The Oxford Living dictionary describes ‘troll’ as an ugly creature depicted as a giant or a dwarf in folklore. By the norms of ‘political correctness’, as practised in the pre-social media era, associating ugliness with physical oddities would have been frowned upon. Not any more. Those lakshman rekhas of propriety have long perished.
Still, ugliness is the only category we can use to describe ‘trolling’—one or a pack of human hounds issuing rape threats and the like, hijacking our public life, dwarfing our discourse. It’s not just the depths they plumb to mock, threaten or abuse; it’s also the audacity with which they do it. Even the external affairs minister is fair game for them. Her husband had to speak out finally, an IITian directs him to “beat her up”. For “Muslim appeasement”.
Sushma Swaraj was not in the country when a passport officer was transferred for his rude, unnecessary questioning of an inter-religious couple. But even a defence from a young BJP spokesperson sounded like a back-handed indictment. She has shown dignity and grace in dealing with the threats of death and unmentionables that came her way.
That nearly 43 per cent voted in favour of the uncouth exposition shows the state of the nation. In a related video posted on a now-hated woman anchor-journalist’s Facebook page, a so-called BJP supporter, frothing at his mouth, asks her to stay away from an internal matter of the Sangh Parivar. Menacingly, the man states, “Sushmaji is a mother to us, we can do what we want with her”! Anyone who comes in support of ‘secularism’ or the minority, even if it’s PM Modi, we’ll not leave them, he says. The audacity is stunning. The man is free.
The Union home minister is the only person in the Cabinet who has expressed verbal solidarity with Sushma. No arrests, no action. History shows that wherever a private militia is raised to maintain dominance, they end up devouring their creator. Trolls are an online militia: the Sushma episode should suffice to give political parties serious pause.
