I’ve been on social media since the earliest ‘bulletin boards’ chat rooms around 1995. Looking at Twitter you don’t half have a bunch of half-wits with half-baked ideas. I worry for the planet. Let me narrow down to UK-India related things, given we just had Indian Independence, VJ Day, Janmasthami and inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
So, I can categorise the crazies like these:
The Pakistanis who hate India. A small minority of keyboard warriors who lob missives not missiles. We do not wish to sow division, but it’s there. No point trying to have them rethink their tweets by pointing out calmly, they walk on sacred soil, the soil of their ancestors is Indian soil. They need to respect their (Indian) heritage.
The victims, the oppressed. This bunch from a faraway land will tell you how oppressed they are, in, ummm, Canada, by not being in India, but if they were, they would be oppressed due to faith. Of course as a lawyer, I would point out they have no ‘locus’ or standing as they are Canadian nations or some such like. But the weight of oppression they may feel, leads them to want statehood in India just to be sure they are not oppressed. And to protect their freedom of religion which they deny they have, they want to make sure their little piece of India is a theocracy. Honestly, I wonder if some of these people have mirrors or read what they write. We can’t be on the same planet.
You have the Hindu-bashers. These come in two flavours. Hindus and Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous usually like to talk about cows, idols. They’re obsessed with Hinduism. In fact, they spend so much time thinking about it, they may as well be Hindu. Then there are the Hindu flavour Hindu-bashers. These on social media will point out India is now a Nazi regime. I can’t follow their reasoning beyond this point.
So how to unify, reason, avoid hatred, and bring all together in a common understanding. Here are some rules. Control yourself, do not give in to temptation to unleash your worse self:
Do not swap religious insults. Honestly, they know they come from perfection. No point arguing with them they do not.
Do point out rule of law is more important than religion, that is how the West ended sectarian religious conflict. And in case they reply with ‘justice’ before law, point out that those seeking justice, must by legal principle come with ‘clean hands’ and not blood on their hands.
Do not bother mentioning extremisms or terror sponsoring. They will retort they are being terrorised by your tweet.
Of course the easiest thing you can do is, wish them peace and love, try to find common ground, test your patience and then block them.
Alpesh Patel
