September 24, 2016 ☼ foreign policy ☼ military-jihadi complex ☼ Pakistan ☼ social media
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
My response to a request for comment from the Times of India:
The role of social media in spreading both revolutionary dissent and ultra-rightwing sentiment has now been seen across the global. Even in non-democratic China, the political leadership has to contend with online ultra-nationalist sentiment that constrains its options. It shouldn’t surprise us that the effect is far greater in a democracy like ours. Social media acts both as a lightning rod and an amplifier: whether for protests against government, or to compel government to act against internal and external enemies.
In India at least, social media is no indicator of considered public opinion. Neither are aggressive television anchors and studio guests. However, to the extent that they prime citizens what to think about, and how to think about it, they are important to our public discourse. Now unlike intellectuals, political leaders have been elected by the people and have democratic legitimacy — it is incumbent on ministers not to be overly compelled by social media sentiment or television studios. Good statesmanship demands that leaders make calm, well-considered decisions and explain them to the people, using social media and television studios.
Social media and some television studios have enabled people to express their subconscious fears and desires: it is not only today that people of India have been angry with Pakistan for fomenting terrorism in our country. It is only now that they have ways to express this anger; unfortunately social media dynamics amplify this anger in a grotesque, distorted manner, allowing the ugly and the less-sensible views to rise up to the top of the public discourse. In fact, this very phenomenon can be used against us by our adversaries, giving them a inexpensive way to throw policy off the rails. If a provocation is a guaranteed to evoke a hysteric public reaction and put our political leaders in a spot, then our adversaries can easily exploit it.
See Manju VI’s report in the Sunday Times of India
Related Link: A recent op-ed in The Hindu on the do’s and don’ts for a digital sarkar.
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