The first time that the trads found mainstream mention was during the arrest of the perpetrators of the Bulli Bai app—Shweta Singh, 18, and Vishal Jha, 21— who targeted Muslim women by morphing their pictures and arranging for their mock auction online. The duo is said to be the products of a new kind of radical, alt-right digital ecosystem called the trads, short for traditionalists. The trads are known to be unsparing in their goal of “Hindu Rashtra”—so much so that they even troll the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), the official face of Hindutva, for not being aggressive enough in advancing their interests. This division seems to have widened, following the party’s decision to suspend national spokesperson Nupur Sharma and expel Delhi unit media head Navin Kumar Jindal over their remarks on Prophet Mohammad. That the decision came in the light of a backlash from the Arab world, including Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, made matters worse.

On social media, hate is rampant, and currently, most of it is being directed at the ruling party for bowing before the Middle East. Sharma is being hailed as a hero, and the victim who had to bite the bullet. Trads usually operate on anonymity, with profile pictures of Hindu Gods, religious icons, political leaders or morphed images of their target of aversion. “Trads target anyone who they feel are attacking their religion, or their idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’ and the rise of the upper caste,” says Aakash Banerjee, founder and host of The Deshbhakt, an online platform for social and political satire. Most of the trads, he says, have always had a problem with the “right-wingers,” who they call “raitas” and reject them for being too liberal and soft. “The most concerning aspect about trads is their complete disconnect from reality. They don’t care about the state of the youth, or the state of our economy, or the international condemnation that India is facing. They live in the past, and want to avenge what has happened in the recent past, and go back to what they call the Golden Age. Their willingness to go to any lengths to bring down someone who is anti their goals is worrying. It’s also very nebulous,” says Banerjee, who had researched the trad culture for a segment on his show in January.
But the irony of the backlash this time is that it’s not just the trads, who want the government accountable for its actions. Non-trads and BJP allies are discomfited by the Centre’s decision.