How Digital India Is WhatsApping Mob Violence and Lynching

Whatsapp is just technology. It’s neither good nor bad. It just depends on how we use it.

By Sadip Roy / New America Media

We are not a country of beggars and elephants and snakecharmers.

This is a new India of Whatsapp and smartphones and MyGov.in. That’s the Digital India Narendra Modi sold, to a starstruck Silicon Valley just the other day.

Mr Modi told an inspiring story about an India where farmers in Maharashtra are on a Whatsapp group to share agricultural tips and techniques.

Days later barbaric violence erupted in Dadri village, not too far from Delhi. A mob, apparently fired up by announcements of cow slaughter made at the local temple, barged into the house of the Muslim ironsmith, convinced that he had beef in his refrigerator. Soon the iron smith was dead, his son in hospital and #DadriLynching was the latest hashtag of shame on Twitter.