RISE OF RIGHT WING INFLUENCERS – A PANDEMIC OF FASCIST VITRIOLIC HATE

✍ Lalita

From Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist in Hitler’s Nazi Germany to the current fascist BJP government in India, the need for pushing fascist propaganda is a necessary tool to keep people from thinking beyond their identity be it religious, ethnic, racial, and how it is supposedly at risk from the “Other”. For people to remain under the spell of fascists, it needs an army of propagandists to keep the masses, especially the unemployed, disillusioned youth from working class and lower middle class in constant rage against the false enemies, I.e. anyone who is Muslim or a critic of the government who does not fall into the Hindu hyper nationalist identity that the fascist BJP-Sangh tries to push. It needs seemingly well articulated figures with a strong personality to constantly brew the pot of hate and illusion of providing an answer to all their life’s problems. Today, the rise of right wing influencers and their coterie of followers does exactly that. Influencers who on a daily basis churn out videos, infographics, articles, podcasts about spirituality, religion, “accurate Indian history of Sanatan Bharat”, life, universe and everything so that the masses are fed their daily dose of venom and a fake rosy picture about the Modi regime. These influencers keep the masses embroiled in false issues to keep them from realising the current capitalist crisis and descent into fascism which has caused widespread poverty, unemployment and misery.

Lifestyle influencers who push youth towards right wing

India has over 1.2 billion internet users in the world with the second largest online market in the world, coming second only to China. With unrestricted access to the internet and a deluge of content flooding our phones on a daily basis, social media platforms have become a fertile ground for influencers to grow. People with millions of followers who teach people what to eat, how to dress, what music or movies to consume, amassing followers by the minute, insecure, directionless, alienated youth of this country has found refuge in learning about how these influencers live their life and trust them more than themselves. With paid partnerships, ads, promotions from different companies, these influencers promote all sorts of products as long as it earns them big bucks including betting companies. Many have also taken huge sums of money through collaborations with the government.

YouTubers like Ranveer Allahbadia also known as BeerBiceps have several millions of followers and make short form content on different topics like Hinduism, astrology, paranormal activities and geopolitics with a heavy dosage of pro-BJP propaganda hosting ministers like Smriti Irani on his podcast. Initially his account had started as motivational videos to “impress women”, to remain fit, “stay positive” but he later found out that it is more profitable to poison minds with communal politics. Sandeep Maheshwari with 27 million subscribers on YouTube would make motivational videos but now uses Modi’s words to motivate his audience. Technical Guruji would first feed into the consumerist culture by reviewing gadgets and tech, but started a side business of bootlicking the fascist regime by inviting ministers like Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on his show. Abhi and Niyu, a couple who would make videos on sustainability, travel and history catering to the Marathi and Mumbai based middle class, quickly realised that there are big bucks in promoting and defending the government and released outright propaganda defending the government in instances like electoral bonds scam and the divisive communally charged CAA-NRC. Ahead of Lok Sabha elections, National Creators Award was held in Delhi where Ranveer/Beer Biceps was awarded Disruptor of the Year. These awards were very obviously awarded keeping in mind the service of right wing influencers in promoting the government and right wing content.

Kamiya Jani, famously known as Curly Tales on social media, who also received an award in the Best Travel Creator category at the event, faced similar criticism for shifting her content in recent times. Right Wing YouTuber Elvish Yadav, who was arrested in March for allegedly selling snake venom at rave parties, has been known to post hate filled videos targetting any critics of the Modi government. Several general knowledge based channels which are viewed by government job applicants are straight up fascist propaganda machines. Accounts like Placard Guy, Rohan Pandya, Skin Doctor, Sanatani Doctor, run vigilante accounts who track statements by Muslims to do a counter communal propaganda, or track any news where they can create a religious angle in a crime against women, or fake cases of love Jihad and run twitter storms for arresting the accused, not with the intent of stopping communal tensions, but to amplify it and spread more hatred in society! Some content creators even openly call for violence against Muslims on a daily basis. Their daily posts are about how Hindus are being targeted, insulted and attacked and therefore we must beware of Muslims who are Jihadis, islamists garner thousands of views with comments filled with genocidal calls, the net effect of which is spreading hatred about all muslims. Some of the more popular radical accounts are the regional accounts who on a daily basis churn out content that are dog whistles for violence against Muslims and critics of the government.

These videos and content have found a heavy support base among the internet users in India. Thes influencers  who speak regional languages, talk about the evils of communism, left-wing intellectuals, painting all critics including liberals like Dhruv Rathee, Ravish Kumar or The DeshBhakt, all with a huge fan following of their own, as leftists who are trying to brainwash Indians. Essentialy they try to convince that any thought that is not the RSS-BJP thought, is wrong.

Some of the Hindi YouTube channels are so popular that leaders like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ajay Singh Bisht give interviews only to these openly right wing extremist youtubers after which the interviews are picked up by other news channels. These channels often do videos, at streetsides and marketplaces asking youth their opinions about various political issues,  which are barely edited but uploaded on a regular basis  Whataboutery, swearing, Islamophobia are the perfect recipe for a record breaking video, one with an appropriately titled click bait inducing inflammatory thumbnail, for maximum shock value packed with hate speech against Muslims or some opposition leader. Its no surprise that December 2023, the Uttar Pradesh government allocated Rs 25 lakh to hire influencers to promote Ayodhya’s “development” and the construction of the Ram temple. Initiated by the All India Influencers Association, around 500 influencers traveled from Rameshwaram to Ayodhya in mid-January, a journey promoted by a BJP-affiliated leader. This showcased the government’s recognition of influencers as powerful propagandists. Interestingly the Uttar Pradesh has recently introduced a law that will allow the government to sentence any “anti-national” content creator to life imprisonment, meaning that any influencer go whose against the government will be punished.

