Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur)

Humans of Hindutva, parody right-wing FB page, calls it quits

- HT Correspond­ent letters@hindustant­imes.com

Humans of Hindutva, a Facebook page that parodied the right-wing with satire, called it quits on Saturday with the admin saying it wasn’t worth taking a bullet for and “I’m tired of explaining the intention behind my words again and again and again”.

“I thank you guys for reading through my random thoughts. But now it’s come to the point where I have to argue with people who I thought were on the same side as me,” the last Facebook post from the account read.

HoH borrowed its name from the popular Humans of New York in which founder and artist Brandon Stanton captures people’s stories through his images.

The Facebook page commented on current events and politics, taking on the saffron brigade with acerbic posts and thinly-veiled criticism.

The admin who posted anonymousl­y often lampooned the cow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, news anchor Arnab Goswami and even author Chetan Bhagat.

More recently, the page addressed the murder of journalist and right-wing critic Gauri Lankesh from earlier this week.

But the writer said on Saturday: “I have worked hard over this period and have written over 80,000 words of original ‘content’ in this short span.”

However, “your interactio­n with me has opened up a side inside that I didn’t even know existed, but in the bargain it has exhausted me to no end,” he added.

Some of the followers – and the page has more than 86,000 – have jokingly asked the writer which ‘University of sarcasm’ did he graduate from.

Satire, especially against the political class, has yet to be breed into a full-fledged genre in India.

Of the 498 comments on the admin’s goodbye message, many of his followers appealed to him against quitting.

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