Cyber Hindus, Cow Terrorists are not something most people are aware. But to trade in or eat meat in India can get you killed by far right Hindu mobs. And if your Muslim it just marks you out more for hate.
Quote:
"Hindu nationalists, like their far-right contemporaries in the West, have been early adopters of the Internet. As early as the 1990s, Hindu nationalist organisations extensively used websites and chat forums to spread their ideology and recruit followers—including those in the diaspora living in Western countries and employed within the tech industry. Today, the BJP and its network of affiliates oversee an army of keyboard warriors, called ‘Internet Hindus’ or ‘Cyber Hindus’, who promote Hindu nationalist ideology whilst distributing Islamophobic content online.
This can have deadly offline effects, as the rise of cow vigilante violence—or Hindu nationalists that target persons, mostly Muslims, who are cow traders—has steadily increased since the BJP took office in 2014. Perpetrators of ‘cow protection’ vigilantism extensively rely on WhatsApp to communicate and spread rumours, a tool that is highly effective for its end-to-end encryption technology. Unfortunately, efforts to combat misinformation on WhatsApp groups have failed since most Indian users have dated hardware that does not support software updates, such as limits on forwarded messages.
Hindu Nationalist Violence in India
By Dr.Eviane Leidig
Postdoctoral fellow on the INTERSECT project at MF Norwegian School of TheologyQuote:
"Hindu nationalists, like their far-right contemporaries in the West, have been early adopters of the Internet. As early as the 1990s, Hindu nationalist organisations extensively used websites and chat forums to spread their ideology and recruit followers—including those in the diaspora living in Western countries and employed within the tech industry. Today, the BJP and its network of affiliates oversee an army of keyboard warriors, called ‘Internet Hindus’ or ‘Cyber Hindus’, who promote Hindu nationalist ideology whilst distributing Islamophobic content online.
This can have deadly offline effects, as the rise of cow vigilante violence—or Hindu nationalists that target persons, mostly Muslims, who are cow traders—has steadily increased since the BJP took office in 2014. Perpetrators of ‘cow protection’ vigilantism extensively rely on WhatsApp to communicate and spread rumours, a tool that is highly effective for its end-to-end encryption technology. Unfortunately, efforts to combat misinformation on WhatsApp groups have failed since most Indian users have dated hardware that does not support software updates, such as limits on forwarded messages.
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