The recent arrests of those responsible for the app Bulli Bai, designed to sexualize and humiliate Muslim women through a fake auction, has drawn attention to the profusion of Islamophobia in India. This tension between Hindu and Muslim communities is a longstanding, persistent issue, which is manifested in misogynistic attacks as seen in the Bulli Bai app, calls for “genocide” by Hindu extremists, daily discrimination against India’s minority Muslim population, and online hate speech. The tension is said to be perpetuated by political indifference towards the suffering of religious minorities, which should be addressed and censured if the peaceful coexistence of religious groups is to be established.
July 2021 saw the creation of an app called Sulli Deals which, similarly to Bulli Bai, was designed as a fake auction to humiliate distinguished and high-profile Muslim women. Both these apps use pejorative terms for Muslim women in their titles and according to VOA News, Bulli Bai was claiming to sell off “activists, journalists, an actor, politicians and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai as maids.” India Today reports that Neeraj Bishnoi, the main accused and alleged creator of Bulli Bai is the fourth person to be arrested for the app and has confessed under interrogation that he was in touch with the individual behind Sulli Deals. In July, the Sulli Deals app was quickly taken down, but nobody was prosecuted for its creation. These fake auction apps are just one example of how technology is being used with ease and speed “to put women at risk through online abuse, theft of privacy or sexual exploitation” (VOA News). By failing to act after the Sulli Deals incident, the Indian government indicated that this sort of behaviour is condonable; if such future incidents are to be avoided, it must be made clear that these cyberattacks will not be tolerated by the government and the judiciary systems. Fortunately, the incarceration of the four individuals responsible for the Bulli Bai app suggests that this act of digital discrimination is being taken more seriously than its predecessor.
Another recent example of Islamophobia in India occurred in December 2021, when religious leaders gathered in the northern town of Haridwar. A video of the event reveals a speaker saying that “even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them [Muslims], we will be victorious.” The event featured many speakers and religious leaders inciting the masses to genocide of the Muslim population. Conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities is not new to India: in 1948 Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu extremist for promoting “Hindu-Muslim unity during the partition of the Indian subcontinent by British colonial rulers in 1947 into India and Pakistan” (Al Jazeera). However, many hold accountable the incumbent nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for fomenting ill will towards religious minorities and failing to condemn discriminatory behaviour. The Diplomat reports that in 2019 the BJP released a manifesto which planned to introduce a “National Register for Citizens” (NRC), with the BJP President Amit Shah announcing, “we will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha, Hindus and Sikhs.” A report by NDTV, which scanned approximately 1,300 articles and 1,000 tweets, found that “the use of hateful and divisive language” by top politicians and VIPS had increased by 500% over the four years following the election of the BJP. Under such leadership, it is not surprising that hostility and friction continue to abound between religious majority and minority groups.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that “the BJP government has created an atmosphere in which minorities feel unsafe, at risk of assault by ruling party supporters.” In 2019 violent protests broke out when India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed, excluding Muslims from citizenship. These sorts of acts perpetuate feelings of antagonism towards the Muslim population and result in public discriminatory attacks, as seen in the Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals apps. If this deep-rooted conflict is ever to be resolved, it is clear that the Indian government must take more accountability for the existent discrimination against the Muslim community, adapt the educational framework to address misconceptions surrounding religious diversity, and implement measures to create a more secure environment for religious minorities.
theowp.org
July 2021 saw the creation of an app called Sulli Deals which, similarly to Bulli Bai, was designed as a fake auction to humiliate distinguished and high-profile Muslim women. Both these apps use pejorative terms for Muslim women in their titles and according to VOA News, Bulli Bai was claiming to sell off “activists, journalists, an actor, politicians and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai as maids.” India Today reports that Neeraj Bishnoi, the main accused and alleged creator of Bulli Bai is the fourth person to be arrested for the app and has confessed under interrogation that he was in touch with the individual behind Sulli Deals. In July, the Sulli Deals app was quickly taken down, but nobody was prosecuted for its creation. These fake auction apps are just one example of how technology is being used with ease and speed “to put women at risk through online abuse, theft of privacy or sexual exploitation” (VOA News). By failing to act after the Sulli Deals incident, the Indian government indicated that this sort of behaviour is condonable; if such future incidents are to be avoided, it must be made clear that these cyberattacks will not be tolerated by the government and the judiciary systems. Fortunately, the incarceration of the four individuals responsible for the Bulli Bai app suggests that this act of digital discrimination is being taken more seriously than its predecessor.
Another recent example of Islamophobia in India occurred in December 2021, when religious leaders gathered in the northern town of Haridwar. A video of the event reveals a speaker saying that “even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them [Muslims], we will be victorious.” The event featured many speakers and religious leaders inciting the masses to genocide of the Muslim population. Conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities is not new to India: in 1948 Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu extremist for promoting “Hindu-Muslim unity during the partition of the Indian subcontinent by British colonial rulers in 1947 into India and Pakistan” (Al Jazeera). However, many hold accountable the incumbent nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for fomenting ill will towards religious minorities and failing to condemn discriminatory behaviour. The Diplomat reports that in 2019 the BJP released a manifesto which planned to introduce a “National Register for Citizens” (NRC), with the BJP President Amit Shah announcing, “we will ensure implementation of NRC in the entire country. We will remove every single infiltrator from the country, except Buddha, Hindus and Sikhs.” A report by NDTV, which scanned approximately 1,300 articles and 1,000 tweets, found that “the use of hateful and divisive language” by top politicians and VIPS had increased by 500% over the four years following the election of the BJP. Under such leadership, it is not surprising that hostility and friction continue to abound between religious majority and minority groups.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that “the BJP government has created an atmosphere in which minorities feel unsafe, at risk of assault by ruling party supporters.” In 2019 violent protests broke out when India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed, excluding Muslims from citizenship. These sorts of acts perpetuate feelings of antagonism towards the Muslim population and result in public discriminatory attacks, as seen in the Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals apps. If this deep-rooted conflict is ever to be resolved, it is clear that the Indian government must take more accountability for the existent discrimination against the Muslim community, adapt the educational framework to address misconceptions surrounding religious diversity, and implement measures to create a more secure environment for religious minorities.
How Technology Is Being Used To Perpetuate Islamophobia In India
The recent arrests of those responsible for the app Bulli Bai, designed to sexualize and humiliate Muslim women through a fake auction, have drawn attention to the profusion of Islamophobia in Indi…
theowp.org
