Avis Inde : right-wing

The Bhakt Story -How The Internet Troll Works

The trolls of the Bhakt genre are haunting the progressive and dissenting voices over the internet, especially on the social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Most of the time when anyone dares to type few lines against the Modi government, they are lambasted by a flock of upper caste Hindu men, and men disguised as women with a photograph of some random model in the profile. The dissenting voices are targeted as per their socio-economic position. A mere blogger and journalist like me, who has no fan following, will not draw the flak of the RSS mob as much like that of someone who is popular over the social media or in the world outside. This clearly indicates that the Bhakts wants to make their voice heard loud and clear to not only their target but also to them who follows their targets. They expect a fear psychosis to develop among the followers that will stop them from making their anti Modi voices public, which will again mean that there is no dissent in the country, an idle fascist dream.

I was closely observing the pattern of attack on the targets of trolls since the end of 2013, and over this period I found that these troll attack does not comes from mere BJP or RSS supporters who are online the whole day to threaten and intimidate the opposition. Do you remember how fast and how rapidly the Modi supporters called names to those who opposed Modi during the election campaigns of 2014; they will launch their attack as soon as something is posted against Modi. How could the mediocre and often technically handicapped knickers clad RSS Pracharaks do such things within fraction of seconds?

Later my investigation revealed that these activities are done in a systematic and organised way, under the commandership of the RSS headquarters (and their mass organisations along with BJP leadership) through a chain of IT service companies that have entered into a pact with the BJP and the saffron camp to promote their vision, win over supporters, spread misinformation, polarise the Hindu majority, targeting specially urban and rural upper caste Hindus on internet and moreover threaten and humiliate dissenters, Muslims, Dalits, Christians or anyone else who is not considered suitable to be in the ambit of ‘Bharatiya’ by Nagpur.

The curiosity increased over time regarding the modus operandi of these Bhakts that creates so much tremors in the social media and internet, so the investigation continued into further depths and took me to the outskirts of the national capital of Delhi, parts of outer Mumbai and I have to use contacts in and near Bengaluru to get the clear picture of how Modi Bhakts operate in the online kingdom.

BJP outsourced its online campaign management in parts to several IT and digital marketing companies under the leadership of Piyush Goyal, companies like Ogilvy & Mather's Piyush Pandey, McCann World group's Prasoon Joshi and Sam Balsara of Madison World worked overtime since BJP roped them to build brand Modi before the 2014 polls. While leading advertising agency, Soho Square, part of the WPP Group, handled television, radio and print campaigns with catchy slogans such as "Ab ki Baar Modi Sarkar," several small scale local IT companies and digital marketing firms, mostly with low to medium level turnover and with saffronist elements in their management, got the job of opposition bashing throughout the election campaigning days.

Manned with only 5-10 employees, these organisations started creating numerous fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to post and share the contents approved by Nagpur based RSS and Delhi based BJP leaders. The numerous accounts created were often linked with each other and the content posted by one profile was shared with another. Moreover, through these methods, the troll gang inflated the fan following of each profile on Twitter and Facebook, to ensure their profile looks very genuine. Next target was to befriend or follow liberal, democratic, left-right-centre and everyone opposing Modi’s bid for the premiere’s position. The job was to bully and oppose any anti Modi posts made by the opposition forces on the social media, which a special team of each company took care of to ensure that seeds of fear are implanted in the social media to warn and keep off the dissenting anti-fascist voices.

Once the contents were developed and approved, they were published with blitzkrieg pace by these agents on the internet. These contents were mostly misinformation, fake news, photo shopped images, briefly a complete package of lies and deceptions developed with monstrous creativity to confuse and the majority of urban Hindu people. Whilst some clippings will show Muslim men butchering Hindu men, raping Hindu women, then some other will show fabricated news articles on Pakistani involvement in Madrassas, etc.

After the elections, with Modi emerging victorious, many such Twitter handles and Facebook profiles that once created a ruckus in their attempt to support Modi’s bid to premiership, suddenly became silent, some vanished from internet space and many went inactive. This sudden change was discussed for few weeks in the social media space, however, very soon people moved on.

