[The visit sent a clear message that India’s
powerful ruling party is becoming increasingly upset with the company.]
By Sameer Yasir and Emily Schmall
The offices sat empty, closed
amid India’s
devastating coronavirus outbreak. And the police acknowledged that they
were there to deliver nothing more legally binding than a notice disputing a
warning label that Twitter had assigned to some tweets.
But symbolically, the visit by the
police on Monday night sent a clear message that India’s powerful ruling party
is becoming increasingly upset with Twitter because of the perception that the
company has sided with critics of the government. As anger has risen across the
country over India’s stumbling response to the pandemic, the government of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have struggled to
control the narrative.
As a result, top Indian political leaders
have applied increasing pressure on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms that
people are using to air their complaints. In doing so, they are following the
path of some other countries trying to control how and where messages can
spread on social media. In March, for example, the Russian
government said it would slow access to Twitter, one of the few places
where Russians openly criticize the government.
The police visit “illustrates the
extent to which state machinery can be instrumentalized by the party in power
to curb opposing voices and mishandle the opposition,” said Gilles Verniers, a
professor of political science at Ashoka University near New Delhi.
“Regardless of the clumsy manner in
which it was conducted, this raid is an escalation in the stifling of domestic
criticism in India,” he said.
For example, the police visit was
set off by labels that Twitter applied to tweets posted by senior members of
the party, called the B.J.P.
Party leaders posted documents that
they called irrefutable proof that opposition politicians had planned to use
India’s stumbling coronavirus response to tar Mr. Modi and India’s reputation
itself.
But Twitter undercut that campaign
when it labeled the posts “manipulated media.” Indian disinformation watchdog
groups had said the documents were forged.
In going after Twitter, the B.J.P.
focused on one of the main ways people in India pleaded for help as infections began
to soar in April and people began to die by the thousands per day. Hospital
beds, medicine and supplemental oxygen became precious commodities. Online
networks sprang up on Twitter and other social media platforms for volunteers
to connect desperate patients with supplies.
The second wave of the coronavirus
reached a peak on May 6 — 414,188 fresh infections. Since then, cases have
fallen by nearly half, but the overall death toll, 303,720, continues to rise.
The B.J.P. is no slouch at social
media. Under Mr. Modi, it has used social media to spectacular effect, pushing
its Hindu nationalist agenda to far corners of the country and to denigrate its
opponents.
But as dissenting voices rise, and
the B.J.P.’s tolerance for dissent grows short, it has used harsher tactics to
rein the platforms in.
This month, the government ordered
social media platforms, including Twitter, to take down dozens of posts
critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic.
In February, as a farmer-led
protest against agriculture changes captured the public imagination, the
company acquiesced to government demands and blocked
the accounts of 500 people accused of making inflammatory remarks about Mr.
Modi.
Last summer, India
banned TikTok, WeChat and dozens of other Chinese apps, citing national
security concerns.
Though Mr. Modi’s government
controls the Delhi police, it was not clear on Tuesday that the failed mission
at the Twitter office had happened at its behest.
A B.J.P. spokesman did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. A Twitter spokeswoman asked for
questions in an email, which went unanswered.
On May 18, a B.J.P. spokesman,
Sambit Patra, tweeted the picture of a document he described as plans by the
Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, for making the government
look bad.
Mr. Patra’s message was
retweeted more than 5,000 times, including by ministers in Mr. Modi’s
government and party leaders.
Harsh Vardhan, India’s health
minister, used the hashtag #CongressToolkitExposed to rip into the opposition
party.
“It’s deplorable on their part to
attempt to spread misinformation during this global catastrophe just to swell
their dwindling political fortunes at the expense of people’s suffering,” Dr. Vardhan tweeted.
Except that the plans were fake,
doctored on old letterhead, said independent fact-checking organizations and
the Congress Party, which filed a police report against Mr. Patra and another
B.J.P. leader. Last Thursday, Twitter stepped in, labeling the tweet
“manipulated media” — and provoking the ire of government supporters who
demanded that the Indian government ban the company.
Many blame the disaster that India
is experiencing now on government hubris. While cases were rising in March, Mr.
Modi was campaigning for state elections. His government signed off on a
religious festival that drew millions of Hindus to the Ganges River banks.
Mr. Modi, who gave regular, rousing
national addresses during the first wave of cases, has become less visible
during the second wave. Many Indians feel abandoned. With local pandemic
lockdowns still in place, rather than take to the streets, protesters are
confined to social media.
That space is becoming ever
smaller, digital rights advocates and public interest lawyers said.
Last month, while the number of
virus infections and deaths skyrocketed, at least 25 people were arrested after
hanging posters in Delhi that questioned India’s
decision to export vaccines abroad.
The posters were made by the ruling
party in Delhi, another party in opposition to the B.J.P., according to a party
member, Durgesh Pathak.
“In a democracy, to ask a question
is not wrong,” Mr. Pathak said. “I am not abusing anybody. I am not instigating
anybody for violence. I am not asking anybody to do any wrong thing. I am
asking a question to the prime minister of my country.”
Hari Kumar contributed
reporting.
Sameer Yasir is a reporter for The
New York Times, covering the intersection of identity politics, conflicts and
society. He joined The Times in 2020 and is based in New Delhi. @sameeryasir
Emily Schmall is a South Asia
correspondent based in New Delhi. @emilyschmall
