By Pavel Sagolsem

In January 2023, under the “Without fear” fellowship of The Bachchao Project, I had the opportunity to witness, interact and inhabit the dent of social, emotional and psychological remnants of a past experience of online harassment and of standing up against it. My project is an invitation to that experience.

Ushinadabana pharabo? – “Shall I overlook?!”

“When your intentions are questioned,

you want to clear the air.

You want to defend your intention.

It all comes down to that”

Misogynist, homophobic and transphobic online harassment is an everyday spectacle, experience and occurrence in the online spaces of the social and digital media platforms catering to the people in Imphal and adjoining areas. Due awareness raising, statewide campaigns as well as public discussions has been observed but the trend remains undeterred.

At such a juncture the survivors and those who came to the front to raise voices against it are posed with a rather troubling question – shall I overlook and move on?

At a plain sight, it is a very simple question. Furthermore, answering it seems even easier. Just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or perhaps a ‘maybe’. But is it really so?

Houjikphaoba ei gyan taaba ngamde – Still trying to make sense…

“It’s always on my mind. I think I should ignore but I can’t help it.

I’ll think of it and would often sigh, “Oh Me! Are we not allowed to live? How wrong is it to be me?””

While survivors are still grappling to understand why and how of the harrowing experiences that unfolded, those who campaigned against it are baffled with the backlash they faced. All in all, a plethora of questions opens up like a floodgate.

Days, months and years have passed. The people, life and the world had well served its purpose of embedding in under layers and layers of time and new experiences. Meanwhile the memories remain vivid and striking. As if still waiting to be unpacked and resolved. A conversation that began with a general comment on online space and experiences, now turns vivid.

Kanana kari natraga kanada karamna? – Asks – To whom and how?

“I was just living my life normally like everyone. And they came and did all these to my life. So, I am the victim and not the other way around”

The experiences seem to be an isolated phenomenon centred around a person, an individual act or a mishap that could have been easily avoided. But often it is not – the world is the witness and what of the anonymous perpetrators? While certain facts are there for full public view and open to interpretations, certain facts remain ambiguous and unclaimed. When complicity prevails how do we really make a sense of what is and what is not? And most importantly what to do? Whom to ask and how?

This project sought to create a multimedia digital archive through interviews, photographs, audio recordings, illustrations, text based excerpts; of experiences of select and chosen individuals (queer and trans* person) and their personal stories of online based harassments and related consequences in the quality of their physical, mental, emotional, economical and social health and outcomes. Further, the project sought to delve into a creative process with the participants in creating digital content in Manipuri that seek to raise awareness and alleviate reporting and collectivisation for the same.

The project consisted of three parts:

Digital Archive of Cases of Online Harassment faced by Queer and Trans* person in Manipur. Experiences and opinions of Groups and Organisations who have been actively working on the same will be documented in the same.
A short video from the above capturing the essence of cases and expert opinion on who to reach out and what could be done and any additional information for public consumption geared towards prevention and access to justice.
An online campaign + offline dissemination of the above among legal practitioners, state police force, media houses and social activists.

The above has been inferred through close consultation with activists, survivors, community and individuals I have been in touch with.

All audio or video material on the archive were in Manipuri Language with English Subtitles. The accompanying text was in two languages – Manipuri and English.

TOMORROW, IT WILL BE US: Facing and Challenging Digital Hate Speech Against Muslim Women in India

June 12, 2023

By Afrah Asif

The outputs mentioned in this blog post are part of the Without Fear fellowship program 2022 – 2023. The Bachchao Project started this fellowship program to bring together a cohort of talented individuals with experience and interest in the gender and development space, who could bring fresh perspectives and potential solutions to threats faced by structurally silenced women and gender minorities in the country. This cohort could learn from itself and others, and look at innovative tech based interventions and ideas. The fellows were based around three central verticals; the social and development space, tech, and art. Afrah was part of the social and development space Vertical.

