I wrote a dissertation titled
‘Building of a Communal State in a Virtual World: Hindu-Muslim relation seen
through the lens of YouTube and Facebook’. I was trying to interrogate the
role of Social Media platforms in the ongoing ‘war’ between the fascists of the
two religions. While working on the dissertation I stumbled upon various Facebook
pages and YouTube videos which propagated violence. The question which comes to
mind is shall we try to ban these pages? But the bigger question is how socially
relevant these pages are? If there is a hate page on a certain social media
platform, it simply signifies that there is hate in the society as well. The
spillover of societal issues could be seen on these platforms. The Facebook
pages, with numerous ‘likes’, justify that they are only tip of the iceberg. The
problem lies somewhere else. This reminds me of a couplet by renowned Urdu poet
Josh Malihabadi which says, ‘Zeb ye deta nahin sarkaar ko, paaliye
bimaariyon ko maariye bimaar ko’ (This does not suits government when it
kills the people affected with a disease but does nothing to eradicate the
disease).
Today I came across another such
page. The title of the page is ‘Karz apna chukana hai, Babri Masjid wahin
banana hai’, loosely translates in English as ‘We need to pay back by building
Babri Mosque at the same place’. It was time to revisit my thesis and add few
more notes.
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| A photo shared by the page 'Karz Apna Chukana Hai, Babri Masjid Wahin Banana Hai |
The era in which we live is
extremely complex in nature. The extraordinary problems are of varied form
which certainly requires extraordinary answers. We did not inherit a peaceful
society from the previous generation. The previous generation was also not
fortunate enough to inherit a perfect society from their predecessors. It is
less likely that we are going to present a better society to the future
generations. But this does not mean that we all must stop looking for better
answers to questions of the present era.
The Communal aspect of the Social
Media platforms is a result of the dissatisfaction in the society. There are
few similarities in the pages which claim to represent different religions. The
administrator of most of the pages lack sense of humor (they make you laugh at
times although for a different reason altogether) and poses a great sense of
anger. The posts are written to stimulate a feeling of hatred for the ‘other’
community. They use each and every possible mythological symbol for the
purpose. The admin and followers do not hesitate to turn most of the current
social and political developments into an occasion to revisit the history and
look for reasons to criticize the behavior of the ‘others’. They take solace
into the religious past to condemn the act of others.
Apart from these, the most common
similarity for such pages in India is Narendra Modi. You will find posts
related to him on all the Hindutva pages as well as Islamic fascists pages,
with obvious love and hate on the respective pages.
The social media gives a sense of
pseudo-anonymity to the person on the front end. You are hero for the moment.
And fighting is an extremely honorable job, as per our social and religious
norms. Are we living in 10000 B.C? What is the importance of civilization if it
is not able to generate the basic understanding that fighting is not going to
solve any problem. A good hearted soul said that non- violence is older than
the mountains and oceans. Seems our civilization has taken wrong route and a
peaceful world seems a distant dream.
Rise of communalism on different
social media platforms is going to shape many young individuals, still in early
teenage, that may come across certain posts which may plant the seed of
prejudice in their fertile minds. The human mind is amazing, especially in the
early years. It distinguishes right and wrong in a very young age and for the
entire life it only justifies the decision of the tender age. It needs to be
extremely elastic to reevaluate its decision in a later year. If an individual
has a certain point of view on a certain issue it is totally related to his
personal journey. Social media may act as a tool for the same. But in no
circumstance it can be the culprit.
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| Screenshot from the page 'India is a Hindu nation' which is stereotyping Islamic countries through this image and many others on the page |
What must be done to take care of
the rise of communalism on the social media platforms? Shall we agree with an
Indian minister’s idea of asking Facebook and Google to screen the content on
the websites? This does not have a very simple answer as well. Like all
extraordinary questions it deserves an extraordinary answer.
‘We need an inclusive society’-
Is this an accepted statement? We need to answer this. If it is an accepted
statement then we certainly need to look for a community of peace-builders who
believe in the humanitarian values. There will be the fascist forces to
ridicule this idea. But an inclusive society will also accommodate them. No, I
am not talking about utopia. I am talking about my society, which rests its
hope on you, O reader.
First Published in YouthKiAwaaz.com on 29th April, 2013
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