6 Jan 2014 | Digital Freedom, India, News and features, Politics and Society
Social media played a significant part in Arvind Kerjiwal’s successful campaign to become chief minister of New Dehli. He is pictured here addressing auto drivers at a protest in June last year (Image: Rohit Gautam/Demotix)
Much has been written about the influence of social media in the upcoming Indian national elections, expected to take place in mid 2014.
While the two major political parties, the Congress and BJP, have invested in social media cells, the larger consensus is that the internet is still largely an urban phenomenon, and therefore, somehow, not important. According to the latest TRAI figures, rural tele-density still stands at 42%. However, the flip side is that urban tele-density, currently at 144.28%, has allowed the cities to become a litmus test of what could happen if the population was able to access the internet, therefore social media, during election time.
Against the backdrop of social media giving the average citizen a voice to express often ignored opinions, came the anti-corruption protests of 2011, led by Gandhian Anna Hazare and his commander-in-chief, former bureaucrat Arvind Kejriwal. As the two spearheaded a campaign to fight against the injustices meted out to the common man through an oppressive political system, and fought for an anti-corruption law to be passed, they found an onslaught of support over social media by the middle class. Even the TV news channels got caught up in the noble theatrics, keeping the cameras live at Anna Hazare’s hunger strike in the capital, attracting more viewers, and also more supporters for their cause.
Two years later, the bill has been passed – but Team Anna, as it was popularly called, split into two factions The first remains under the leadership of Anna Hazare, and has dissipated into the background. The second, however, has only grown in size and stature. Arvind Kejriwal, in perhaps the most maverick of moves, sits in the capital of India today as its chief minister. This, with a groundswell of support not just from the haggard residents of New Delhi, but seemingly growing support from all over the country. Many factors have contributed to this rise; however, one can certainly identify the role of social and citizen media in shaping this particular election, especially when it comes to Delhi’s middle class.
Kejriwal formally formed the Aam Aadmi Party in November 2012, which translated means the ‘Common Man Party’. They decided to contest the 2013 Delhi elections, with Kejriwal directly taking on three time Congress Chief Minister, Sheila Dixshit, in her constituency. He defeated her.
The Aam Aadmi Party today has 1, 137, 873 likes on Facebook. People can donate to the party online, and follow its leaders on Twitter. What’s more, in a clear and concise website, AAP lists out its manifesto, explanations about its constitution and decisions and even an internal complaints committee. It has a video link, a blog, and even an events page so that people can join in. As it gears up for the 2014 national elections, AAP is also inviting nominations for candidates online. This is unheard of in Indian politics, where politicians are born out of birthright or bribes.
As elections in Delhi were underway, Indian media reported that Kejriwal had admitted to learning from Barack Obama’s social media strategy of 2008, which many believe helped him win the White House. Seven thousand dedicated volunteers consisting of students, workers, people on sabbatical from their jobs, and even retired government officials joined to help AAP rise to power. They collected roughly $1.8 million USD for the campaign in 2013. After the campaign was over, analysts revealed the success of AAP with first time voters: AAP’s online coordinators talk of reaching 3.5 million people just before voting day with an app called Thunderclap, which sits on your Facebook page and tells you to go vote. There seemed to be some sort of social media pressure to be trendy and go vote when it came to the youth of Delhi. However, when it came to its low-income group supporters, AAP did not rely on the power of social media, but implemented a door-to-door strategy which would work in that demographic.
AAP has not been without its share of controversies, the most recent of which was deftly handled through opinion polling over telephone and social media. Kejriwal had announced that in the cause of a hung election in Delhi, his party would absolutely not take the support of either the BJP or Congress to form government. The situation played out exactly as they hoped it wouldn’t. So as to not go back on his word, but still have the option of forming government, AAP decided to ask the people what to do. Suddenly, the people of Delhi could vote in various ways, advising Kejriwal on what he should do. After the polls closed, Kejriwal declared that overwhelmingly, AAP supporters wanted him to form government, which he did. As expected, the BJP has alleged that the “so-called referendum” was actually members of the Congress Party spamming the poll to ensure AAP took Congress support to form government, thereby letting the defeated Congress government regain a position of power.
The takeaway from Kejriwal’s success is that social media buzz, leading to (or perhaps caused by) the mainstream media coverage, has effectively resulted in a small time activist now sharing prime time space with Prime Ministerial candidates like the Congress’s scion Rahul Gandhi and the BJP’s Narendra Modi. In the virtual world, the scales are shifting. The Times of India reports that television channels and social media immediately latched on to AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal as the new ‘hero’ who has since then been eating into Modi’s turf – that of the ‘public mind space’. In this war for public attention, Kejriwal seems to be gaining ground at Modi’s cost.
The Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal have certainly cornered the market on becoming heroes for promises made, aided by a masterful communication strategy. But there is more to this. Indians – residents of New Delhi – finally were able to participate in the interactive social media political campaign that they had previously only read about. The promise of an active democracy where the political leaders don’t just dictate terms but actually solicit and respond to the common man is too tempting an offer to ignore. In his first few days in office, Delhi’s new chief minister was unable to come in to the office, and almost comically tweeted that he was held back because of “loose motions.” The joke goes that perhaps some filters are necessary on social media!
However, irrespective of whether AAP delivers on all its promises or is somehow muscled out of office in a few months, it has proven something to all Indian media watchers. Social media buzz has helped in shaping the agenda for India’s largest and most important city, making a newly formed political party into a serious player in just over a year. This is significant as India has over 360 political parties, and space is limited on the national stage. With a few months to go until the national elections, one can expect more articles in the newspapers, listing out how other politicians have suddenly found the value of interacting with the common man over Facebook and Twitter, helpfully answering questions and taking feedback.
This article was p0sted on 6 Jan 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
3 Jan 2014 | Digital Freedom, News and features
Chinese websites
In 2010 China shut down 1.3 million web sites with popular pages, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, blocked. Three years later and China has employed over 2,000,000 people to monitor microblogging sites, a further clampdown on free speech in the country.
Having blocked major social media sites it’s not surprising that a large percentage of China’s hundreds of millions web users have turned to microblogging sites to offer up their opinions on society. Although the Beijing News stated that the monitors are not required to delete posts they view online they do gather data by searching for negative terms relating to their clients and compiling the information gathered into reports.
Weibo, China’s largest microblogging platform, has more than 500 million registered users who post 100 million messages daily. Postings on the website that criticise the Chinese government are often removed.
Global internet access
The internet is often taken for granted by those with regular and easy access to the online world. However, a staggering 4.6 billion people live without access to it; that’s around 68% of the global population. The number of internet users has grown by 566% since 2000 but considering the positive effects the internet can have on employment, communications and finances more of the world should have access to this valuable resource.
Africa has the poorest access to the internet; only 7% of total global internet usage comes out of the continent with, on average, 15.6% of the population using the internet.
YouTube
YouTube was bought by Google in 2006. Seven years later and localised versions of the video sharing site have been implemented in 56 countries, allowing for the content posted on to YouTube to be tailored specifically to the country it is serving. Although localising YouTube for specific countries can help with issues surrounding copyright, it also means that governments can block specific content from being uploaded and viewed on the website.
In Pakistan the online video sharing site has been banned since 2012. Google is looking to localise YouTube in the country, allowing the population access to the site, but only if the search engine makes it easier to block any blasphemous or objectionable content. Iran, Tajikistan and China are the only other countries with a block on YouTube.
India and the internet
India may be able to claim to be the world’s third largest internet user (behind the U.S and China) but that does not mean the country’s 74 million internet users have free access to the web. According to the Google Transparency Report, India leads the way in the number of take-down requests issued. Between July and December 2012 Indian authorities requested, without court orders, that 2,529 items be removed from the internet- a 90 percent increase from the first half of 2012.
In 2013 amendments were made to the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules which stated, under Section 79 of the IT Act, that intermediaries had only 36 hours to respond to complaints or content deemed by regulators to be “grossly harmful” or “ethnically objectionable”. The clarification meant that this content does not have to be removed from the web, but failure to respond or acknowledge to the request within the short time frame, which does not take into account weekends or holidays, can result in a criminal procedure.
This article was posted on Jan 3 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
16 Dec 2013 | India, News and features
From a protest in Mumbai against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which, among other things, bans gay sex (Image: Abhishek Chinnappa/Demotix)
I woke up on 11 December to a phone call from my friend. She was in tears: “My parents would rather have me married than arrested. They are constantly saying that even the Supreme Court thinks my ‘lifestyle’ is illegal.” I wasn’t sure whether she was pulling a prank on me. It turns out she wasn’t. The date 11.12.13 had tossed at us a judgment that sent shockwaves through India’s LGBTQ population. The July 2009 ruling from the Dehli High Court, decriminalising sex between two consenting adult, including “gay sex”, had been overruled by the Supreme Court.
The Delhi High Court had ruled that Section 377 of the Penal Code was in violation of the Constitution — specifically Article 14 which guarantees “equality before law”, Article 15 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of “religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth” and Article 21 which protecting “life and personal liberty.” The Supreme Court, however, stated that the section can be repealed or amended only by the Indian Parliament.
“While reading down Section 377 IPC, the Division Bench of the High Court overlooked that a minuscule fraction of the country’s population constitute lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgender people and in last more than 150 years less than 200 persons have been prosecuted (as per the reported orders) for committing offence under Section 377 IPC and this cannot be made sound basis for declaring that section ultra vires the provisions of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution,” the Supreme Court stated. Is the implication that just because the LGBTQ community is a minority, it can do without basic human rights? If quantity is the yardstick, then surely we need not fight discrimination against the disabled, religious minorities or the tribals anymore?
After the Delhi High Court ruling, there was a general climate of optimism regarding the rights of sexual minorities. This is not to say that police harassment stopped or lesbians stopped committing suicide. Unlike in the past, this year’s the Chennai Pride march was not given permission to go along the beach, and had to change its route at the last minute. Parts of the route for the Hyderabad Pride parade was in areas with little traffic and hence had little visibility. Despite the official estimates, human rights groups like the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, Karnataka have extensively researched and published reports on how Section 377 has been widely used by the police and society at large to harass homosexuals, male sex workers and transgender people. Extortion, blackmail, rape, physical assaults have gone unreported in a climate of fear.
What if my family/neighbourhood/office comes to know of my orientation? Will I lose my job? Will my family disown me? Do I have affordable legal support at hand? These are some very basic questions that have played on the minds of hundreds of thousands within the LGBTQ community. Section 377 does not imply that one can simply be arrested for one’s sexual orientation; strict material evidence of specific sexual acts is necessary for arrest. But fear creates a vicious cycle of ignorance and more fear. Facts get subsumed and a threat becomes enough to buckle under. Combined with the country’s reactionary obscenity laws, this becomes a potent cocktail for further harassment.
Yet, organisations like Sappho for Equality have conducted regular workshops with the police and the medical establishment, and have found a largely receptive audience. Nine transgender people across the country came together to produce an album and television soaps featured queer tracks. Two of the four short films in “Bombay Talkies” — a compilation celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema, released earlier this year — dealt with the topics homosexuality and transgenderism. Commercials have targeted the modern, urban Indian LGBTQ population. So much so, that many researchers (including myself) started writing about elitism in the Queer movement. This is the backdrop against which the Supreme Court made its ruling! Where does this take us back to? Sappho’s members wonder whether they will be allowed space in governmental agencies anymore. Ranjita Sinha of ATHB (Association of Transgender/Hijra in Bengal) already reports how complaints of harassment are pouring in, citing the examples of Bijoy Maity, who was physically assaulted on the evening of the judgment by locals who did not want an “effeminate” neighbour.
The media has been largely supportive but this support has a flip side too. Each time they flash the ticker, “Homosexuality criminalised”, they end up perpetuating a climate of fear. Yet, Section 377 is not only about the rights of sexual minorities to be themselves and to choose how and whom they love. It also criminalises sex “against the order of nature” and hence even heterosexuals practising oral and anal sex — in other words non procreative sex — can fall within its ambit. The State is entering your bedroom and infringing your integrity and your bodily autonomy — it is dictating your sex life. Anybody, irrespective of sexual orientation, should be concerned by this judgment, a fact yet to be highlighted by the media. The largest democracy of the world is faced with a very basic question. Is it even a democracy if it cannot uphold the fundamental rights of its citizens? As we ponder this question, come on the streets and scream for our rights, my friend and many like her are faced with the uphill task of claiming and reclaiming their right to be themselves.
13 Dec 2013 | News and features
Gay rights activists chant slogans against a Supreme Court ruling criminalising gay sex in Bangalore, India (Image: Abhishek Chinnappa/Demotix)
A furor broke out in the Indian news media and social media on December 11, 2013, as news of a Supreme Court judgment made its way through the country. The court had upheld the constitutionality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which reads: “Unnatural offences — whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.” The Penal Code is a legacy of the rule of the United Kingdom, where homosexuality was made legal in 1967.
The section had been previously challenged by Naz Foundation, a NGO that works in the area of HIV and sexual health. In 2009, the Delhi High Court had ruled that the section was in violation of Acts 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India, which protect citizen’s rights to personal liberty, equality, and from being discriminated against. Some of the arguments that swayed the Court essentially reasoned that 377 has been repeatedly used to abuse gay, LBGT [lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender] and even health workers by authority figures, and by its very existence it allowed the gay community to be targeted and ostracized by society large. The logic was that even though Section 377 only focused on the ‘act’ of unnatural carnal behavior between men, women or men and women, essentially, due to their sexual activity, it is the gay community that had been unfairly targeted by it. The Court also felt that 377 did not need to cover ‘consensual sexual acts between adults on the ground of public morality’ and nor did it distinguish between the public and private sphere. Therefore, it concluded that public morality was different from constitutional morality, which the Section was in violation of.
