As a young tech person in India, this stuff makes me so angry. The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition. Which means they can get away with pretty much anything.
They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician. Then they'll brand you as an "anti-nationalist" and openly say to their supporters that you deserve to be shot.
Facial recognition is now being used to identify protestors. Bots and deepfakes are being used to spread propoganda.
Many people are upset, but there's nothing we can do. We can't speak out without fear of being reprimanded. We can vote for other parties, but there's no way that they'll ever win. The majority of the population has blind faith in BJP. The only demographic that appears to realise the implications well enough is the youth in urban areas - a very insignificant fraction of the nation's population.
Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP because if they do then they get attacked by physical and virtual mobs.
This comment has so many factual inaccuracies.
1. Vote share for BJP in urban areas have been consistent with rural areas in the most recent national election of 2019. Source: Official website of election commission of India
2. There are multiple celebrity status people (including journalists, students, politicians) and common people openly complaining against government on Twitter and in public forums and they are all free and continue to do so without the fear of being arrested. Examples: Ravish Kumar, Barkha Dutt, Shehla Rashid, Shashi Tharoor, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Kanhaiya Kumar and countless more.
3. Ruling party has a very strong competition at state level. In India, police report to states (except Delhi) so in general, states have much more power to control law and order than central govt. BJP has lost recent assembly elections spectacularly in Delhi and some other states.
4. People always have reasons to be upset. When J&K was an independent state the people in Jammu and Ladakh were upset because of the corruption, lawlessness and rampant terrorism about which local govt. biased in favor of Kashmir region didn't do anything. Then, Kashmiris were holding Ladakh and Jammu folks hostage.
There is no way that anyone other than BJP will win the election on the national level anytime soon. Congress and Rahul Gandhi is a joke, they've fucked our nation over too much to win again.
AAP doesn't have a lot of support outside of Delhi and a couple other states, and the same can be said for all other regional parties. None of them can step up to and beat BJP. It's the unfortunate truth.
The Thoothukudi case is for the State Government Police to handle. How is Modi responsible for it? Just because you have an alliance partner doesn't mean that BJP becomes party to it or ordered it. This is what happens when you indulge in hyperbole. It just weakens your own arguments.
He did not even acknowledge the death of 13 people getting shot(including a higher secondary school girl) in the protest against a corporation. As a Prime Minister of a country this is the least expected .
No it's not expected. This is a State issue. If that was the case who acknowledged the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits? Who acknowledged the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 riots triggered by the Congress party? No one. So don't give your sob story. The Prime Minister is not responsible for the dereliction of duty by the State Government. Hold the State Government responsible! Modi is not responsible for everything under the Sun.
Forest Rights Act is now applicable to J and K as Union Territory yet people in Jammu are against implementing it as it would give Gujjars and Bakerwals harvesting rights. Whose dereliction of duty is that? I’ll bet they move faster on cow slaughter.
This comment is not full of factual inaccuracies. In-fact it doesn't cover the length and breadth of the atrocities happening in India. To cite some examples:
- Kanhaiya Kumar (cited above), hundreds of students and even 10 year olds have sedition cases against them.
- The competition has been decimated. BJP spends 3X more than all of the other parties combined together in Elections
- Section 144 (prohibiting assembly of 4 or more people) has been arbitrarily applied across India.
- Free press has been demolished and right wing mouthpieces are both propped up and given a free run. False cases against The Hindu, NDTV, Hostile takeover of CNN-IBN etc.. I can cite a dozen more examples
- BJP losing state elections mean noting. Modi's role model is Xi. He wants to be benovalent dictator of life.
It is factually inaccurate. VPNs are running all across India except in Kashmir. Stop this hyperbole. You can fool some people some of the time but not all people all the time.
> The competition has been decimated. BJP spends 3X more than all of the other parties combined together in Elections
How is this an atrocity? This is legitimate right of every party to spend how much ever it gets as donations from the public. The Congress held the ubiquitous position for 60 years. No one questioned political spending then. Why is BJP being questioned for the same now? Just because the public resonate with BJP's National policies and donate to the party? Now will this also be termed as an atrocity? Can't believe the nuts that exist in India.
