narendramodiplans.com has some explaining to do

by Rahul Roushan For a long time there has been buzz that Narendra Modi supporters are an abusive lot, who hunt in packs, and attack anyone critical of their hero. And it’s not a myth. Modi is a rockstar for his blind followers, and followers, especially on Twitter, of every rockstar are equally bad. Don’t believe me? Try to tweet this – “SRK. What an over-rated actor!” [caption id=“attachment_963781” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  A screengrab of the site which was taken down.[/caption] The above piece of opinion was expressed rather subtly by a Twitter user a couple of days back and an SRK fan threatened to post pictures of his wife on Twitter. And there were numerous other abuses involving every female relative of everyone who tweeted with the hashtag #TweetLikeSRKfan (Firstpost is part guilty as the tweets started after the YouSpeak contest) Such abusive fans are usually referred as “trolls” (though I personally respect the term). Abusive language on Twitter is a separate issue, and abuses by one set of trolls don’t justify abuses by another set of trolls, but there is nothing unique about Narendra Modi trolls. But when it comes to Modi, F*ck logic (by both the camps). This morning, a website narendramodiplans.com claimed that the owner was being “hounded” for creating a satirical webpage. He/she has taken down the website and lamented that only websites like Faking News are allowed to satirize in India because they target Congress. This is what the site presented:  For those who might have missed chancing upon the website, it was an adapted version of romneytaxplans.com where the cursor could never meet the button supposed to disclose Narendra Modi’s views on governance and 2002 riots. ( See the report here ) Really smart way of putting across an opinion, and nobody deserves to be “hounded” for that. The “suicide note” left on the website claimed that the contact address in the WHOIS database has a fake phone number. So he/she couldn’t be threatened on phone. Initially, there was no Twitter ID given along with link of the website, so abuses couldn’t have been delivered even on Twiter. As I said earlier, the website was a smart satire, and deserves to be online like rahulgandhiachievements.com and that’s why I made the offer to host the website on our servers. The offer stands open. Over seven hours have passed, and no response, while the owner has been responding to emails sent by mainstream media channels and even random Congress supporters like this. (see image)  For the record, the website owner created a Twitter handle @nmplans post midnight last night (technically earlier today) and surprisingly, its first tweet was addressed to @fakingnews – offering to do a twitter chat. I, as Faking News, could exchange just three tweets – asking him/her if he thought Narendra Modi was Indian version of Mitt Romney and if so, who was Indian Obama in his/her opinion – pretty ordinary questions actually. I was feeling sleepy. I told him that I’d resume the chat tomorrow (technically today) and went to sleep. And woke up to find @fakingnews mentioned in the suicide note. I thought the trolls must have abused him/her to the hilt while I was asleep. I searched for “@nmplans” on Twitter to find any abusive tweets directed towards him/her. There were none. Only my tweets showed up. I can safely assume that the website owner never interacted with anyone else on Twitter. So when did this “hounding” happen? And where?  With Twitter and phone ruled out, the only place where it could happen was abusive emails sent to his/her email mentioned in the WHOIS database (assuming that email was also not fake, because later in the suicide note, different email was mentioned). It seems that the admin email clearly knows how to ignore emails, as he or she ignored Faking News’ offer to host the website on Firstpost servers. Frankly, this whole thing sounds fishy. But our commentators, especially on Twitter and in the mainstream media, went overboard and accepted everything as gospel truth. If trolls blindly accept everything positive about Narendra Modi, his critics blindly embrace every criticism. Mainstream media articles were published and the claims by the website owner were reproduced without fact-checking. The claims were tweeted and re-tweeted by all those who have been preaching to fact-check everything Narendra Modi says. You know, it’s so easy to claim victimhood. I have received legal threats and been spammed no end for removing certain articles. People have intruded into my personal space and tried to intimidate me. So it’s totally unfair to suggest as if Faking News was offered anything on platter and other satirical attempts are scuttled. My friend, who tweets at @bhak_sala was threatened by a politician in Haryana. The politician was of the “leading party” (refer to the suicide note). FIR against Unreal Times was filed for their video where they showed Manmohan Singh as Singham, again by the “leading party”. And of course, “opposition” got that cartoonist jailed who drew Narendra Modi naked and his posterior covered by Islamic skullcap. My point is – everyone faces these troubles, and we need to support each other. But if your priority is only to engage with mainstream media, and you choose to ignore the offer of showing solidarity (dozens other identifying themselves as Narendra Modi supporters too have offered to host the narendramodiplans.com website), I have no option but to suspect your motives. Fight for free speech. Cry for it, but spare the fake tears of victimhood. Rahul Roushan is Editor, Faking News