The Wi-Fi Activist

Source: CollegeHumour

From Trigger-Happy Gun-Nuts to Click-Happy ‘Like’-Nuts

Superimposed over the din of catcalls and hoots of the small, yet effectively loud section of Indian males with too much idle time and a weak Wi-Fi, Indian women have always found it hard to get their voices heard. Jasleen Kaur’s voice, threatened to be unheard was miraculously amplified by people armed with 3G connection and Voila! Within hours of the accused’s picture being posted, Facebook was buzzing with spare-time feminists who woke up from their stupor to demand justice. The public condemnation on social media, a response which such a deplorable act does warrant is a positive sign for women raised in a misogynist culture where accepting such acts as a parcel of life is internalised. But, a larger issue is given birth to here. The potency of social media to inspire change has been a well-documented success story of the 21^st century; but in the process, is it not insidiously promoting a culture of highly misinformed sources of information for people. The Wi-Fi activist, who doesn’t have the time to read the newspaper but finds refuge in people posting about happenings is armed with .35 mm of ignorance and shoots bullets of misinformation down gullible throats is the harbinger of change.

With the appearance of a key eye-witness who refutes Jasleen’s side of the story, the fickleness of the Wi-Fi activist stands exposed. Within minutes of the statement coming to light, they denounced her as a liar. The alleged incident is one that could have happened on any of the countless busy intersections and is one most of us have become so used to, that when we come across it we giggle and look away. If her side of the story is in fact true, the journey for her from being hailed as a hero to being labelled a liar is absolutely crushing.

My cynicism is directed towards the culture of sharing posts without being fully aware of its contents.  The innocuous little ‘Like’ we hit on Facebook, has become much more than a simple endorsement. What rankles me is how social media today has rolled into judge, jury and suggestive executioner.

Mobilisation for women’s rights is a gap social media has been able to bridge. But people jumping the gun and accusing a man of something without evidence is not a healthy trend. And in fact, this has not been the first instance of this. Last year, a video of a couple of girls in Rohtak thrashing their alleged harassers on a bus was almost cathartic for every woman who has been ogled at on public commute. The Haryana government quickly issued them bravery awards and they were made overnight heroes. Their subsequent failing of the lie detector test and the surfacing of a second video showing these girls thrashing another set of harassers hints at a convenient cottage industry the anti-harassment law seems to provide for these women.

And this isn’t the end of it. Earlier this year in Dimapur, spurred on by a series of Facebook posts, a man accused of raping a woman was brutally beaten to death by a mob. In fact, a subsequent Nagaland government report cleared the case as one of consensual sex. The IGP launched an investigation to find the source of the Social Media posts that catalysed the incident to no avail.

What is worrying here, is that one person’s myopic reading of a situation becomes a hundred other people’s source of information. A single person’s opinion becomes a source with zero accountability which leads to a man’s murder yet no one can point a finger at the source. As Jasleen’s side of the story flooded our News Feeds, Arvind Kejriwal(part time Chief Minister of Delhi, part time Common Man) immediately congratulated Jasleen for her bravery and the Delhi Police went to the extent of announcing a reward of INR 5,000 even before the accused was brought in for questioning!

Flipping through channels, I was livid when an obnoxiously loud reporter labeled the accused as a ‘pervert’ and demanded an apology for a crime he wasn’t convicted of. This chain reaction of uninformed opinions triggered by one person casually sharing a Facebook post has become one that affects the minds of a million gullible Indians. The news is meant to be presented as ‘MALE BIKER HARASSES GIRL ON A BUSY CITY INTERSECTION’, not ‘MISBEHAVING #PERVERT MAKES LEWD COOMENTS, SHOULD BE HANGED WITH THE REST OF HIS KIND!!!’.

A stigma shall be attached to Jasleen’s and Sarabjit’s lives irrespective of their innocence, while we shall just hit ‘Like’ and scroll down to the rest of our lives. While it is well within our rights to form an opinion on an issue, it does not translate into the right to pass reckless judgements. The Wi-Fi activist, armed with his 4G enabled smartphone could do with a second reading of the post he shares. I assure you buddy, you will get the ‘Likes’ if the cause is right.

© Siddhant Datta

(English Honours, Second Year)