Skip to main content

Sushma Swaraj blocks Twitter accounts critiquing her, becomes "most popular female leader" on social media

By Our Representative
India’s Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has begun blocking individual twitter accounts, which give a negative feedback about all that she does or believes. The last to be blocked is well-known Ahmedabad-based young academic Pravin Mishra after he made a scathing reply to her suggestion that, next time when fellow Indians meet an African, they should shake hands and say “I love you.”
In his reply on Twitter, Mishra (@mishra_pravin) said, “Sure madam, also do appeal to fellow bhakts: Next time you meet a Muslim or a Dalit, please shake hand and say 'India loves you'.” This, apparently, outraged Swaraj, who immediately blocked Mishra “from following @SushmaSwaraj and viewing @SushmaSwaraj’s tweets.”
Reporting on the development, Mishra said in a Facebook post, “Ironically, during the UPA rule, she served as Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. So much of tolerance in Modi raj! Heil, Mein Führer!”
Modi critics refer to “bhakts” a group of his diehard supporters, who often flood offensive comments on his critics on the social media. Reports say, there an army of ‘bhakts’ employed across India to do the job.
Blocked on June 8, Mishra’s is not the only twitter account that has been blocked by Swaraj for what may appear to her to be an offensive reaction. She blocked yet another account on June 7.
Reacting sharply to her tweet on shaking hands with Africans, Sam John David (@samiei1) – a post-graduate in control and instrumentation engineering, who calls himself “plural, liberal, secular”, and hails from Tamil Nadu – said: “Madam, remember your racist comment on Sonia Gandhi? What moral authority you have advise other people, when yourself have bigotry?”
The reference is to Swaraj, in a heavily publicized and emotionally charged episode following the 2004 elections when the Congress was set to form the government, threatened to shave her head, don a white saree and eat groundnuts (symbolically mourning) if Sonia, the Italian-born Congress leader, became prime minister.
In another tweet, posted on June 7, David said, “Madam what happened to Lalit Modi humanitarian tourism? Any actions?” Soon thereafter, Sam got a message similar to that of Mishra: That he has been “blocked” from following and viewing @SushmaSwaraj tweets.
Interesting though it may seem, while Swaraj’s tweet on shaking hands with Africans was retweeted by more than 6,700 persons, Mishra’s tweet was retweeted by just about 360 persons. As for David’s tweet, it was not retweeted by anyone, at least till June 8 afternoon.
While it may be difficult to fathom what could be the reason behind Swaraj blocking her critics like this, reports say, she is not in news during the period when Modi is on a whirlwind foreign tour, starting on June 4 and ending on June 10. In fact, a report said, she has been “conspicuously absent” from all the promotional campaigns carried out by the BJP to celebrate her two years in office.
Swaraj’s office reportedly informed the BJP president’s office that she was “not keen on giving interviews or calling a press conference to list her achievements.” A report said, she began “distancing” herself from the media about four years ago, when she was the high profile Opposition Leader in the Lok Sabha. 
Meanwhile, reports have begun appearing in a section of the media that Swaraj is “the most followed female world leader with 5.21 million followers at 10th spot, ahead of Jordan’s @QueenRania who has 4.7 million followers.
Before Modi left on his foreign tour, Swaraj met the family of Congolese national Masunda Kitada Olivier, a 23-year-old post-graduate student in Delhi, who is said to have been beaten to death by a group of men in a brawl over an autorickshaw ride. She refused to accept the killing as a racist attack.
"These were not premeditated acts against a particular community, rather these were spontaneous attacks perpetrated by anti-social and criminal elements,” she said.
Even as Modi reached US, Swaraj took to Twitter to “thank” Qatar for releasing 23 Indian prisoners “on the request of the Prime Minister.” She also thanked Modi, “who visited the nation a few days ago, for his cooperation.”

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Modi govt intimidating US citizens critical of abuses in India: NY Christian group to Biden

Counterview Desk  the New York Council of Churches for its release of an open letter calling on the Biden administration to “speak out forcefully” against rising Hindu extremist violence targeting Christians and other minorities in India. In the letter addressed to President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other major elected officials, the NY Council of Churches expressed "grave concern regarding escalating anti-Christian violence" throughout India, particularly in Manipur, where predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribals have faced hundreds of violent attacks on their villages, churches, and homes at the hands of predominantly Hindu Meitei mobs.

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

MS Swaminathan Counterview Desk In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’. Pointing ou

Link India's 'deteriorating' religious conditions with trade relations: US policymakers told

By Our Representative  Commissioners on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised concerns about the “sophisticated, systematic persecution” of religious minorities by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a hearing on India in Washington DC.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Why is green revolution harmful for nutrition, food safety, environment, climate change

By Bharat Dogra*  A lie repeated a hundred times will not turn a lie into a truth. The big media should realize this and stop perpetuating the lie of the green revolution saving India from hunger, long after the world has awakened to the reality of how harmful the green revolution has been from the point of nutrition, food safety, environment and climate change.

Alarming Odisha arrests, 'illegal' detentions ahead of Vedanta bauxite public hearing

Counterview Desk  More than 80 lawyers, legal academics and researchers have written to the Governor of Odisha raising concerns about the “alarming arrests and illegal detentions” of about two dozen persons from Rayagada district in Odisha in anticipation of the upcoming public hearing for the Sijimali bauxite mine proposed by M/s Vedanta Ltd.