1. Here’s Why Internet Hinduism Can
Be Dangerous
By Akhil Kumar

2. Internet Hinduism
• It is a term coined by Journalist Sagarika Ghosh who was
ambushed on Twitter by right-wing fanatics on almost every
post where she mentioned anything to hurt the sentiments of
the passionate self-appointed guardians of ‘Virat Bharat’.
• They are people who surf the internet and social media to
propagate Hindutva; the social and cultural nationalism in
India.
• They hunt for posts of 'pseudo-secularists’ (a term they use to
address anyone who disagrees with them) and ‘debate’ about
their opinions on various issues, which often develops into
spamming the post with a lot of comments and ends with the
other person being too irritated to reply.

3. Meena Kandasame and her Tweet
• One of the most shocking instances where it manifested
itself in the ugliest way possible is the one where Meena
Kandasamy (a Dalit poet and activist) was attacked by some
right wing fanatics for her Twitter post on the beef-eating
festival at Osmania University, Hyderabad, on 15 April 2012.
• She was threatened with various forms of violence, including
gang rape and acid attacks; a certain Siddharth Shankar went
on to suggest the barbaric idea of raping her on live
television.
• This is not to be anyone’s favor, but the exact hate speech
needed to be reproduced to understand the consequences of
the misuse of such movements by hate mongers.

4. Who are they?!
• It’s not that they are an uneducated group of sworn hooligans
of the RSS or any other nationalist party
• Many of them who have revealed their identities confess that
they are free thinkers who have taken to the internet after
being victims of constant media bias.
• The majority of them who replied to an online survey claim to
be graduate, postgraduate and even PhD students.
• Not all of them are Islamophobes, Pakistan haters and Modi
worshippers as has been the popular opinion.
• Some of them try to engage in discussions and propagate a
rational approach to Hinduism without being vulgar or
hateful.

5. Effects of Internet Hinduism on the
common people
• The general population in this country is very emotionally
driven and that is the fodder on which hate mongers survive.
• In some decision making processes we tend to go with our
emotions rather than logic, especially if it involves religious
sentiments.
• The term ‘Internet Hindu’ has in fact brought a bad name on
even those who have no such agenda in mind, people who
just want to debate, discuss and learn.
• Anyone who tries to question the secularism and criticizes
the Left politics is automatically seen with a doubtful eye.
• This is really dangerous as they will continue shouting ‘Bharat
Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ to manipulate little parts of
nationalism in every individual and make them blind to
reason and logic.

6. Secular! Are we?
• It questions the whole idea of India being the largest
democratic secular nation;
– how are we secular when we cannot even express our
thoughts on religion without being subjected to abuse and
hate speech?
– How are we secular when the majority of us have no
tolerance for other religions?
– How are we secular when we are so busy in stereotyping
other communities that we can’t find the time to sit back
and understand their views?
• The ‘Internet Hindu’ reveals a lot about the general Indian
psychology and has put a big question mark on our
secularism.

7. Wake up!!
• It’s time we wake up and free our minds of all prejudices, it’s
time we start thinking for ourselves.
• It’s very essential to keep debating about everything and we
should question everything to expand the horizons of our
knowledge.
• There’s no harm in propagating what we feel is right, we have
every right to say what we believe in but we need to stay very
alert and watchful lest we should be used and manipulated
for personal vested interests.

8. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz at http://bit.ly/WIFOxq