Inside the Hindutva campaign to derail #MunawarFaruqui ‘s career:
Coordinated online campaigns pushed by handles linked to BJP leaders, threats to organisers & police + asking portals to stop selling his show tickets.
Emboldened by six cancellations of #MunawarFaruqui shows in the last one month, Hindu right-wing groups tell me they won’t allow his shows anywhere in the country.
Next on their radar are upcoming shows in Mumbai and asking #BookMyShow to stop selling his tickets.
But the collateral damage of such targeting has been on the careers of other comics arrested with Faruqui, namely #NalinYadav.
11 months after the arrest, his shows frequently get cancelled, Hindu vigilantes even accosted him, and he struggles to make a living.
In this video interview (1st for @Article14live !), @munawar0018 tells me how he feels sad at this constant targeting.
His advice for the establishment? “Insecure mat ho yaar. Tum desh ko chalao.”
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Hours after this story was published, detailing how #MunawarFaruqui and #NalinYadav have been hounded, Yadav was detained for an hour by the MP Police at 2am outside his house in Pithampur, MP last night.
Yadav was stepping out of his home when 6-7 police officials from the Pithampur sector 1 police station accosted him.
Yadav says they were drunk and were accompanied by members of local Hindu right-wing groups who have, often, targeted him after his arrest.
After an hour of being questioned, jeered at by the cops and the vigilantes, amidst phone calls to senior cops by reporters known to Yadav, he was finally let go at 3am.
But Yadav says this harassment has now become a pattern.
Millions of users on Facebook Pages and Groups peddled wild conspiracy theories, conducted parallel investigations and targeted those it believed were "guilty." @Article14live
Users posted wild, wild allegations--from how Salman Khan was harvesting children's organs for a chemical that kept him young, to how #SSR was trying to save a trafficked child, when he was killed.
Many said his death was beamed live to Dawood Ibrahim on the dark net.
Then, suspicions were stoked by dissecting the crime scene as if the users were forensic experts.
The Mumbai Police was systematically targeted--videos and images alleged a cover-up, said there was ANOTHER body in the room when he died, some said he was shot by a stun gun.
Thread: Last week, I wrote in @Article14live how Facebook has been shielding the BJP for over the year, and the deep, commercial ties between them.
On Monday, I deposed before the Delhi Assembly's committee investigating Facebook's role in fanning hate.
For over 3 years, I have tracked how FB and WhatsApp have normalised hate. This is crucial because hate is a slow-trickling tap and it builds up overtime, solidifying biases and prejudice. FB and WA have played a very damaging role in this.
This slow, everyday hate can then be easily activated in communally tense situations into actionable hate.
So, FB's failure to stop that everyday hate speech on its platforms lays the foundation for hate crimes and clashes.
Over the last two days, I have seen first-hand the absolute collapse of health infrastructure in Mumbai. My uncle died of COVID-19 and here's what I know--be very scared.
A thread.
Uncle was persistently coughing for 3 days, had breathlessness. For 2 days, he couldn't get a test. Third day, he got a test. Report only in 2 days.
But, 24 hours after the test, he was dead.
When we tried getting a bed just hours before his death, most private hospitals refused. He died on the way to the BMC-run Rajawadi hospital. It only got worse.
Spent the day on Mumbai's borders, amidst the unending exodus of migrant workers. Here is why #SelfReliantIndia is not really a choice.
Illyas has been waiting on the highway in Thane for 2 days. He had 100 rupees, borrowed money from 20 people and now has 500. He wants to go back home to West Bengal.
All three, barely out of their teens, used to work at a restaurant in Thane and hail from West Bengal. A truck owner agreed to take them home but is charging them Rs 5,500 EACH.