On the one hand there is unfettered boom in right wing influencers and on the other hand the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has proposed the Broadcasting bill which aims at bringing all content creators under the purview of the government. The bill has been kept on backburner now, but it may be brought back again. As per the bill, the Influencers who talk politics will be tagged as news broadcasters. YouTubers and Instragrammers (and perhaps TikTok creators) beyond a certain threshold of users will have to intimate the Indian government of their existence within a month of the Bill being passed. Their content will have to be vetted by an empanelled committee of experts. All these are methods to muzzle all and any form of dissent against the government or the Sangh’s propaganda. It is our democratic right to voice our opinion and criticise the  government and different opinions, but even this limited space has been completely crushed by the fascist BJP-Sangh.

Following right wing influencers to fill the void created by capitalism

People who scroll the entire day to overcome the void of isolation, alienation created by the insecurity of living under the capitalist system fill it with meaningless content selling products, food and cat videos and of course with hate filled right wing content being churned out by the minute by influencers and bots. Internet has become a crutch to overcome this solitude. With entrance exams and competition, constant insecurity and stress of completing one’s education and securing a job and little to no meaningful relationships in one’s life, the youth of this country are being disillusioned into thinking that India once had a flourishing glorious past, which we need to return to, as a solution to the present misery. Harkening to this call of the return to the glorious past, they are filled with anger against all those who allegedly destroyed this supposed glory in the hypothetical history of the Hindutva brigade, that is the Muslims of today, who these radicalised youth are told are the descendants of Mughals or Dalits, Christians and communists who deny this one-sided history of glorious past. Internet and it’s hate filled ecosystem is the cradle for these lonely and directionless youth who listen to morose of vitriol on a daily basis by right wing influencers to soothe their maladies which are actually created by the current capitalist system.

We need to understand the limitations of this capitalist system and its so called limited freedoms: freedom to get exploited, freedom to choose where to get exploited, free to choose between 25 different types of toothpastes but not free to live a dignified life with enough food in our stomachs, clean drinking water or a roof over our heads.

The youth of today are taught patriarchal nonsense by these right wing influencers about how to impress women, how to win over a woman, why liberated women and LGBTQ people are our enemies. The insecurity created by capitalism creates the basis for pathological preservation of all sorts of so-called “securities” of the older social structure, including subjugation of women, and helps these right-wing influencers make more money by fuelling anti-women, pro-patriarchy propaganda.

These right-wing influencers hype up the hysteria that has been whipped up in the minds of young men who are being told that their enemy is a Dalit who avails reservations, a woman who is liberated from the fetters of the ‘home and the hearth’, Muslims who are derogatorily referred to as Rohingyas or Bangladeshis, “outsiders”  who are causing rise in population, it is the Lutyens media or Khan market gang which are the liberal news outlets, or those who organizer the workers and communists who challenge the very capitalist system that gives them a false hope,  that are the problem.

The government quickly realised that to divert the attention of the masses, it also needs to use such influencers to its advantage.  Mid 2020 a group of ministers of BJP, including Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ravi Shankar Prasad published a report which proposed a range of recommendations to address the perceived image crisis. Implementing a recommendation by Irani the report assigned the responsibility for “Constant tracking of 50 negative influencers” to the Electronic Media Monitoring Centre of the ministry of information and broadcasting, or MIB. Under a section titled, “Action Points,” the report notes, “Some negative influencers give false narratives and discredit the Government. These need to be constantly tracked so that proper and timely response can be given.” Correspondingly, the action points also include “Regular engagement with 50 positive influencers” and “Engaging with journalists … who are supportive of the Government or neutral.” The report noted that such journalists would “not only give positive stories but also counter the false narratives.” This shows how seriously BJP is engaged in image building with these influencers.

Diagnose the problem that is Capitalism instead of treating the symptoms

When diverted from our real issues by these paid trolls of the government, we must understand  that it is ruling class propaganda to keep us divided so that we do not unite and fight for our rights, so that we remain politically uneducated. These right wing influencers call liberals and the Left (who are anyway not a homogenous whole) “sickular” that is a slang for secular people. While the true definition of secular is the separation of the State and religion, anyone who is mildly critical of communalism is dubbed as sickular.  While we must firmly uphold everyone’s democratic right to hold religious beliefs and follow the faith of their choice, true seculars believe is that religion has no place in politics.

It is in our interest to boycott these right wing influencers and debunk their mythical, nonsensical and utterly absurd claims with rational, progressive literature and content that truly upholds just, scientific values with a correct understanding of history, our present and our current problems. Bhagat Singh in his essay ‘Communal Riots and their Solution’ clearly states that such communalism and communal media, politicians must be fought against. He says:

“To prevent people from fighting each other, “class consciousness” is the need of the day. The poor labourers and the farmers must be clearly taught that their real enemies are the capitalists. So, you should be careful of their tricks and should not follow them blindly. The poor of the world, regardless of race, colour, religion or nation have the same rights. Your well-being is in erasing the discrimination based on colour, creed, race, religion, regionalism and unite together to try and take the power of government into your hands. By trying so, you are not going to lose anything but one day your shackles will break freeing you from economic despondency.”

 Now is the time to engage ourselves in study of our society, its laws, its method of functioning and counter right wing content with content that talks about our real issues, : rising unemployment, inflation, corruption,homelessness, dividing us in the name of caste and religion, rising crimes against women.  All this requires us to read and critically engage with various literary works, digital content. Only when we understand our real problems can we see through the mirage created by the fascist forces and truly start building a better world.