> Section 144 (prohibiting assembly of 4 or more people) has been arbitrarily applied across India.
Section 144 cannot be arbitrarily applied. Section 144 is imposed by a Magistrate who is an Administrator not an elected official. And a Magistrate will never apply Section 144 arbitrarily without there being a valid cause. And Section 144 is better than riots. Prevention is better than cure. When it comes to choosing between disorder, damage to public property, rioting protestors, communal clashes and Section 144, I would choose Section 144 any day.
Modi is one of those individuals who has been vilified by one community for almost 20 odd years now. It's nothing new. And the amount of media bashing he gets every day even Manmohan Singh did not get the same treatment. No matter how much you lie that there is no freedom to express in India it is infact the exact opposite. Media that is anti-Modi and anti-BJP: NDTV, The Wire, Quint, The Hindu, Indian Express, Newslaundery, ABP News, Aaj Tak, India Today and countless other regional news channels and smaller outlets. The cases filed against some of the media houses are not "false". They are involved in money laundering and are being investigated for the same. No court has said that the cases are "false". This is again malicious propaganda. Show me on case which the Indian Courts have ruled as "fake". Not one.
Sedition cases are slapped against those who have called for break up of the country. It is a case. It is not a conviction. It is a legitimate right of the Government to file cases against those who indulge in Anti-India activities. If Modi was emulating Xi he would have gotten Kanhaiya Kumar killed not have some sedition case slapped on him. Why would he bother taking the legal route if he was a Dictator? Never heard of a Dictator filing legal cases. If this is what you call as "Modi emulating Xi" then I say it is a pathetic attempt at emulating Xi.
Your own arguments fall flat the moment you start dig into the facts instead of becoming emotional!
What is happening in Shaheen Bagh? A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act that has been going on for more than 40 days where a public road has been blocked. Any other country you would have had riot police beat up the protestors and have them evacuated for causing nuisance to public. We can understand 1 or 2 days of protests but 40 days? This is ridiculous. 40 days of public road being blocked! Which Dictator will allow that? Have some shame.
> And Section 144 is better than riots. Prevention is better than cure.
To prevent riots government needs to produce better policies, so that there would be no need for a riot in the first place. Preventing peaceful assembly is not one of these policies.
> Preventing peaceful assembly is not one of these policies
No one prevented peaceful assembly. Shaheen Bagh is the best example where protestors have captured a public road illegally for 60+ days and neither the Government nor the Police are doing anything about it. Police and Administration only take action against rioters or those who indulge in vandalism of public property. The Deputy Commissioner of the local district gets first hand information on everything that happens in the district. The DC knows beyond doubt if the gathering is going to be peaceful or violent. We have highest levels of intelligence gathering and that has only increased and strengthened manifold after various terror attacks. Hence why the Supreme Court doesn't take the Centre to task neither does the High Court take the State to task over imposition of Section 144. The judges instead just give a rap on the fingers. That is because the administration has all details about the nature of protests and can provide adequate proof. If you really want to understand all this you should spend sometime with retired IAS officers and if they get to like you will tell you the workings of the system. You can't fool the administration into thinking that you can riot in the guise of "peaceful protests". The administration has various ways of intelligence gathering and knows exactly what the outcome of the gathering would be.
>Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP
That is a lie. The Indian media is not afraid to criticize the BJP.
I'm not Indian but I am from the same subcontinent and have seen a constant stream of Indian news that are very critical of the current BJP government.
Here are some Indian media that constantly criticize the current BJP government:
Do you have examples for us? Okay if it is in Arabic/Hindi/etc. We talk about the potential for damage here (on HN) and so I think it is important to have examples of this happening in the wild.
I voted you up since I want examples but Hindi and Urdu and South Asian languages can be written in Arabic script, but they are not in fact Arabic. The former regardless of writing systems are linguistically way closer to English.
Thank you. I was just trying to say that I am accepting of deep fakes that aren't in English. Maybe that would have been more clear.
If these exist, I think it is important to show them and track how they are being used. Hopefully it can help us avoid similar pitfalls in the future by learning how they are used.
Deepfake is the technology, not the intention. All those videos where someone replaces everyone in a movie scene with Nicholas Cage, or whatever, are deepfakes even though they're not intended to fool anyone.
