India’s animated video wars cause online stir on campaign trail • FRANCE 24 English

India's multiphase general election is underway with Phase 1 and two of voting over and five more to go this means there's still weeks left before the results are declared in June France 24's leader jinto has been looking at recent online campaigning and some controversies flaring up hi Leela hi so Lea this week Instagram removed a video for prime minister Narendra modi's party tell us what happened well it was taken down on May 1st after a number of Instagram users flagged it for hate speech cont content but while the video is not available on Instagram it is still widely circulating uh on WhatsApp and here's the thing about this video it is incendiary but it was not done by an overenthusiastic BJP supporter this was on the official handle of the modi's uh party the BJP and you know the narrative uh pretty much follows the script it's a point BYO reiteration of a speech that Prime Minister Modi himself made last month on the campaign Trail now of course you know India's use of online platforms uh it's in extensive use is not new uh and this is primarily on mobile phones more than 2third of India's billion strong population have WhatsApp I have smartphones and so these videos continue to circulate so what was so contentious about the deleted video clip well basically what it does is that it takes modi's use of pejorative stereotypes of Muslims to demean the opposition congress party and you know this message is very clear in the video when you see an animated Rahul Gandhi from the opposition congress party holding up the manifesto the 2024 Manifesto of the congress party which morphs into the crescent moon and star symbol of the pre-independence Muslim League which led the creation of Pakistan so for Hindu nationalist base of Modis they see the colors and symbols of the Pakistani flag and theyve clearly get the message that the Congress is a Muslim appeasing party this is not based on facts at all but facts hardly matter and what a lot of misinterpreted facts in this video including what Modi says uh the that the Congress Manifesto apparently promises to go into the house of houses of Hindus confiscate the gold jewelry of Hindu women and redistribute it to Muslims and you know the depiction of Hindus and M Muslims follow real stereotypes so Mo Modi refers to Muslims in his speeches as infiltrators not fellow citizens and the the video extends this stereotype further by showing Muslims as conquering soldiers in medieval armor screaming into battle and looting uh the the conquered people none of this is based on facts of course and the Hindus in contrast are shown as the victims which is a peculiar claim to make for a majority which comprises 80% of the population in a democracy and does the opposition also use animated videos oh yes it does uh a popular one is called The Washing Machine this basically focuses on one the what the opposition calls tax terrorism which is targeting opposition politicians by corruption and tax evasion uh fraud uh by the country's powerful enforcement directive now the washing machine phenomenon refers to what happens when opposition politicians who are facing Financial investigations leave their already weakened opposition parties to join modi's BJP when that happens something magical happens they automatically and mysteriously get cleared of all these investigations which is what the washing machine is about they come out clean let's take a look at a little clip of this uh uh [Music] [Music] video so this people laundering is video is sung to a very popular 1980s Bollywood tune uh and this uh and the and the words keep talking about the enforcement directorate and the CBI which is India's FBI now it must be said that uh you know modi's speech was flagged uh to the election commission who issued a notice to the BJP about the speech and the Congress also was issued a notice for breach of the election commission's moral code of conduct you know but while these notices are are issued other politicians from the BJP continue to make these claims on the campaign Trail which are picked up and they continue to circulate in videos online

Channel: FRANCE 24 English

Views: 6,070

Keywords: Indian elections, Instagram, Narendra Modi, video

Id: Z3vf3JJuQ5w

Length: 5min 13sec (313 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024