There is more than one way to silence an opponent. You can censor or arrest her. Or, you can abuse, caricature and delegitimise her so relentlessly that her arguments seem worthless. When the BJP rejigged its national office-bearers this week, one of the headlines was the exit of the rather infamous IT cell head — well known for weaponising disinformation, who in 2017 circulated a doctored collage of Jawaharlal Nehru, including a vile insinuation about Nehru and his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit.
The old BJP social media order has now given way to a team no less foul-mouthed. Several new appointees have lately been scrubbing their accounts — but deleting a feed does not delete a mindset. The internet has a long memory. One of the new appointees had, in the past, used dreadful profanity against former Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
