Neeraj Shetye, MSc Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice
In India, there have been two instances of vocal Muslim women being put on ‘auction’ online in the past six months, both an attempt to intimidate and silence prominent voices from India’s largest religious minority.
After a significant public outcry on social media and support from opposition parties, the police filed an official complaint. They have managed to arrest four young people between 18 and 23. The young people have been involved in developing the Bulli Bai app and the Sulli Deals controversy in 2021, where Muslim women were auctioned online.
After India’s loss to Pakistan in the T20 cricket world cup last year, Mumbai Police arrested a 23-year-old engineering student from Hyderabad. He was arrested for issuing rape threats against Indian skipper Virat Kohli’s 9-month-old daughter. Kohli had also spoken in support of his Muslim teammate, Mohammad Shami, who was trolled for his performance against Pakistan.
“Hate speech is not a new phenomenon in India, but lately there have been organised attempts to target individuals for their liberal and progressive views”
What connects these two incidents is youngsters’ involvement from a radical ecosystem prevalent on social media in India. Hate speech is not a new phenomenon in India, but lately there have been organised attempts to target individuals for their liberal and progressive views.
The conservative discourse on social media revived after the electoral success of Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. In the past few years, the distinction between right-wing commentators is prominently visible. The group behind the organised campaign is popularly known as ‘trads’, an informal connotation for ‘traditional,’ contrasted with the ‘raitas,’ who are considered to be more moderate in their approach towards Hindutva.
Journalist Archis Chowdhary engaged with Trads on social media and described them in a conversation with Smita Sharma for the Scroll’s Weekly Fix. According to Sharma, trads have always been a part of the conservative discourse on social media but they were relegated as a fringe. What we are witnessing now is mainstreaming of their discourse.
The movement draws its inspiration from the alt-right movement in the USA. Their goals are tailored for the Indian audience but it is similar to their western counterparts: self-proclaiming themselves as ‘civilisational warriors,’ maintaining the ‘purity’ of their community and stressing the importance of duty towards the nation and community.
Journalists Alishan Jafri and Naomi Barton’s investigative report for the Wire highlights the techniques that trads borrowed from the American alt-right discourse. Memes like Pepe the frog, Doge, and Wojak face are used to comment on political matters. Chowdhary mentions that humour is used as a tool to justify unconscionable beliefs which include misogyny, casteism, and Islamophobia.
Anushri Satavlekar recently conducted an interview with victims of the Sulli Deals controversy for the Security Television Network. She says that mainstream Indian media has largely ignored the issue of the online auction of Muslim women and that it is the independent digital news portals who have been following up on the case regularly.
According to Satavlekar, the motivation behind the attack is clear: suppress counter-narratives against majoritarianism.
The trad discourse points to a larger issue of radicalization among young Hindus in India. The Ministry of Women and Child Development, the National Commission for Women, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has been silent on the matter so far.
Photo Caption: Signs protesting violence and hate speech (Credit: Flickr/ John S. Quartersman).