For the past few years, like several female journalists critical of the Hindu nationalist politics and government, I have been targeted by an apparently coordinated social media campaign that s**t-shames, deploys manipulated images with sexually explicit language, and threatens rape. Mr. Modi and several of his ministers embolden the virtual mob by following them on social media.
Yet nothing had prepared me for what was thrown at me in the past month. On April 22, I was alarmed to find a quotation supporting child rapists falsely attributed to me and going viral on Twitter. A parody account of Republic TV, India's leading right-wing television network, had posted the quotation.
I received numerous messages shaming me for supporting child rapists. A FaI tweeted a clarification about the falsehood to no avail: My social media accounts and my phone were inundated with WhatsApp messages urging others to gang-rape me. Various leaders of Mr. Modi's party, who promoted the lie, refused to delete their tweets despite my pointing it out.
the evening, an activist from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist mother ship, alerted me to a scurrilous po*nographic video being shared on various WhatsApp groups. He had received it from a group with many Bharatiya Janata Party members: a two-minute, 20-second po*nographic video of a sex act with my face morphed onto another woman.Despite our political differences, he was upset at this new low. He urged me to take legal action to keep it from spreading further.
A minute later, he shared the video with me. I was with a friend in a cafe in New Delhi. I saw the first two frames and froze. I wanted to vomit and fought tears. My friend got me a glass of water. "How could they? I threw up and burst into tears.
I started getting screenshots from friends of a Twitter account created in my name. I was doxxed. A tweet with my name, picture, phone number and address was being circulated. "I am available, it said. Someone sent my father a screenshot of the video. He was silent on the phone while I cried. After a while he spoke in a sad, heavy voice. "I am surprised this did not happen earlier, he said. "They want to break you. The choice is yours.
As I collected myself, I thought of Gauri Lankesh, the editor and outspoken critic of Hindu nationalists, who was murdered outside her home in Bangalore last September. She had published my book in the Kannada language.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/india-journalists-s**t-shaming-rape.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
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