Racist, Sexist Attacks To Rape & Death Threats, What Women Politicians In India Face On Twitter

Remember the entire 'Visa Mata' controversy a couple of years ago, when the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was on the receiving end of a vicious right wing troll attack for helping an interfaith couple who were allegedly harassed by a passport officer?

Swaraj who was one of the most popular ministers of the first Narendra Modi-led union cabinet had made a name for herself by helping those who had reached out to her on Twitter for passport and visa issues was called 'Visa Mata' by trolls after she transferred the passport department official for allegedly humiliating the inter-faith couple.

While that was a shocking case, it is just one of the several instances women politicians in the country face on a regular basis.

Women politicians in India face a shocking scale of abuse on Twitter, new research by Amnesty International India has revealed.

AFP

The report titled,?Troll Patrol India: Exposing Online Abuse Faced by Women Politicians in India, analyzed more than 114,000 tweets sent to 95 women politicians in the three months during and after last year’s general elections in India.

The research found that women are targeted with abuse online not just for their opinions - but also for various identities, such as gender, religion, caste, and marital status.

The 95 politicians held a variety of views spanning the political spectrum. The tweets were decoded through the microsite Troll Patrol India by more than 1,900 digital volunteers from 82 countries - of which 1,095 were from India.

Amnesty’s research found that 13.8% of the tweets in the study were either “problematic” or “abusive”.?

Abuse experienced by Indian politicians around the 2019 General Elections was high.?

13.8% of the tweets, or 1 in every 7 tweets was either problematic or abusive.?

This means, on average, each woman politician received 113 problematic or abusive tweets every day.

The study also found that women politicians from marginalized communities were disproportionately targeted. Muslim women politicians received 94.1% more ethnic or religious slurs than women from other religions. Women politicians who are Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backwards Classes received 59% more caste-based abuse compared to women from General castes.

BCCL

“While over the years the social media platform has evolved into an indispensable tool for political engagement, campaigning and activism, women are regularly and relentlessly subjected to abuse on the platform, which has a silencing effect on them,” Avinash Kumar, Amnesty International India’s Executive Director, said.

Many women politicians said that Twitter is failing in its responsibility to respect women’s rights online.

BJP Shazia Ilmi said, “More women should be entering politics. But the price that I pay is too much for what I choose to do. The price includes being trolled incessantly, being the victim of online harassment, having a lot of remarks passed about what I look like, my marital status, why I have or don’t have children, etc. - all the filthiest things you can think of. If they don’t like my strong opinions, they do not remark on my work but call me a ‘whore’ in every language that is used in India.”

Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi said “It is not the role of each woman to individually ensure her safety in public space. For example, if a woman steps out in public transport, it is the government’s role to ensure that they are safe there. Similarly, if there is a women who is accessing social media on Twitter, it is the responsibility of the platform to ensure that it is a safe and secure space for women”.