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Communalism India

Demand for ‘Hindu Rashtra’ trends on Twitter

Communal hashtag was tweeted over 48,000 times at the time of going to press!

Image Courtesy: Twitter

On Friday, November 20, a deeply communal, divisive and disturbing trend emerged on Twitter. The hashtag #भारत_माँगे_हिन्दू_राष्ट्र was the top trend on Indian Twitter, no doubt powered by the combined might of dedicated right-wing trolls and IT Cell keyboard warriors.

Some of the initial tweets represented what could still be dismissed as a reflection of Hindu pride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the communal frenzy took darker, more aggressive hues as the trend caught on. Sample these tweets:

 

 

 

 

This trend #भारत_माँगे_हिन्दू_राष्ट्र though deeply communal, was not arrested on Twitter despite its policies against hate speech and discrimination, perhaps because the hashtag was in Devnagri script and the anti-hate algorithm may not have caught it. But the fact that such a blatantly communal hashtag was the top trend for over an hour cannot be ignored.

There is no dearth of communal bile on social media, and young Indians appear to be the constituency these hatemongers want to cultivate, possible in a bid to strengthen their vote-banks in the upcoming state assembly elections. The social media indoctrination appears to be a means to erase every last shred of secularism and appreciation for India’s cultural pluralism, the stated objectives of some of India’s best known and most influential right-wing Hindutva supremacist organisations that also influence the ideology of the ruling regime.

Related:

Prashant Patel Umrao still spinning fake news on Twitter
Deepak Chaurasia: Spewing communal hate on social media

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