Welcome to Litsy!

What a horrible little book. It‘s a must read for anyone interested in the effect of social media on the democratic space but these very last few lines are quite literally the only positive note in it (of a troll who remembered her humanity). Usual caveats for Indian non-fiction: there‘s a lot of Hindi slang/ terminology that often isn‘t translated so you‘ll miss things or be on Google a lot but it‘s such a timely message the effort is worth it.⬇️

“Cell” is the word under my dart.

A fascinating point that seems globally applicable. India, America, Australia, even the Uk in many ways. The purpose of politicians isn‘t supposed to be getting elected; they‘re supposed to govern once they get there. You can‘t govern well in an election/war mind set. Lord knows they all seem to be trying but to actually serve the people there needs to be a mindset shift that we seem to have lost along the way.

Oh good lord 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

When you‘re so eager to spread lies and hate that you re-tweet a *parody* Militant‘s account and the actual Militant (Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed) calls you out...

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

😡😡😡 A**holes. (Ghose is a family friend who‘s unforgivable crime was to be an unbiased reporter and write a book called “Why I am a Liberal”. She‘s passionate about India remaining free and civil and has been subjected to almost unimaginable levels of vitriol online as a result).

These cretins are being reincarnated as slugs, not a huge leap, I‘ll grant you. 😡😡😡😡😡

More WhatsApp images for dissemination including the hashtags to use. The author notes that these are knowingly false & being spread by the ruling government with the (assumed but with relatively compelling evidence) knowledge and approval of the Prime Minister. “Interestingly” the same government has repeatedly refused to pass laws allowing political online spending to fall under any legal oversight and the police “choose” to remain inactive. 💔

Two of the (THE) juggernauts of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan & Aamir Khan spoke out about their fears over growing intolerance in India & were violently and aggressively subjected to targeted online attacks. The pictures are WhatsApp messages from the BJP‘s social media arm to staffers directing them to use social media, predominantly Twitter and WhatsApp to destroy part of Aamir Khan‘s livelihood (for saying he was afraid of growing intolerance...)

Heaving blurred because the surrounding context is confusing.

In a nutshell, this is going to be my core problem with this book, as it is for almost all Indian writing - it‘s not “English”. Most Indian writing, especially that targeted at an Indian audience is “Indian English”, for want of a better term, & requires virtually fluency in latinised Hindi. Needless to say, I‘m not but there are millions of Indians who aren‘t either. It annoys me.⬇️

The quote is from an interview with Arun Shourie talking about the effect of the Prime Minister following Twitter vicious and violent twitter trolls (and then inviting them around to tea and offering one a job 🤦🏻‍♀️). The aim is to silence dissent which will, clearly, destroy the state that lays claim to being the worlds largest democracy.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Nope.... and yet 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

This poor author, I already want to give her a hug. Then the rest of us. To think, she was looking to the world to have the class and standards that the Indian internal polity was lacking in 2015...

😭😭😭😭😭

I am a Troll was published in 2016 before the election of the current US Administration and the re-election this year, in a vicious and at times violent campaign, of the BJP in India.

I‘ve already got a feeling the author might be banging her head against a wall yelling “I TOLD YOU SO WHY AREN‘T YOU LISTENING?!?”.

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

😡😡😡 Democracy and development don‘t work if you don‘t have aggressively neutral/“blind” justice including and maybe especially policing.

As the paragraph notes, India‘s not so good at this unfortunately. As we were leaving, THE movie of the moment was about a guy who joined the police to make his fortune taking bribes (and then comes around only when a friend is raped and beaten but only insofar as revenge🤦🏻‍♀️)

Next up - Social Media focus for #Booked2019 #spring.

This is going to annoy me.

There will be ranting.

You have been warned.