> They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician.
Thank you for sharing this information. How were you, in your comment above, able to safely criticise the government while in India?
(If you are not able to disclose how you did, that's understandable to me. We all know about methods like Tor and obfs4 bridges. I run a Tor bridge to help people in China, hopefully. And now thanks to you, I'm thinking of India too.)
HTTPS, and a throwaway account that cannot be linked to me. I live in an urban area where the internet isn't very restricted (other than DNS-level blocks for porn and piracy sites). The same is not there for the people in Kashmir, who have had very little (and severely restricted) access to the internet in the past eight months or so.
Stay safe! BJP or rather RSS is a Nazism driven platform and, like seen in any other country in recent years, people fell for the bait of 'development' and guerilla marketing from bigots of their major religion.
This is extremely sad and I am hoping things will correct before everything worsens further.
> Many people are upset, but there's nothing we can do.
I remember people (not to point to anyone in particular but generally) even the educated ones making fun of a new engineer politician on the rise. There was news about slapping the newbie on their roadshows and rallies where this politician was trying to connect personally with the people.
What do you think of that?
For someone like me with an outside-in view I feel that we have a 'karma problem' with the general citizenry of India. Not to come off as a prude American (this is also true now for my own country as well-–Trump nation) but democracy is so much like a mirror––and in the end we all get what we deserve.
I am in Jammu(India) right now and can attest that comments like above are only opinions and not facts. As goes for any country, people keep inventing stuff / leaving crucial details because of their own biases and self interests. The same goes for people who support BJP.
Absolutely right. It is ridiculous to think that the Government will not restrict communications in a region that has seen nothing but violence and terrorism for the past 30 years since the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. For the first time in 3 decades the Valley is peaceful. If it comes down to choosing between deaths of innocents by deranged terrorists and cutting communication I would always choose the latter. The Pulwama Attack is still fresh in the mind of Indians and cannot be forgotten or forgiven.
How many times did you visit the valley in the last 30 years? Please tell us how peaceful or violent it was during your last 5 visits.
Please, also tell us how exactly this is bringing peace to the valley and if banning phones and internet for months has been so effective, then why did 1988-95 see the most unrest? If I remember correctly, mobile phones with EDGE/GPRS were introduced to Kashmir around what year? 2002? 2000 to ~2010 were also some of the most peaceful years in Kashmir in the last 3 decades.
I have been there multiple times - to Jammu in particular. I'm a 90s kid and in all my life, I have seen an army presence in the region due to the fear of terrorism. Tanks have always had some movement visible to the public at all times (even when it was relatively peaceful).
And here's the kicker - everyone thinks the civilisation is anti muslim. The reason I went to Jammu many times is to visit a Hindu temple there. It sits atop a mountain and you have to climb it by foot. Nowadays they have costly helicopter rides to get to the top, but back in the day all you had were either horses (kinda limited) or manual labourers who offered to carry you up / down in palanquins or directly on their backs. Literally all of them have always been muslims.
The temple and its surrounding areas are completely smothered by the army because they know that this is a very holy ground for the Hindus. If there ever were a terrorist attack aimed at it (or even the whiff of it), there will be blind violence on the streets against all muslims and immediate call for war against pakistan. The same army people know most of these muslim labourers and don't give a shit about them.
Does that mean that the army does not at all attack based on religious profiling? No. The army has done very unethical profiling based on religion in the region in the past. My point is if I didn't include this disclaimer, I can also make up stories of any given bent and literally all of my facts would be true.
Not sure what that has to do with BANNING 10 MILLION PEOPLE FROM USING INTERNET for 5 months and then banning all social media but from my experience of meeting Pandits in Srinagar who HAVE returned, yes.
Plus, OP implied that Kashmir is peaceful now because of people not having internet access. Are you now saying until Pandits return, Kashmir will have no internet access?
- I was replying to the claim that J&K was peaceful, which it clearly was not. We cannot claim that since it was peaceful for one community, it was peaceful.
- per the media reports that I've seen, no Kashmiri Pandits have dared to return. The only few that are in the valley are the ones who could not migrate, primarily due to economic reasons. Rest have been living as refugees in their own country
- Internet had been used by terrorists and their sympathizors, and that is a fact
Population of Kashmir is around 6.9 million not 10 million. Total population of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is 12 million of which Kashmir is a part.