“Violence seems random, and everywhere, there is no saying who would be targeted and who would be spared. Fatima, a young girl currently residing in Saudi Arabia, uses social media to stay in the loop of Indian politics and keenly follows and speaks up against atrocities committed against Muslims in India. While visiting India this year, she admitted that her ‘entire family was terrified’. When she did stay some time in India, she felt a sense of dissonance. Safety was surprising, not relieving.”

For most Muslim women interviewed for this report, social media was their window to the world. Its discursive potential had enticed them. For the first time in their lives, using social media, they learned to forge a political identity, be stakeholders in political conversations that have traditionally been dominated by men, advocate for what they believed in, and create an impact even if such impact meant changing a colleague’s ideas about something through extensive debating in the comments section. Targeted hate speech against these women then obviously harmed them much beyond their online presence.

The title of this report comes from what one of the interviewees said in response to the ‘liberal claim’ that while Muslim women are being targeted today, tomorrow, other marginalized women will be, and then all women will be. ‘Today is it us’, she had said, ‘tomorrow it will be us, and yesterday it was us’. In asserting so, she reemphasized Muslim women’s victimhood in light of the Hindutva project and drew a critical distinction missed by many- that hate and violence against Muslim women is not a way for misogyny to fulfill its agenda, but that misogyny against Muslim women is yet another way to fulfill the Hindutva agenda. Such a distinction is significant as we are confronted with political leaders and groups regularly insisting that the issues that Muslim women face are ‘women’s issues’ and not Muslim women’s issues.

Based on a series of interviews with activist-victims, this report seeks to complicate our understanding of the impact of targeted hate speech and push us to explore what meaningful solidarity and action centering Muslim women should look like. Allowing the interviewees a free-flowing space to mold their own narratives has helped this report move beyond cliches of oppression and marginalization to allow Muslim women the space to explore their hurt outside of narratives that they are socially forced to perform.

Through this report, the author has sought to contextualize the lives, work, and hurt of Muslim women who have been affected by digital hate speech. In order to convey the same, the report is divided into three distinct chapters: the first dealing with the hurt itself, the second dealing with the impact and aftermath of being subject to this hurt, and the final chapter dealing with the action and advocacy that is particularly being taken up by civil society initiatives at various levels in order to emphasize the bottom-up nature of digital hate speech.

tomorrow it will be us

Technologically Mediating Labour

June 12, 2023

By Ayushi Arora

Images By: Ayushi Arora under CC-BY-SA 4.0

Digital ecosystems are embedded in everyday lives now, operating within socio-cultural-political contexts rather than in abstract. A lot in the lives of workers too, is mediated by technology and there remains no doubt that this mediation will only become multifold in the near future. From welfare schemes to redressal mechanism- a whole lot of world has turned cyber for the working class: Digitization of EPF and other benefits, biometrics attendance, mandatory implementation of Poshan Tracker App, Shram Suvidha Portal- the list goes on.

Labour is one of the least talked about and syndicatedly silenced beat in indian media. When we talk of women workers, the suppression of experiences is even more layered but wiped out from public consciousness. With technological transformation turning war footing, it has become imperative to closely interrogate the model in context of the vulnerable. The author aims to create a multimedia project that can sustain itself as an archival platform interrogating the intersections of labor, caste, gender and technology.

Over the course of this fellowship, the author wished to inquire into how labor practices and the working class are being transformed in the age of technologization, through an anti-caste and feminist lens. Ostensibly, these digital drives are designed to be efficient and make things simple. The author wished to put this belief under interrogation to find out if tech systems are designed keeping social realities in mind, or if they are making things simple only for those who know how to use technology, thus exacerbating inequality.

Additionally, the author also attempted to understand various ways in which state and non state actors supress voices of women from marginalised /minority communities as a direct result of identity and political assertion over social media. As part of this, the author has carried out a series of field interviews. Two of these are included in this blog post.

Anganwadi Resistance.docx
QR Final.docx
MK FINAL.docx