By December 2014, the Modi government faced its first major crisis with the Sangh family launching the vicious anti-Muslim, anti-Christian ‘Ghar Wapsi’ agenda to forcefully convert the religious minorities in Hinduism. The reluctance of Modi to speak up against the atrocities committed on the minorities created a protest clamour all over the nation, the progressive and democratic voices started raising their voices by overcoming the powerful propaganda waves launched in Modi’s favour by the big corporate capital.

In 2015, the Modi government started showing its UPA syndromes very fast, the inflation started sky rocketing, BJP faced poll debacle in Delhi, the people of the country started expressing their anguish against the government, its utmost failure to deliver promises made by Modi during his campaigning, and Amit Shah admitted that the BJP election campaign promises on black money were mere ‘joomla’ (rhetoric) mongering by Modi. The failures of the BJP to bring down prices, provide any assistance to the suffering peasantry, the corporate appeasements by Modi and his ‘India selling’ campaigns overseas, along with exposure of the nexus between tainted former IPL chief Lalit Modi and BJP ministers like Sushma Swaraj – Vasundhara Raje, the Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh, followed by the beef ban and beef murders committed by Sangh activists brought the Modi government at the forefront of the firing squad of the dissenting opponents of the regime. The opposition bloc included everyone from aggrieved right winger to radical left, and social media became the most popular place to express dissent and reach out likeminded people. Suddenly, the ‘Bhakts’ or the Hindi speaking Hindu male trolls started wandering the social media turf to hunt dissenters.

The writers of anti-Modi statements were selectively targeted basing on their stature in the social ladder, fan followers, religion, gender and even language. The females who spoke and wrote English were targeted and cyber molested by the troll force of ‘Bhakts’ who felt inferior to the urban English speaking women whose communication skills and intellect sounded better than the ‘Bhakts.’ Abusing and threatening continued and suddenly it was found that many of the profiles that went blank after the election results were out last year were back.

An employee of such a firm disclosed to this writer that the business was bad since the project of promoting Modi ended in May 2014 and these cyber trolls had to do normal SEO jobs like link building, social media marketing and worse than everything else, search and close deals with new clients for digital and social media marketing campaigns. However, by the mid of 2015, the BJP was back with business as their client through their local leaders and RSS organisers. The job this time is to search and read for top stories and trends in the social media, find where the government and particularly Modi is attacked by the dissenting voices. Their other target is rationalist and logical writers who oppose Hindutva campaign and the RSS endeavour of saffronising every aspect of the Indian society. Following the example of the Islamic troll of Bangladesh (infamous for the lynching of Avijit Roy, an eminent blogger and rationalist), the Hindu Bhakt started looking for prey in rotational shifts, working from three different corners of the country.

A normal employee in the social media bullying campaign will never identify himself as a BJP supporter or activist; this is rule number one as stated by one of the sources who spoke to this writer on the condition of anonymity. Secondly, more than supporting the policy issues of the government the troll force will be liable to assault, threaten and bully the dissenters. Thirdly, they have to look for anything and everything that can be treated (or transformed) into an insulting object for Hinduism and then make out a hate campaign using such objects or articles. Fourthly, these employees were to research on Wikipedia for information on everything they do not know, then write their plagiarism filled response on the articles where Hindu supremacy, Brahminist tyranny or RSS dogma is opposed by any writer. Fifthly, they have to abuse someone or anyone from the opposition camp, targeting specifically leftwing forces, feminists, and journalists who dare to differ.

During the whole exercise the teams work in tandem with each other, as their territories on social media and internet space is demarcated, each individual team member has a particular assignment, set of targets and of course, they are paid for their performance, hence, they get their testosterone high and plunge on the preys as soon as they get them. The teams make sure that they do not cross each other’s territory, the employees are careful that they do not waste their time behind a single person for very long but collectively bully as many person they can.

Some of the team members are experts in Photoshop, and others are in search techniques, they try to reach their targets fast and promote their content and bully their targets at a fast pace. Mostly these agents use their mother tongue to abuse their targets, and they have limited ammunition till date to use against their targets as they were those which were provided by the BJP – RSS before 2014 elections, like, ‘go to Pakistan’, ‘sickular’, etc. As these days the troll activities are organised and led by local level RSS organisers, hence the corporate decency behind bloody attacks are missing and the assaults have turned more heinous than ever.

