Skip to main content

Marginalised community women politicians targeted with 59% more casteist tweets: Amnesty

A new Amnesty International study, “Troll Patrol India: Exposing Online Abuse Faced by Women Politicians in India”, has found that one in every seven, or 13.8% of tweets, that mentioned women politicians in India were 'problematic' or 'abusive'. Based on a database of over 114,716 tweets mentioning 95 women politicians from India, the study says, a similar database by Amnesty in UK and USA found that 7.1% tweets mentioning politicians were problematic or abusive.
In all, Amnesty employed 1,912 digital volunteers, known as ‘decoders’, to identify problematic and abusive content in tweets from 82 countries to create a labelled dataset of problematic or abusive content. The decoders were shown each tweet with username obscured, and asked questions about whether the tweets were problematic or abusive, and if so, whether they revealed misogynistic, casteist or racist abuse, or other types of violent threats.
Carried out between March and May 2019, when Lok Sabha polls were on, the study finds that there were 20.8% of problematic or abusive tweets against Muslim women politicians, as against 12.8% Hindu women politicians. On the whole, it says, Muslim women got 55.5% more problematic or abusive content when compared to other religions, adding, in terms of type of abuse, Muslim women received 94.1% more ethnic or religious slurs than women from other religions. Racism-based abuse was also higher for Muslim women at 12.6% vs 9.2% for Hindu women.
Then, the study says, women from marginalised castes received 59% more casteist slurs than women from general castes, commenting, “This indicates that caste identity is more often than not, a key element of problematic or abusive content for women belonging to marginalised castes.” It defines ‘caste slur’ as “discriminatory, offensive or insulting content directed at a woman based on her caste, that aims to attack, harm, belittle, humiliate or undermine her and her community.”
A breakup of political parties by the study shows that, compared to the ruling party BJP, women politicians from ‘other parties’ experienced 56.7% more problematic or abusive content than BJP. Congress politicians received 45.3% more abusive or problematic content than BJP. The ‘other’ parties analysed include the Aam Aadmi Party, AIADMK, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Left parties, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, and the Samajwadi Party.
The study further finds that politicians who were not currently married (including widowed, divorced, separated and unmarried) received 40.6% more abusive tweets and 31% more problematic tweets than married women. “The most frequent type of abuse received by unmarried women was ‘sexism or misogyny', 13.9% more frequent than for married women”, the study says.
Coming to the language, the study finds that problematic or abusive content was 26.9% more frequent in Hindi than other languages in our study (with 27.7% more problematic content and 24.6% more abusive content). All languages showed the expected proportions of problematic and abusive content except for Tamil, it adds.
---
Read full report here

Comments

TRENDING

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor. 

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Environmental concern? Global NGO leads campaign urging banks to cut ties with Odisha steel project

A decade after the withdrawal of the South Korean multinational POSCO from Odisha following large-scale protests, questions remain about whether India-based JSW Steel, which took over the project, can successfully revive the 13.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) steel plant and coal-fired power plant. POSCO initiated the project in 2005 but exited in 2017 due to sustained local opposition.

Adani Group a key player in Indo-Israel defence cooperation: Tel Aviv daily

Said to be one of the most influential Israeli dailies, "Haaretz" (literally: News of the Land) has identified the Adani Group—known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi—as one of the key Indian business houses engaged in defence cooperation with Israel. Pointing out that India supplied the Israeli military with Hermes 900 drones, the daily reported that this advanced aerial vehicle came off “the production line in a factory set up in Hyderabad, as part of the cooperation between the Israeli Elbit and India's Adani Group.”

Despite Hindutva hold claim, 18% Hindus in US don't want to be identified with Hinduism!

Scanning through news items on the Google News app on my mobile — which is what I do almost every morning — I came across a story published on India.com, which I found somewhat misleading. The headline said, "Muslim population drops significantly in THIS country as over 25% Muslims leave Islam due to…, the country is…"

Beyond Indus water treaty suspension: A 'nationalist' push despite harsh climate realities

The suspension of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) appears to have pushed the middle classes, at least in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, Gujarat, further towards what the powers-that-be would consider—a "positive" direction. As usual, during my morning walk, I tried talking with a neighbour about what impact it would have. Ignoring what is widely considered a "security lapse," this person, who had just returned after buying milk, compared the Modi move with Trump.

Gujarat slips in India Justice Report 2025: From model state to mid-table performer

Overall ranking in IJR reports The latest India Justice Report (IJR), prepared by legal experts with the backing of several civil society organisations and aimed at ranking the capacity of states to deliver justice, has found Gujarat—considered by India's rulers as a model state for others to follow—slipping to the 11th position from fourth in 2022.