Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, recently received a lot of hate on the same platform after his visit to India. On his visit, he formally met Prime Minister Modi and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. He also participated in an unofficial meeting with Indian women journalists and activists to discuss about the safety issues for women Twitter users. It is known that Indian Twitter can be very disrespectful towards outspoken and vocal women who use the platform to speak about issues including prominent personalities like Barkha Dutt, Rana Ayyub, Richa Chadha, and Swara Bhaskar among others.
Jack faced severe backlash at the hands of right wingers because a photograph released after the event showed him holding a poster that read Smash Brahminical Patriarchy. Most people were showering phrases on him claiming the banner to be casteist, to mongering hate, and promoting hate speech targeted at a particular group.
To put things into context, brahminical patriarchy can be understood as the Indian equivalent of white supremacy, but racism replaced with casteism. The term is popular among feminists who interlink two very important oppressive hierarchies, that of caste and gender. Caste in India (and other Hindu countries) has its own dynamics which form the functioning base of societies. Brahmins in India are positioned at the top tier of the caste hierarchy, followed by Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. This caste hegemony has historically oppressed ‘lower caste’ groups who face atrocities perpetrated on them by the ‘upper castes’. Essentially, brahminical patriarchy refers to the casteist activities that are inherently inbuilt in Indian societies as Brahmin males continue to be at the topmost tier of the social dynamics. However, this does not include patriarchy present in brahminical societies.
Following these attacks, a top Twitter official Vijaya Gadde, who was also present at the said meeting apologized for the photograph saying that the social networking site aims to be impartial and apolitical in its functioning. She also mentioned that the poster was given to Jack as a gift by one of the attendees of the meeting.
In due course of time Vijaya’s statement garnered enough attention. Herapology was then deconstructed by the women present in the meeting who accused her for misrepresenting the facts suiting the conditions. Sanghapali Aruna, who gifted the poster to Jack, later clarified on a public platform that the poster was given to him only to attempt to “challenge the dominance and sense of superiority that finds its origins in the caste system” by “questioning the hegemony and concentration of power in the hands of one community.”
Interestingly, Vijayahad no answers to why Twitter did not have features that enabled to report caste based hate. According to Barkha Dutt who was also present in the meeting, when Aruna mentioned in the meeting that Twitter was exceptionally hostile to women belonging to lower castes, Vijaya reportedly burst into tears.
Vijaya’s apology is “disappointing to those dealing with abuse, harassment and legal threats”. In a strive to represent Twitter as impartial, the company has failed to acknowledge India’s very pressing brahminical patriarchy which makes difficult for every woman, man, and non-binary to express freely. Twitter has failed to stand up for marginalized communities while also proving at the same time that it has very less knowledge about the Indian social and cultural dynamics.
It would be prudent to acknowledge that nationalism is rising in Asia. Insult of Chinese culture in an advertisement video resulted in a heavy cost for Italian luxury brand Dolce and Gabbana as all their products were taken off markets. Western companies have huge stakes in both India and China and any wrong step will lead to devastating results. Keeping this in mind, people and corporations are being exceptionally sensitive towards issues of inclusion and against conditioned hatred and bigotry.
Twitter roughly has about 30.4 million users in India. In fact, Me Too movement in India gained momentum in September 2018 on Twitter and women still continue to use the platform to open up about sexual misconducts against them. Twitter has also been actively supportive of causes that are of essence to minority groups all over the world including #BlackLivesMatter #TimesUp #BelieveSurvivors and many more. Yet Twitter has failed to stand up for users and consumers who face hate on the very platform.
The only positive outcome of this is that Jack saw firsthand how people are attacked in packs by extremists waiting their chance to pounce upon anybody threatening their dominance in the society. As of this day, Twitter has remained deaf to a large number of harassment complaints made by users who feel violated and threatened. A right-wing activist in the USA has been banned for citing hateful conduct against Muslim lawmaker immediately following the Indian incident. Why does Twitter refuse to acknowledge the same in India? It is easily understood Jack alone cannot smash the brahminical patriarchy but why does Twitter have to apologize for a slogan that aims to end oppression?