The Bhakts provide a great service to the BJP and its RSS bosses, as these troll force consists only of fake ids, they cannot be associated with the Sangh Parivar and its numerous terror cells, the misdeeds of the Bhakts does not makes the BJP responsible, as the Party has made it clear through its social media policy that it does not promotes any form of cyber bullying, moreover, the Bhakts themselves will never identify the BJP as their Party as a tactic arrangement of the cyber bully exercise. Hence, the Bhakts can continue to create a nuisance without causing indigestion to the BJP, unlike Sakshi Maharaj and his breed of holocaust worshipers.

It is very hard really to fight the Bhakts and their troll, as it will be a futile exercise to combat those who does not exist in real life, and are just temporary beings made to live a cyber life to promote a particular dispensation that wants to indoctrinate, enslave and rule the major part of the Indian populace by commanding their minds and thoughts. The tool of the RSS is to make the Indian people, who are more or less uneducated at large due to the high amount of poverty that rules the countryside, to believe that it is the saviour of the country from the menace of Islam and terrorism, and everything that is shown to the people over the internet or television, must be considered as gospel truth.

The next time you come across the Bhakts calling you names on the social media, block them, do not try to answer them or shame them, as these people do not exist in real. They are as their employers, fly by operators, whose specific job is just to propagate anything their masters ask them to share. Their hatred and their abuses are as fake as their own existence. So just keep moving on, declare your views openly and without fear, because only 5-10% of the troll regiment are real human beings.

No comments

, by Tanmoy Ibrahim

BJP

Bihar Elections - Review of Left Right & Centre

Politically the scenario of the country is getting more troublesome in view of the upcoming assembly election in Bihar. Being one of the largest provinces of the country with a large population, the political war zone of Bihar is surely giving insomniac syndromes to our political bosses.

After divorcing his partner for over a decade, BJP, from his government, Nitish Kumar has turned towards his yesterday's bete noire Lalu Prasad Yadav as a messiah for the upcoming polls. The betrayed BJP, which is now led by Prime Minister Modi and his coterie, is quite determined to sweep the provincial legislative polls following their victory in the 2014 parliamentary elections. The BJP is relying on its own traditional vote bank of upper caste Hindus along with the support from its junior partners like the LJP led by the 'minister of all seasons' Ram Vilas Paswan and disgruntled muscleman Pappu Yadav.

The attempts made by the Lalu PrasadYadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish Kumar - Sharad Yadav led Janata Dal (United) to revive the collapsed Janata family, following the footsteps of their predecessor and patron Jay Prakash Narayan, by tying knots with the Mulayam Yadav and Deve Gowda led Janata splinters- Samajwadi Party and Janta Dal (Secular). However, the opportunist hotch potch, which is called the prototype of a neo-Janata Parivar, could not take off due to the adverse political weather, as Mulayam Yadav, notorious for his secret deals with Central Government of the BJP and the Congress, withdrew his party from the so called 'Grand Alliance' in Bihar and decided to fight the election with its partner, Nationalist Congress Party, another political double-dealer.

It is evident that the alliance of Nitish-Lalu and the Congress Party in Bihar will pull more votes than what the fragile Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Yadav can collect on its own in a state outside its home turf, however, the walking out of Mulayam from the alliance will ensure that the 'Grand Alliance' will lose a part of its votes to the Samajwadi candidates, which will ensure that the BJP will gain supremacy in several constituencies.

In view of the upcoming Bihar assembly election, the BJP has started spraying salvo against the Nitish-Lalu coallition, blaming Nitish for continuing the reign of terror and lawlessness which was the trademark of Lalu's rule, forgetting the fact that the BJP was the junior partner of the government during its tenure in office with the junior Modi (Sushil) holding the second position after the Chief Minister in the cabinet.

The BJP also released the socio-economic caste census data at the eve of the Bihar election to ensure that the Bihar electoral campaign could help it in weaning a large section of the Dalit voters from the "Grand Alliance" camp by showing a poor performance of Bihar in the sphere of uplifting the ostracised community. However, as a double-edged sword, this has its own repercussions, as the BJP was a partner in the same government, which it plans to take on over the issue of indifference towards the Dalits.