What followed was jubilation from gay rights activists who thought that the judgment, though limited only to Delhi, was the start of a progressive new India that would possibly champion gay rights and their freedom of expression. “Homosexuality is not a crime!” screamed the headlines in India’s most popular English magazine, bringing a smile to India’s small LGBT population of about 25,00,000 people.
However, only days later the judgment was challenged in the Supreme Court, which has given its decision only 5 years later. In a huge setback to LGBT rights, the Court has upheld Section 377 as constitutional, thereby making homosexual intercourse illegal. The reasoning of the Supreme Court of India, in a nutshell, is that the language of the Section, while may seem unfair to a certain community, certainly does not single them out. In fact, the court feels that many other non consensual situations involving the ‘act’ but different parties like young children, men and women and so on, are protected by the Section. That it is misused by authorities does not make it unconstitutional. A final nail in the coffin was the Court’s reasoning that instead of erring on the side of judicial overreach, the Court would rather wait for Parliament to legislate the Section away. Its judgment read: “After the adoption of the IPC in 1950, around 30 amendments have been made to the statute, the most recent being in 2013 which specifically deals with sexual offences, a category to which Section 377 IPC belongs. The 172nd Law Commission Report specifically recommended deletion of that section and the issue has repeatedly come up for debate. However, the Legislature has chosen not to amend the law or revisit it. This shows that Parliament, which is undisputedly the representative body of the people of India has not thought it proper to delete the provision.” It ended up saying the abuse of this Section – “used to perpetrate harassment, blackmail and torture on certain persons, especially those belonging to the LGBT community” – might be a factor for the Legislature to weigh while considering amending Section 377.
Therefore, the Supreme Court has firmly put legislating back in the corner of the legislators, and in turn earned the wrath of a section of India’s middle class. In an article titled ‘Justice Denied’, commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta has slammed the judgment writing, “But the court does not seem to realise that hiding behind Parliament’s omissions is not a neutral stance; it upholds the constitutionality of an evil law. In the name of deference to an assortment of petitioners, it gives aid and succour to the reactionary elements of a religion rather than its best exemplars… Even if it were upheld by Parliament, it would infringe on basic rights and possibly the basic structure. The court’s job is to take a stand on constitutionality. It did not do its job on the occasion that warranted it.”
The criticisms continue. In Kafila, Siddharth Narain has presented a detailed analysis of what he considers “narrow and blindfolded interpretation of the law, ignoring the momentous changes in society and notions of morality that India is witnessing.” Further, according to Narain, “the Court also said that there were ‘only 200 persons’ prosecuted under section 377 in the last 150 years, ignoring the fact that these are 200 recorded judgments of the High Courts and Supreme Court, which is only a fraction of the unreported cases at the trial level. Further this does not take into account the impact of having the law on the statute book, and the threat of use of the law, that LGBT persons face on an every day basis.”
Even the present government has jumped into the debate. The Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram has said that, “in 2013, to say everyone should have same sexual orientation is absurd,” and that the “government should file curative petition, ask for matter to be reviewed by bench of 5 judges.” Even the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi made a statement that, “Delhi High Court had wisely removed an archaic, unjust law… I hope the Parliament will address this issue and uphold the constitutional guarantee of life and liberty to all citizens of India, including those affected by this judgment.”
However, there are those who support the Supreme Court’s decision to put the onus on the legislators. Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar thinks that, “the issue of legalising same sex relationships is best protected by a proper law in Parliament that explicitly protects these relationships and not be based on ‘interpretative’ of an old statute! The appeal of the High court decision was filed Muslim Law board, Christian clerics and a BJP MP who have opposed this and not the judge/Supreme Court!”
Meanwhile, social media in India is abuzz with people changing their profile pictures to black in solidarity of the LGBT community also has users putting up a picture kissing someone of the same sex, with the tag #gayforaday. Protests have been arranged in New Delhi and people have already started petitions and strategies to lobby parliamentarians to amend the Section to be reflective of a modern Indian society that gives even its sexual minorities the equality and dignity they deserve.
However, the sad truth is that with elections looming, political parties including the ruling Congress Party is unlikely to take up the issue in parliament. As a DNA news report explains, “there is no consensus within the Congress, party sources said, as it is aware that a step in favour of gay rights can increase its unpopularity as most of India, especially religious groups cutting across various religions, are totally against it and see it as a sin. There is also no denying the fact that gays and lesbians have a very thin population in India and no action in their favour will hardly reflect in the elections.” As news of the Supreme Court judgment broke, various religious parties and Godmen with huge followings rejoiced. Baba Ramdev, much in the news for his massive following and political ambitions declared upon hearing the verdict that, “the court has respected sentiments of millions of Indians by declaring homosexuality a crime.”
