
Jason OverdorfJune 18, 2012 06:00
A protest poster against the Indian government's increasingly restrictive
regulation of the internet outside a shopping mall in Bangalore on June 9, 2012
NEW DELHI, India — [HI]“Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees,” Indian television anchor Sagarika Ghose tweeted in 2010. “They come swarming after you."
[/HI][HI]The "Internet Hindus" Ghose refers to — actually, she coined the term — are right-wing bloggers and tweeters who seem to follow her every move, pouncing on any mention of hot-button issues like Muslims or Pakistan.
[/HI]Liberal journalists and netizens sympathized with Ghose's exasperation. [HI]But for right-wingers, it was like throwing gasoline on the fire.[/HI] Since Ghose's tweet, Hindu nationalists and other conservatives opposed to the Congress Party of Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have, if anything, multiplied and grown more organized — embracing Ghose's derogatory term and making it their own.
[HI]
Today there are perhaps as many as 20,000 so-called “Internet Hindus,” many tweeting as often as 300 times a day, according to a rough estimate by one of the community's most active members.
[/HI][HI]“You will find thousands with similar sounding IDs [to mine],” a Twitter user who goes by the handle @Internet_hindus said in an anonymous chat interview. “Some [others] prefer to openly do it with their own personal IDs."
[/HI]Freedom of speech
Internet Hindus, largely because of their numbers and influence, find themselves smack in the middle of India's censorship debate. There are signs the country's growing problem with controversial online content has already eroded legislators' commitment to free speech.
In April 2011, India added new rules to the 2000 Information Technology Act that required websites to remove content authorities deemed objectionable within 36 hours of being told do so. The amendment specifically targeted allegedly defamatory content and hate speech, but it was less than crystal clear how either could be identified reliably without an arduous trip through India's notoriously slow court system.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...hindus-hindu-nationalists-right-wing-politics
Decried by more liberal Indians as anonymous trolls and serial abusers, Hindu nationalists and other right wingers are making a serious play to dominate social media.
Jason OverdorfJune 18, 2012 06:00
A protest poster against the Indian government's increasingly restrictive
regulation of the internet outside a shopping mall in Bangalore on June 9, 2012
NEW DELHI, India — [HI]“Internet Hindus are like swarms of bees,” Indian television anchor Sagarika Ghose tweeted in 2010. “They come swarming after you."
[/HI][HI]The "Internet Hindus" Ghose refers to — actually, she coined the term — are right-wing bloggers and tweeters who seem to follow her every move, pouncing on any mention of hot-button issues like Muslims or Pakistan.
[/HI]Liberal journalists and netizens sympathized with Ghose's exasperation. [HI]But for right-wingers, it was like throwing gasoline on the fire.[/HI] Since Ghose's tweet, Hindu nationalists and other conservatives opposed to the Congress Party of Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have, if anything, multiplied and grown more organized — embracing Ghose's derogatory term and making it their own.
[HI]
Today there are perhaps as many as 20,000 so-called “Internet Hindus,” many tweeting as often as 300 times a day, according to a rough estimate by one of the community's most active members.
[/HI][HI]“You will find thousands with similar sounding IDs [to mine],” a Twitter user who goes by the handle @Internet_hindus said in an anonymous chat interview. “Some [others] prefer to openly do it with their own personal IDs."
[/HI]Freedom of speech
Internet Hindus, largely because of their numbers and influence, find themselves smack in the middle of India's censorship debate. There are signs the country's growing problem with controversial online content has already eroded legislators' commitment to free speech.
In April 2011, India added new rules to the 2000 Information Technology Act that required websites to remove content authorities deemed objectionable within 36 hours of being told do so. The amendment specifically targeted allegedly defamatory content and hate speech, but it was less than crystal clear how either could be identified reliably without an arduous trip through India's notoriously slow court system.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...hindus-hindu-nationalists-right-wing-politics