The right wing parties enjoy the support of the feudal landlords and local hoodlums and criminal gangsters, who gain immense political and administrative support from the ruling parties and switch their allegiance accordingly. This axis between the feudal forces-mafia and the rightwing forces calls the shot in each election in Bihar, and other political forces that cannot feed the ever increasing greed of the feudal landlords and mafia, cannot make any difference in the poll-arena of Bihar.

The parliamentary left parties recently formed a grand alliance of their own to counter both BJP and the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance. Six parties namely, the CPI, the CPI(M), the CPI(M-L) Liberation, Forward Block, RSP, SUCI (C) came together on 7th September 2015 in a rally at Patna to declare their intention to fight the Bihar election unitedly. This formation of the neo left block is another example of how opportunist the left parties, which swear by parliamentary democracy, can turn, as they have agreed to unite only with a mission to garner more votes and win more seats, rather than with any goal to foster a socio-economic change. These so-called left parties have used all their rhetoric mongering skills to deceive the common left supporters and activists and have turned their focus from fighting the socio-economic evils of the semi feudal and semi colonial production system over which our country stands, to just campaign and fight for electoral gains.

The left forces that have joined hands together, each has a different and diametrically opposite official view on the situation of the country, starting from the nature of the Indian state. Whilst the CPI and CPI (M) considers Indian revolutionary stage to be national and people's democratic one respectively, the SUCI and RSP considers the stage to be socialist. The CPI considers India to be an independent country, followed by the CPI(M), Forward Block, RSP, etc whilst the CPI(M-L) Liberation officially considers India to be a semi colonial and semi feudal country. With such a wide array of views, the only common understanding one political front can reach is - increase vote share and win some seats.

The possibility of any parliamentary left's victory in Bihar through is as much bleak as the scope of colonisation of Mars within 2020. Bihar assembly election, alike the election in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, etc., is ruled by money and muscle power. The feudal landlords, their mafia and private army chiefs primarily decide, which party should win an election in the rural hinterland of Bihar and the poor peasants, mostly from the ostracised and oppressed castes and communities have no other options but to support what their masters command them. The lack of political consciousness of the masses, the lack of militant struggle built by the left forces to counter the feudal forces, has provided the feudal landlords with a free turf to rule upon, unchallenged.

The left forces, rather than forming an alliance for electoral gains, should have formed an alliance to stir up broad militant workers' and peasants' struggle against the policies of the government, at both central and provincial level. The left forces should have rather intensified campaigns for land rights to the tillers, right to food, education and universal health care to the deprived and poverty ridden people of Bihar. Elections, for the Communist forces, is a yardstick to measure the consciousness of the people, a platform to propagate their policies and demands, and to uncover the impotency of the parliamentary system before the masses.

This is what the Leninist teachings on parliamentary democracy teaches those who subscribes to Marxist-Leninist view point. The communists were never allowed to participate in the elections of a bourgeoisie democracy to win seats and form governments, unless one confuse Khrushchev's doctrine with Marxism-Leninism. However, our misfortune is that though our left leaders from the parliamentary sect will love to quote in length from the classics of Marx and Lenin, they will surely overlook the simplified implications of the Marxist-Leninist science in their love for Khrushchev's doctrine.

Bihar assembly election, unlike the predictions of the mainstream corporate media, will not be the litmus test for the future polity of India. As election results always swings within the gap of years and sometime within months and weeks. The political landscape of the country will remain same irrespective of whichever party among the Congress or the BJP led block wins power at the national or provincial level. As they will subscribe to the same policies enacted by the block of international monopoly and financial capital led by the IMF-World Bank - WTO. Even if the left block makes its way to power under any special circumstances through electoral path, they will do nothing different than replicating the experience of West Bengal where they did nothing but emulated the neo liberal policies of the right wing Indian government camouflaging them with leftist rhetoric.

It is imperative for the progressive left and democratic forces of Bihar and elsewhere to shed the parliamentary illusion, which only results into ideological capitulation to the might of foreign monopoly and financial capital and Indian feudalism, bureaucratic and comprador capitalism. Only by strengthening and expanding intensified struggles of the workers and peasants against the ruling classes and their policies, one can build up a huge bastion of the people which can defeat the rule of reaction and establish a true people's representative government. Electoral alliances will only imitate hoax calls and lead the genuine people's struggle to complete astray.

