BJP trolls are no different than zombies: they lash out mindlessly, but never bite their own; they are an infection that is easily spread
In current times, zombies could well be a metaphor for ruthless right-wing trolls on social media. Representation Pic/Getty Images
Either I'm late to the party or there's been an outbreak of zombie movies lately. After watching the Korean Train to Busan last year, I recently watched The Girl with All the Gifts (Britain, 2016), Cargo (Australia, 2018), and Ravenous (Canada, 2017). Though an original zombie film fan - having as a teen watched too many 1970s zombie films, as well as the disturbing George Romero trilogy that kicked it all off - lately the thought of a zombie story gave me ennui. After all, how long can you suspend disbelief about the dead returning to life as mindless flesh-eating monsters. For years, I skipped zombie movies and was never drawn into The Walking Dead (I found a few episodes of iZombie on Netflix to be trite, contrived, predictable and poorly-acted like most web serials).
The recent films were engrossing; each wanted to break out of the inherent limitation of the genre so each opted for novelty to produce a gripping story. The zombies gave me food for thought, and since I was on Twitter a lot recently, following the #MeToo disclosures, it struck me that zombies are now a different metaphor than what they were in Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), a first such movie with grotesque scenes of cannibalism. In it, survivors hide out inside a sprawling shopping mall, and the slow-walking zombies meandering with easy listening music playing over the PA system appear no different from Americans spending the afternoon shopping. Yes, it is clearly a statement on consumerism.
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The current metaphor for zombies has to do with social media. Twitter magnifies the chasm between the earnest, if naïve, liberal user, and the ruthless, power-trumps-ideology right-winger. Take the #MeToo moment: liberals don't hesitate in exposing their own, because it is not a matter of politics but simply of correcting a long-standing aberration in human affairs, the patriarchy and its privileged disdain for consent. It is just a matter of right and wrong.
Right-wingers have been mostly silent. Some defend those accused with whom they are politically (or socially) sympathetic. Some use the moment to hurl a vague allegation at an opponent, hoping that something will stick or at least give that opponent a few sleepless nights. There is much whataboutism. And some use it to further their false propaganda against the man who gives them sleepless nights, Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
One woman (who did a recce of Puri, Orissa, earlier this year for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who may contest from there in 2019) raised an old allegation against Rahul that was long ago thrown out of both the high court (which levied a Rs 50 lakh fine against the rumour-mongers) as well as the Supreme Court. But to right-wingers who thrive in an eco-system of fake news to keep comfortably numb, the truth doesn't matter. Another bhakt thought nothing of dragging through mud a former Congressman's daughter who died under tragic circumstances, for a bogus allegation against Rahul. (She was roundly and severely scolded by wiser heads.) A third tried to be funny by saying that Rahul had his #MeToo moment while being interviewed by a noisy TV anchor back in 2014.
A few former colleagues call Rahul Gandhi by an Italian name (it was long ago reported that following his father Rajiv's assassination in 1991, Rahul was given a pseudonym while studying in the USA, for security reasons), and they continue to propagate their nasty piece of fake propaganda that the Congress chief has limited intellectual abilities. It is amazing that the Congress president is able to weather all this intense hatred, particularly since Modi makes a virtue of whining over and over about how much intellectuals dislike him.
Clearly, on social media, BJP trolls are no different than the zombies of recent films. They move around mindlessly and swiftly towards their target; they do not bite their own, no matter what the provocation; they are an infection that is easily spread. Sometimes hordes of them seem to overwhelm us normal folk.
These zombies are all over the world: the forever angry haters who throng US President Donald Trump's rallies; Turkish voters who have kept Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power for 15 years; Brazilians who despite their proud heterogeneity are one step away from electing the xenophobic and authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro; and the list goes on. All these strongmen, like Modi, promised to drain the swamp (in India, Lutyens' Delhi); but all that they have achieved, like Modi, is to legitimise crony capitalism and the growing societal inequality. If the masses accept that only a handful of their compatriots should be rich and should be allowed to get filthily richer, enabled by such so-called tough guys (who, incidentally, hide their disdain for #MeToo behind silence), then their voters are nothing more than mindless, flesh-biting zombies.
Aditya Sinha's latest book, The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace, co-written with AS Dulat and Asad Durrani, is available now. He tweets @autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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