Should the Twitter head honcho have held up a poster that says ‘Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy’? Perhaps not. But...
The India visit of Jack Dorsey, chief executive and co-founder of social networking site Twitter, has been compared to the disastrous visit of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to our country earlier this year. That might be stretching it but there is no doubt that Dorsey, who posed holding a poster that urged us all to apropos of nothing in particular ‘Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy’, could have avoided controversy. But some of the hysteria that has followed is downright silly and lacks understanding of Indian social history. Hilariously, an ‘editor’ went as far as to call him anti-India and a retired Indian Police Service officer suggested that the tweet and picture qualified as evidence fit for a case of sedition to be filed against Dorsey. Frankly, at the risk of offending more people, let us not get so worked up about it. Should Jack Dorsey have posed with the poster? Maybe not. Is the poster offensive? While many and not only from the Brahmin community do find it offensive, and the creator of the poster herself has admitted she meant the slogan as a pejorative, the fact that India still suffers from caste-based patriarchy — along with many other causes — is difficult to deny even by those offended by the poster. Looking at the posts and anger that has followed, however, is like staring down a dark hole of ignorance. Anytime anyone advocates the application of Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, it must be done very carefully. This newspaper has argued in the past that this section of the IPC is an anachronism that has no place in a modern society and is so vaguely defined that the authorities are liable to misuse it for imagined wrongs. This is exactly what has happened to Abhijit Iyer-Mitra in Odisha where slighted Odia pride has meant that he has spent two weeks in jail on dodgy grounds.
The irony of the situation is that it is Twitter itself that gives a voice to the easily offended, allowing them to be perpetually offended at some silly thing or another. In fact, one could argue that Twitter, in particular, and Facebook and other social networks in general, have led to the extinction of common sense. Indians should take heed from two people that Jack Dorsey met while in New Delhi, Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. No matter what your politics, the vitriol that these two men catch on a daily basis on Twitter is mind-boggling; yet, they do not lash out as they have both developed a thick skin. This is not to excuse the tremendous violence, virulence and abuse that users, particularly women, face on Twitter on a daily basis which the service has been in largely ineffective in curbing. That needs to change. But screaming and shouting blue murder over a poster in a picture, even if provocative, is a waste of time and energy.