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Comment by throwaway99033 | Hacker News Reader

Until recently, I had a strongly positive impression of India, as an outsider: rapidly modernizing, forward thinking and tolerant. Indians I meet in real life certainly tend to reinforce that position. However, I stumbled upon Indian Twitter during the election campaign, and I have been shocked by the vicious hatred and massive troll armies, that exceed anything I’ve noticed elsewhere. I imagine that WhatsApp is worse. The shocking behaviour has greatly diminished my opinion of the country, and it now strikes me as a powder-keg of hate.

The article mentions that the internet is being promoted as a way of advancing the country...if that’s advancement, it may be better for India to hit the brakes.

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> I have been shocked by the vicious hatred and massive troll armies, that exceed anything I’ve noticed elsewhere

Mutual distrust and animosity was always there underneath the surface. The internet is just making it a lot more visible to outsiders.

Don't forget that India itself was born during violent and widespread Hindu-Muslim clashes that displaced some 10+ million people from their homelands and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of others. The past history of India has been quite violent if you think about it. We have had several insurgencies fueled by ethnic hatred and real or imagined grievances. The 80s and the 90s were very violent years. We had the Gujarat riots (or pogrom, depending on whom you ask) as late as 2002.

The freewheeling, anonymous nature of the internet just makes ideas fueling hatred to spread fast. Now it is easier for skilled rhetoricians to infect others. Everyone is getting radicalized - Hindus, Muslims, various caste and ethnic groups, you name it.

All this is not even counting any bots and propaganda armies on the internet working overtime to project a certain narrative. I fear that things might get worse, much worse, before they get better.

You judged a country of a billion people by two small subsets. No country has as diverse a people as India. It comes with its own set of problems. "don't use the internet" reeks of such privilege.

That’s a reasonable point, and I do try to keep some perspective. The number of “likes” and retweets for the hateful posts does seem to scale for India’s massive population.

India also has a long history of deadly “communal violence”, something that doesn’t really happen in other democracies. If questioning whether it’s wise for companies like Twitter and WhatsApp to allow incitement for violence to exist in such an environment is regarded as “privilege”, so be it.

There is a reason for proliferation of hate on Twitter and that is the skewed form of secularism that the Indian state has followed all these years. Those who have lived in India know that most of the time the state is lenient towards minorities even when they commit crimes. Even history has been whitewashed to portray invaders as benign rulers so as to not offend minorities. In some ways the Indian Natinal Congress turned the country's polity into minoritarianism because they realized they could continue winning elections with just their votes (this statement is a bit of a simplification). The majority which has silently been observing this got a voice with the advent of social media. For someone who doesn't have this context, Indians will of course look hateful and communal.

Thanks for that forthright answer, and it does seem to match the themes I’ve seen on Twitter. I think to many people, the idea that hatred and violent threats could be seen as a valid response to grievances, even if justified, is beyond the pale, especially in a democracy. As I said, I had a very different understanding of India prior to being exposed to it on Twitter. I appreciate your honesty.

Every party panders to their vote bank. It isn't different from anywhere. Just so you know my original point wasn't proBJP or pro INC. Secularism and diversity is hard. That doesn't mean we forget our tenets

I am not taking any sides either. I am just giving the context for current events.

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