No comments

, by Tanmoy Ibrahim

BJP

Indian Parliamentary Polity - A Tool To Deceive The People By The Rulers

The recent mudslinging between the two major right-wing parties of the country, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, seemed too funny to me, though most people must be looking for hidden messages behind the allegations and counter allegations that popped up on the opposition criticism of the BJP for its involvement in the Lalitgate, Vyapam and other scams.

The two parties calling each other names, resembles the fight between two mistresses of a rich man, both trying to prove their fidelity and loyalty to the man and accuse the other of infidelity. The people, laughs out loudly. The experts in political prostitution claiming to be virgin in front of the nation, when accused of broken hymen by the opposition the treasury is calling the opposition - mother of prostitution, and on the other hand both parties are competing with each other to show the foreign monopoly capital, especially the US-led finance capital block, that which of the two can serve its interest better in India.

Politics in parliamentary democracy is not based on ideology or principles, unless they are fascist ideology or principles. The political forces of the parliamentary system operate only to serve the interest of the rich, the feudal lords, the big capitalist class, and of course the foreign monopoly capital. This is not only true for India, but for most countries of the world, where we can see the omnipotence of wealth.

Therefore, one can see resemblances between most of the political players of the parliamentary system, take for example India, here you can see the BJP and the Congress are exchanging their position from ruling to opposition in every one decade since the last fifteen years, and playing the same role while in the treasury and opposition benches which their counterpart played during their stint. So, when in opposition, the BJP paralysed the parliamentary proceedings by calling the Congress-led UPA government an anti-people government with anti workers-peasants policies. Sometimes they even manifested ultimate militancy to prove their anger against the Congress government and its role in promoting scams and corruptions. On the other hand, we saw the Congress government accusing the BJP, during the reign of UPA regime, for wasting time of the parliament and causing disgrace to the entire nation and its parliamentary politics by stalling the houses.

At present, we can see just a role reversal. Same rhetoric, same militancy, same nincompoops in white khaddar, but their sitting arrangements are different. Now, the BJP holds the treasury benches whilst the Congress is sitting in the opposition benches. Did the change of government changed the country and the fate of its people? No way, neither it changed anything, nor it can change anything in the future as well. Change of governments and rulers does not bring changes in the lives of the common people of the country, it does not heal the wounds of the people inflicted by high price rises, inflation, unemployment, eviction from farmlands and forests. The change of government only multiply such pains that the people of the nation suffer from due to the burden of excessive oppression laden upon them by the ruling classes, whom both BJP and the Congress Party represents.

The change of guard through the elections is a very old tactic of the foreign monopoly-finance capital and its indigenous lackeys to ensure that the anti-establishment forces are curbed, genuine mass struggles for betterment of the condition of the people are dislodged by a cosmetic change in the ruling composition every five or ten years. The elections are engineered with expert acumen to ensure that the people get a choice to choose from the bunch of deputies who will under any condition serve the interests of foreign monopoly capital, feudalism and capitalism wholeheartedly and fool the people with rhetoric and jargons. This on one hand defuse the anti-establishment spirit of the people, as they find a new party ruling the country and aspires for better change this time. However, they fail to see, due to their lack of political consciousness, that the new party has no new policies but to carry forward the policies of the past regime.

The Indian state has made it clear that it will not tolerate any dissent, therefore, the political parties when in opposition will take up strong resistance positions against the ruling clique, and when they are in turn posted as rulers by the ruling classes, these very parties will do a simple role reversal. The ruling classes will then promote the opposition, which recently lost elections, as a fighting bandwagon for the cause of the people. This is a never ending chain of activities that is to continue in the Indian polity.

We can only expect a radical change in this sphere if an alternative, non-parliamentary, left opposition is built to serve the interest of the people. A political bloc that will not only expose the government and its capitalist appeasement before the people, but also educate the people about the unfeasibility of the parliamentary system to bring forth any real change. The bloc which will be free from opportunist filth and will be dedicated to fight for the cause of the people on the streets, a political bloc that will consist of all progressive and left democratic forces which will constantly educate the people in the course of mass struggles and raise the level of political consciousness of the basic masses by equipping them with political ideology.

A broad mass based front of the democratic and progressive forces, without drooling for any parliamentary aspirations, is an urgent requirement of the people. If we do not have it soon enough, one thing will be sure, the history and the future generations will not forgive us for such a sin.