Journalist Raghu Karnad recently wrote an article for The Wire titled ‘It’s not what Modi is tweeting, it’s what he is reading’, where he attempted to attack PM Modi over him being able to read some of the supposedly objectionable content shared by the people he follows.
He begins the article mentioning how people he followed, shared or posted some “objectionable” content which technically ended up on Modi’s timeline on so and so date, thus somehow questioning Modi’s choice of following such handles. He also spoke about how some politically incorrect people are followed by the people whom Modi follows, hence there’s a two degree separation between them and Modi.
After sharpening his blade by informing people about Modi’s huge social media presence, he claimed that Modi’s personal feed was somehow an affirmation of the fundamentalist nature of Moditva and insinuated that one or two stray tweets among the millions of tweets by the 1600 odd accounts followed by Modi, might influence Modi and that his follow-back somehow bolsters these alleged trolls.
Of course this assumes Modi is online watching and reading his Twitter feed 24×7, maybe the Karnad mixed him up with Kejriwal, who follows far more colourful handles. Also small mercies then that Mr Karnad did not draw any inference from the fact that Modi also follows an abusive troll called Arvind Kejriwal.
Anyway, taking the Mr Karnad’s stretched and warped logic further, one can make some interesting observations.
Congress is admired as a pioneer of technology in India. Every other day you would hear the phrase about how Rajiv Gandhi brought computers to India. Today the Congress party and its hobbits enjoy a sizeable following on various platforms of social media. This isn’t just one-way traffic, though. What is remarkable is how little attention we pay to what some Congress leaders see on their personal feed – especially since anybody can recreate it, by setting up a Twitter feed that follows the same users.
Even though the Congress leaders’ following lists include eminent personalities, media persons, sportsmen, some BJP leaders; yet the Congress leader’s feed is still in part a torrent of rancour and wilful distortion.
On 13th and 17th January the following tweets appeared on the timeline of well-known Congress leaders and affiliates like Ajay Maken, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Salman Soz, Shehzad Poonawala. The tweets glorified and celebrated the fact that RSS workers are getting killed at the hands of murderous communist mobs in Kerala.
People might argue that the above tweets which are now deleted might have been tweeted in some rage or ecstasy, so for them here a few more tweets from this account:
Update: the aforementioned abusive troll, followed by Congress leaders and many journalists, tagged this reporter on Twitter and proudly claimed that he never deletes his tweets and supports murders of people who assert their Hindu identity. Earlier we had erroneously reported that the troll had deleted his tweets (as they didn’t appear in Twitter search); we thought to give benefit of doubt to even a murderous troll.
So when Sanghis die in #Kerala everyone in #Kerala gets a day off from work because of a bandh? Awesome! That’s a Bonus worth working for 😛
— ☭ Comrade Nambiar ☭ (@DasBolshevik) October 13, 2016
We can bemoan the fact that the flag was draped on a Sanghi murderers body. Look at the positive side of it. One more Sanghi is dead.
— ☭ Comrade Nambiar ☭ (@DasBolshevik) October 7, 2016
I like the way people cover up reality by saying, “I am joining the forces to serve the nation.” Dude, just say you wanna kill, no?
— ☭ Comrade Nambiar ☭ (@DasBolshevik) June 5, 2016
This originating account hasn’t yet being suspended for such vitriol as now a days only twitter handles of a particular ideology seem to be getting suspended. And wait there are more tweets where the Bolshevik openly calls for a harm to leaders and institutions.
I dont defame…I insult Modi, Hindutva, RSS and BJP. And as they die one by one, i celebrate and spread the cheer https://t.co/4BG01iH4qv
— ☭ Comrade Nambiar ☭ (@DasBolshevik) November 30, 2015
To see Bal Thackeray, Giriraj Kishore and Ashok Singhal rot in jail was a wish. Well, at least they are dead. Advani and MM Joshi left
— ☭ Comrade Nambiar ☭ (@DasBolshevik) November 17, 2015
Extending Mr Karnad’s logic, there is as much to learn from what these Congress people read on Twitter as there is from what they write. Mr Karnad would probably decipher that their personal feed ends up a reminder of the fundamental nature and origins of anti-Hindu bigotry.
As the mainstream media averts its attention from these details, it is the trolls, in this one sense, who reflect the facts. They are the facts, as Mr Karnad would put them.
Further, the heir apparent of Congress, Rahul Gandhi also follows the accounts of Ajay Maken and Priyanka Chaturvedi, thus he too is separated by just 2 degrees from the vile anti-Hindu vitriol of Comrade Nambiar. We are sure Mr Karnad would find this most disturbing.
Apart from this, it is interesting to note that these Congress leaders are just separated by two degrees from major misogynists: They follow a man called Tehseen Poonawala who has been exposed on live TV for being blatantly offensive and misogynistic to Smriti Irani.
The question now is this: Will Mr Karnad do a similar analysis of Rahul Gandhi, his acolytes and the Hindu hating “comrades” they encourage on social media?
