Opinion

With the advent of religious right wing BJP at the central power in 2014 as well as many states, communal violence in India now follows a familiar pattern. On-street provocations and rampages by Hindutva forces as happened in East Delhi early this year notwithstanding, smart-phones and online social media platforms like Facebook and Whatsapp have become the major instruments for sustained hate campaigns against Islam and its followers as well as for street mobilizations of lynch-mobs and rioters, often remotely controlled as it was evident in countless incidents from UP to Jharkhand. Muslim violence in response to digital incitement, though still sporadic, also uses the cyber communication for counter-mobilization as incidents of recent mob frenzy in Bengaluru as well as earlier mayhem in Bengal’s Baduria-Basirhat have underlined. The first of the two-parts article exposes the murderous political game that has turned a section of our tech-savvy but culturally ignorant youth into the digital force multiplier as well as foot soldiers for these merchants of death. The virtual collaboration of the Facebook authority with the Hindutva regime has made the  design more sinister.