Don't include Jammu, Leh and Ladakh into this as they want to be with India in totality. Even the Kashmiris you talk about are incomplete without the 5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits who were forcibly made to leave from the Valley. The popular slogan : Raliv, Galiv, Chaliv (Convert, Die or Leave) and the fact that they wanted the Pandits to "leave their women behind" shows what kind of Religious hysteria was fanned up to dislodge the original inhabitants: Kashmiri Pandits, from their homes. Have some shame. Repent for the sins committed on the Pandits community that gave shelter, only to turn against them in the end. Kashmiri Pandits are living as refugees in their own country. What can be more shameful than that? No matter how much you justify the Kashmiri cause the Genocide and Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits will remain a big blot on Kashmiriyat. You cannot suppress Truth for long.
That’s my point. There was no plan. BJP jumped off a cliff and none of these guys are going to gainsay them even though there is no way forwards except backwards.
I was going to quote the whole "those who would give up essential liberty..." quote, but then I Googled it and realized that all the search results were spammed with the same false meme about how he was "misquoted". Since likely some hn commenter has been exposed to the meme, I need to preempt them posting it here by pointing out that yes, I am aware of it, I just think the meme is bullshit.
yes and here is the Actual News from the same article ----------- The FIR has been registered while taking cognisance of the social media posts by miscreants by using different VPNs, which are propagating rumours with regard to the current security scenario in the Kashmir valley, secessionist ideology and glorifying terrorists, the police said.
Anyone remotely familiar with the region would know that Jammu is virtually the same as rest of India when it comes to Indian state policies regarding the state of J&K. Kashmir is an entirely different story and that is what is being discussed.
Most Western media wrongly includes Jammu, Ladakh and other parts of J&K in their coverage of Kashmir. Google "12 million people + Kashmir". The population of the Muslim-majortiy Kashmir Valley is 6.9 million.
Interestingly Pakistan demands/consider all of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh to be Pakistani territory. There is maybe a case for the Sunni Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley joining Pakistan but I don't think other parts of J&K will join them.
> The ruling party here (BJP) doesn't have any real competition
That's true, the left opposition has become a lame duck because they choose to be dynastic sycophants rather than an actual democracy / meritocracy.
> They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician
Yes, but mostly No. The BJP is more petty than the last congress govt. But, my social media is filled with anti-Modi posts posted by public profiles and not a single one of them has faced any repercussions.
Also VPNs are only banned in Kashmir.
You can criticize something you don't like, without using hyperbole. The hyperbole, when not obvious, only makes your point look weaker.
> We can vote for other parties, but there's no way that they'll ever win
The congress has literally been in power here for 60/70 years of independence. If for a second, they can stop acting like the most incompetent political organization in the world and actually put a half-decent leader in power, then they can mount some proper opposition.
Also, the BJP just lost 4 consecutive state elections and Delhi was lost 60-8. The country is hardly falling in line with Modi. The only problem is the Congress has basically imploded into itself.
> Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP because if they do then they get attacked by physical and virtual mobs.
Just saying. This has always been true with MSM in most parts of the world. TOI was notorious for falling in line with whoever was in power. Many older news channels acted like Propaganda tools for the Congress too. I am not surprised at all, that they have all moved over to BJP now that the hand that feeds them has changed.
I personally love Shekhar Gupta's work on The Print. He is one of the few journalists disliked by both Congress and BJP, and there is no greater honor in India. I have followed him since his time as Editor in chief of the Indian Express. It was always very high quality, unbiased or the type that declared its bias quite clearly. (like his fondness for Vajpayee)
For Americans, this is identical to when Sen. Joseph McCarthy was branding people "Unamerican". The BJP have succeeded in establishing their brand of hatred and stupidity as the only valid form of patriotism.
That has never been the communist philosophy. Communism seeks to destroy private property ownership and capitalism, because they believe that the profit generated by any business is the right of its workers, not the capital owner. They intend to do that by taking ownership of all resources and property by the state and the state managing all businesses.
