The post “Deciphering
the Social Media Ranting” discussed the possible reasons why people rant on
social media especially Twitter. The post used the theory of signalling in
economics to explain why people rant about each and everything to get noticed. A
simple post might not attract attention but continuous rants and slogan
shouting would perhaps enable them to get noticed, get followers and perhaps at
some point achieve a sort of celebrity status. It is just not mere ranting but
the way people form opinions and sort to push their opinion that would be of
interest. Often, it is made to believe that the opinion of the social media becomes
the opinion of the people. It is made to believe that the social media
represents the cross section of the people and thus appropriate sample of the
views of the population at large. It is made to believe that the mood of the
country or the society is best reflected through perusal of the views being
expressed through the social media and other conversation forums be it Twitter
or Whatsapp.
Yet, at times or
rather most of the times, one finds the total opposite. The opinions reflected
as the public mood in the social media is often at odds with what is revealed
through the offline public mood. An interesting case study would be the behaviour
of the Indian Hindu right wing that have captured significant space of
conversation on Twitter in particular. There is often a projection that they
represents the interests or at least the feelings of the Hindu society at
large. As noted in the post linked above, the right wing in India seems to be
constantly in a state of perpetual anger on social media. They seem to find
fault with almost everything what the government does. In the last few days,
the anger has been directed mainly over the ban on bursting crackers on environmental
grounds. The tweet of the Health Minister Dr. Harshvardhan to celebrate Green
Diwali has touched perhaps a raw cord. It is no surprise that the Hindu right
or at least significant sections celebrated Diwali not with their family or
friends but through ranting against the health minister through the day. Through
the Bihar elections and beyond, their anger has been directed against Sushil
Modi, the Deputy Chief Minister of the State. Through the Arnab Goswami case,
there were constant rants and abuse against the BJP leadership both at Centre
and States. In fact, hardly anyone went after the MVA government which had
arrested Arnab but seemed to find fault with the Centre. It was as if Modi or
Fadnavis who were responsible for Arnab’s troubles. Devendra Fadnavis, the
former Chief Minister of Maharashtra is almost every day at the receiving end
of their abuse.
Incidentally, it
is not about criticism or ranting but the sheer abuse that gets directed at the
leadership. The answers to this conundrum would have to be examined. It begs to
reason why the abuse is directed at a few. Yet in the offline public mood,
there is very little to support this. Contrary to the perception being created
of RTE or temple control are very critical issues facing the country, the
electoral mood is hardly weighing these factors. Neither RTE nor temple control
figure in the list of the top priorities as per various opinion polls in
different elections. In fact, Modi won a resounding mandate despite RW abuse
for his alleged inaction in sorting out the distortions created by RTE or
temple control or cracker ban or minority scholarship or Sabrimala women entry
etc. Therefore it is all the more puzzling why one finds discord between what
is expressed in social media and the mood on the ground.
The vertical conversation
underpinned public sphere was disrupted through a horizontal conversation
sphere when the social media made its entrance. The online sphere demolished
the monopolization of conversation by a select few. In India, constantly
demonized for being Hindus, the activists on the Hindu right finally found a
forum wherein they could discuss their grievances. These grievances might not
have anything to do with electoral politics. They perhaps had hardly any
electoral traction but significant nevertheless for Hindu cause. The RTE as
applied to institutions did create non-level playing field. So was the case for
temple control by the government. The Hindu right used the social media, Twitter
in particular to place their points. These points were captured by the rest of
the Twitterati. Denied space by the mainstream, Twitter became the forum for disseminating
Hindu right causes. It became a tool for mobilization of those in favour of
Hindu revivalism. It became a space for those constrained by woke culture in
expressing their true preferences. It became a space for those finding others with
similar thought processes but unable to express on account of communication
barriers created by the brick and mortar media culture. Yet while there were
significant developments on the positive side, there were certain dystopian tendencies
too creeping in. Without doubt, there would be dichotomy between those which
were important for Hindu revivalism but not necessarily electorally relevant.
Secondly, there would be issues that would be electorally relevant, significant
for Hindu development but not critical or core Hindu issues as the right on the
social media defined it.
To the new voice
of the Indian right, these were long term issues and thus wanted to attract the
attention of the government. Yet to others who wanted to carve a space for
themselves, this became a tool for expressing themselves as so called experts. They
took it to another level wherein these became the issues for the government to
tackle. Toilet construction or Jan-Dhan could wait or was hardly important
relative to the freeing of temples from government control. Any electoral setback
was viewed in this light. To a vast section of the Hindu pretenders, failure to
act on RTE or on temple control or continuance of minority scholarships were
reasons for the setback and not on the economic or the other social factors. So
what emerged out of the conversation was an alternate reality that had nothing to
do with the real life. Modi won decisively in 2019 as he did in 2014 touching
upon the real issues. While the issues raised on social media had their
significance, taking it to a point wittingly or otherwise created sense of diminishing
returns to the conversations. Anything adverse or minor digressions were
frowned and abused thus created a distorted conversation away from what was
intended. The hijacking was complete. The process continues without any chance
of revival given most of the genuine conversations have moved on to club goods
like Whatsapp or Telegram. It was the law of unintended consequences that undid
social media for the right as the alternate reality did not live up to the real
world results.
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