India's ruling party got volunteers to troll its critics, claims new book

There is no escaping trolling if you are on social media. More so, if you happen to be a popular figure.

The country with the second-largest internet population in the world saw its ruling party sponsor online trolls to chase down its opponents, including politicians, journalists and celebrities, claims a new book.

The country in question is India, and the party being BJP that was elected to power in 2014.

These revelations have been made in a book titled I Am A Troll authored by an Indian journalist, who's scored an explosive tell-all interview with a former BJP volunteer, Sadhavi Khosla.

Khosla, who was a party volunteer until the end of 2015, now claims to be "disenchanted" with the ways of the BJP and is relieved to have outed herself.

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Journalist-author Swati Chaturvedi, who has blogged about her investigation, alleges in the book that the 2014 prime ministerial campaign of Narendra Modi used hundreds of social media volunteers to push critical, sometimes abusive, messages about public figures perceived to be opposed to the BJP.

She writes, "During the investigation, I was shaken when I discovered the secret 'IT shakhas' and the depth of the rigorous planning of social media operations... I was also taken aback by the sheer ordinariness of the trolls. Here were people abusing, slandering and indulging in communal incitement, making rape and death threats, yet treating it like a 9-to-5 call center job."

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Khosla, who used to be followed by PM Modi on Twitter, is quoted as saying that for nearly two years, she was one among numerous BJP volunteers receiving direct instructions from the party's IT cell. The orders would come via WhatsApp and there would also be occasional meetings with senior members of the party's social media unit.

Their "troll hit list" included members of India's leading opposition party — Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi — as well popular actors and journalists who were perceived to be "anti-Modi".

Indian Twitter got buzzing after the report surfaced. Most people didn't seem surprised, may be because India's problems with online abuse is not new.

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One of the more striking allegations though has been directed at Indian e-commerce firm Snapdeal (which is backed by China's Alibaba Group) whose brand ambassador Aamir Khan, a popular Bollywood actor, had come under fire last year for making unsavory statements about the ruling party.

Khosla admits in Chaturvedi's book that BJP volunteers were ordered to create pressure on Snapdeal to dump Khan as brand ambassador. The party even circulated an online petition for this purpose and its supporters heavily trolled Khan and anyone who concurred with him.

Snapdeal eventually relented. And had its endorsement deal with Khan discontinued in January 2016.

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The Indian Express reached out to BJP's IT Cell head Arvind Gupta who rejected Khosla’s claims, and said that she “supports the Congress” and “has all reasons to publish unsubstantiated claims”. He even dismissed the book as a "fictitious" product.

The repercussions of the book will only be realized in time.