None of this involves abolishing countries and governments. If anything, communism involves a far more stronger sense of community, patriotism, and a much more powerful government
Patriotism is love for one’s country. Nationalism is the belief that one’s country (and often ethnic subset) is supreme (and more deserving of prosperity), speaking generally.
Would the formation of Israel be an expression of nationalism? Can it in that light be seen as the belief that one's country or ethnic group is just as deserving as others'? Or to take a more recent example of Kurdish nationalism.
I’m not especially familiar with those groups but I would think not. Semantics are subjective but I would tend to assume that there’s a pre-requisite that they already be in power, and yet be pushing for tripling down on those power structures.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric is emblematic of nationalist themes. Anti immigrant. Playing up cultural mythos. Bragging about military capabilities. Blaming foreign nations for most problems. Implying that a return to core values will bring greatness. Lots of fear and anger.
Tends to be very effective for groups of people that used to be powerful but are no longer.
You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly in multiple threads on divisive topics by snarking, getting personal, posting flamebait, and so on. That's not cool. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on? Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Since when was India a nation? It's got dozens of languages, two major religions (one of which is more of an ecumenical blending of ancient practices), and many ethnic groups and cultural norms. A nation is by definition homogeneous or nearly so across these variations.
By my estimation India is an empire, and nationalism makes no sense in its context. Patriotism maybe, or political loyalty.
Just seems like a weird choice of political propaganda. I do understand there's a strong anti-Muslim attitude in India, which might be what they're calling nationalism. But it doesn't seem right.
Hinduism is not "an ecumenical blending of ancient practices". It has well defined rituals, rites and codes. They were simply allowed to be modified as necessary by anyone since the ancients essentially believed in freedom to appease your god as you wanted.
The core of Hinduism remains the vedas, gita, the puranas and the upanishads. They lay out a very deep philosophy that theologians much more educated than I am have been investigating for centuries. It is a highly rigid system at its core (contrary to the freewheeling morass image Indians themselves have projected to appear non religious).
This is why India is a nation. From the tip of Jammu till the edge of Kanyakumari, people thought of the vedas as the progenitor scripture of all civilisation. They heard the exact same stories of the Mahabharatha and Ramayana for millennia. The fact that they were free to adapt it and retell or embellish it does not mean they broke away from the system itself or that the system emerged later than the stories did.
I expect Parent either meant nation as a synonym for "country".
nation is defined as:
na•tion
n.
A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.
n.
The territory occupied by such a group of people.
Worth noting that many of those ethnic groups still suffer disenfranchisement under the caste system. Indian/Narendra Modi nationalism is Hindu nationalism.
May be this will help you understand the difference.
Anti-national != criticize.
If you refresh your past memory, kishan kanhaiya raise slogans saying we will break India and he is not in jail.
Every one has right to express their opinion but judicial system will take its course. Govt cannot put people in jail just because someone criticized them. That was the point I am making. I can't make it any clearer than this for you
In that case you should Kickstart some media outside India. It's your best bet folks. You have a large talent pool and I'm sure you'll come up with some way of financing it.
Interesting. When the media is objective, they are branded as pro-BJP, Sangi, Bhakts etc. It's not fair to expect all the media to spew hate against the ruling government
Misleading Title. It is not about using VPN but about propagating rumors.
This is a law in India, as there were instances of riots caused by social media rumor.
Actual News ----------- The FIR has been registered while taking cognisance of the social media posts by miscreants by using different VPNs, which are propagating rumours with regard to the current security scenario in the Kashmir valley, secessionist ideology and glorifying terrorists, the police said.
They've banned VPNs. They'll chuck you in prison if you speak against the government or a politician. Then they'll brand you as an "anti-nationalist" and openly say to their supporters that you deserve to be shot.
Facial recognition is now being used to identify protestors. Bots and deepfakes are being used to spread propoganda.
Many people are upset, but there's nothing we can do. We can't speak out without fear of being reprimanded. We can vote for other parties, but there's no way that they'll ever win. The majority of the population has blind faith in BJP. The only demographic that appears to realise the implications well enough is the youth in urban areas - a very insignificant fraction of the nation's population.
Even the media is afraid to speak out against BJP because if they do then they get attacked by physical and virtual mobs.
It's a shame. So much potential.