An Indian nationalist website called Rightlog reports that four of the eight accounts that India demanded Twitter suspend for ‘spreading fake news’ were immediately bounced. According to Rightlog, which has a flare for fake news themselves, “a motivated cabal of fake news peddlers are doing everything possible to bring India at the brink of a civil war…The Union Home Secretary stated that the closure of these Twitter accounts is an absolute must as they are “spreading rumours & misinformation to disturb the peace & calm in the Valley.”
Who knows if or for how long the four remaining ‘fake news peddlers’ will elude the censors. Marx once said history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. In this case tragedy & farce are going on at the same time. The tragedy is the telecommunications blockade of Kashmir which places unendurable suffering on the Kashmiri people & their beloved outside Kashmir. The farce is in India attempting to silence a handful of writers & activists on social media who oppose that blockade. How pathetic & desperate can ‘the world’s largest democracy’ get?