Social media has reshaped caste mobilisation

Subaltern castes have used it to create discourse, ideate, and connect with each other, and the world

The advent of social media has heralded a new era in public discourse. Popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed the forging of new networks among like-minded people, and changed the contours of public debate and socio-political mobilisation. But what is often not discussed is how social media has reshaped caste imagination and mobilisation in the country. Since caste is omnipresent in India, it is not surprising that it has touched social media.

Recently, protests broke out against Twitter over the allegations of a systematic denial of the blue tick verification to handles belonging to the Dalit and backward communities. Even the official handles of Prakash Ambedkar or the Bhim Army chief were not verified, while the handles of even the lesser-known members of liberal chatterati, with a few thousand followers, would have the blue tick. Hard-hitting Twitter hashtags trended for several days accusing the company of being a casteist enterprise, and asking it to either verify the handles of public figures of the Scheduled Caste/scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities, or cancel blue ticks of all accounts.

This brings out a curious phenomenon in the Indian media space. Historically, the representation of the subaltern castes in the media has been negligible. Unable to find their voices and issues heard in the mainstream media space, they created an alternative space for information dissemination. Even the political parties representing Dalit and OBC communities hardly paid any attention to the media space until recently.

But social media changed it. While social media is often accused of being casteist and discriminatory, it is the only media space that has provided the subaltern castes with the most free and leastdiscriminatory platform to create their discourse and ideate.

It has led to the organic growth of subaltern media, and explosion of a Dalit-bahujan discourse, including that of the Pasmandas (the subaltern lower caste Muslims). Social media is replacing pamphlets in the political rallies of parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as the preferred medium of dissemination of counterculture. The social media channels of Dalit-bahujan groups have thousands of subscribers now, and their posts and videos are shared widely, even though they may be invisible in mainstream discourse. This has enabled caste-based mobilisation on a far larger scale.

This was visible during the April 2018 protests against an order of the Supreme Court on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and also during the anti-bharatiya Janata Party mobilisation in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for restoring status quo. This has also reshaped caste imagination because now people can overcome the ghetto mentality, which was ingrained by caste-based socialisation. For a large number of youth in the villages and small towns, social media has provided an opportunity to interact with people who don’t think like them and don’t fit into their social worldview. This has sharpened the contrast between the subjective notions of the social status of their caste, with the objective reality, resulting in bitterness and aggression. Youtube is also flooded with the new age songs of caste-assertion and caste-glorification, often descending into humiliating “others”.

According to a recent Lokniti-csds study, the spread of social media has largely been among the upper-castes in urban centres, followed by the Muslims. But there is an increasing presence of those belonging to the SC/ST and OBC communities in recent years.

But despite having a rapidly-growing user base on social media platforms, these communities hardly find any representation in the organisations and policymaking of these companies. This has led to allegations of a systematic caste bias in the policies and the social media platforms’ ways of working.

Social media companies need to have a transparent user policy and take action against caste-based abuse and demonisation. Currently, the standard reply of Twitter to such abuse is that it doesn’t find a violation of rules in the reported content. There must also be more transparency in the parameters used in their algorithms and mechanisms adopted for decisionmaking. Suspension of accounts will go a long way in ensuring the credibility of these platforms amid allegations of ideological, political or social biases.

DESPITE HAVING A GROWING USER BASE ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, THESE SUBALTERN COMMUNITIES HARDLY

FIND ANY REPRESENTATION IN THE ORGANISATIONS AND POLICY-MAKING OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS