Warnings. Threats. Deaths. Murders. Terror. For daring to speak against religion? Almost 9 out of 10 people would say, of course this is Taliban or ISIS or Hezbollah. No this is none of them. These are the Hindu extremists. Is it because there is an attack on some Hindu religious place? Is it because India has been attacked by a foreign aggressor? Is it because Hindus are being suppressed and oppressed by religious minorities or majorities? No not so. This murderous harassment is for "daring" to hold a conference, titled "Dismantling Global Hindutva". This is a conference co-sponsored by more than 53 universities including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers.
Such is the state of real affairs in India. This attitude is again being played down. Indians are terming this as few rightist groups. International media is also calling it as far right fringe groups who are trying to parry to their followers. This trivialization of this happening is the most dangerous propagation of a trend of "shooting the messenger" who exposes the mass reality of India of today. This was not a one-off prank or a few dubious messages floating around universities. This was an organized hate, terror, death threats campaign. One example of its seriousness- more than 1million emails were sent to the presidents, provosts and officials at universities. These were sent to pressurize them to withdraw and dismiss staff who were participating. This denotes that this was an organized campaign backed by state funded groups in India and the US. At Drew University in New Jersey, more than 30,000 emails were received in just a few minutes, causing the university server to crash.
It will be interesting to see if the Universities get an investigation done on such an attack on their academic sanctity and safety. The disinformation and misinformation factories working in India under state patronage have now become over ambitious. Their cyber army has the mandate to distort the truth and reality about the present state of affairs in Indian socio- politics. The reasons are:
The big market bait-The reality of the matter is that money matters. India has used its big population to its advantage. With over a billion people, mainly young and upcoming, they became a multinational entry point to South Asia. They have used their investment potential to attract not just investors but political space. With heartbreaking atrocities in Kashmir and grave violation of United Nations Charter hardly anybody from the developed world dare say or do anything beyond a few statements and reports. Such is the lure of size and sales.
Dominate thinking through think tanks-Gone are the days when the US and UK used to spread narratives due to their global think tanks. China and India have emulated and improved their intellectual capacity to produce new ideas, thinking and narrative. India has almost 300 think tanks that feed researches, policy papers that become the base of debates, discourse and thinking in global media and academia. Pennsylvania's Global Go To Think Tank Index Report includes a list of the world's top 175 think tanks - and here too the Indians make a respectable showing, with the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) ranked at 79; the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) coming in 104th; the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) ranking 109th; the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) placed 111th; the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) at 118th and Development Alternatives at 136th.
The cyber advantage-India is far ahead of the developing countries on the information highway. Taking an early lead on social media, the Indian fake news are virtually real. The EU Disinformation Lab report on the Indian Chronicles substantiated what we already feared. They have an extensive cyber intelligence, hackers, attackers, fakers that are waging cyber wars particularly on Pakistan.
These are psychological demolition ammunition. Fake trends on twitter in a matter of minutes through cyber terrorism force of India creates thousands of tweets as a matter of daily bread and butter. That is why traditional tools of dealing with this mode of targeted psychological invasion will not work. What needs to be done is to create a cyber strategic approach to deal with these deadly attacks:
Develop regional market offers-With the new collaboration with Central Asia, Pakistan has the opportunity to create golden triangular market blocs. Many possibilities are there. Pakistan, Russia, Iran and Afghanistan are all countries that can join together for not just pipelines but for market offerings to the world. Similarly, the Economic Cooperation Organization that has remained rusty can be revived as its ten countries represent a market bigger than the European Union. This joint market show will make Pakistan neutralize the Indian big market advantage.
Joint counter narratives-If India has substantial think tanks, China leads in the world with its think tanks. Pakistan needs to collaborate with China on developing narratives to expose Indian lies and fake news. So far the Pak-China collaboration has focused on industry and investment. However, there is a need to collaborate on intellectual bases for countering the Indian attacks through subtle policy exposé.
Cooperation on the information highway-While the economic corridors are essential, equally important is the development of the information corridors. An excellent idea of developing a joint media with Turkey and Malaysia was stalled when Saudi Arabia intervened. Time now to collaborate with Qatar and Turkey and a few other countries to develop global social media platforms. The power of YouTube channels and podcasts, etc., to reach global audience should never be underestimated.
To begin this framework let us start with action on the conference on "Dismantling Global Hindutva". This conference was a charge sheet on cyber terrorism of Modi's India. The presenters revealed how they received life threats, suspension of their passports and other serious threats to their families by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and RSS supporters across the globe to suppress their voice and stay away from the conference. This should be reported to this United Nations, Human Rights Organizations and International forums with the help of other countries who have suffered in this regard.
The conference highlighted that RSS under Modi is the largest organised extremist hate group in the world. It draws its inspiration from Nazi ideology and Italian fascism. The list of the participating professors, think tanks, etc., should serve as base for creating a global movement against state sponsored hate, cyber violence and terrorism. With voices within the west and within intelligentsia becoming more prominent, time to gather likeminded forces to uncover the layers of dark hate burning under the façade of shining India.
(The writer can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021