New Delhi, Dec 31, 2019-
Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘India supports CAA’ campaign on Twitter and NaMo App, a new hashtag ‘India does not support CAA’ went viral with it trending internationally for a while.
But soon, questions were raised on whether it was an organic trend or a choreographed exercise. If it is the latter, then who are behind it?
BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi tweeted two grabs from an app to suggest that while the ‘India supports CAA’ tweets were mostly generated from India, the viral hashtag were generated from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and the USA apart from India.
She tweeted: “Geographical markers show anti-national forces within are being helped by outside forces or outside forces are promoting anti-national forces within India.”
Though we could not independently verify the claims of Lekhi, cyber law experts say detection by provided location on Twitter is a wrong approach and the real geographical origin of such tweets can only be detected through the users IP address.
BJP’s IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya too backed lekhi’s claims. He said a slew of tweets using this hashtag has originated from Turkey, a nation that recently took a strong stand against India abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution.
Data accessed by us said the hashtag generated 2,72,766 tweets with a total reach of 56,56,02,510 as of 11p.m. on December 30.
So who are the big names that are using this hashtag? Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Youth Congress are some of the political outfits who tweeted using this hashtag. Chief spokesperson of UP Aam Aadmi Party’s Vaibhav Maheshwari too used this hashtag.
Then, there were an array of social media influencers, who too were engaged in making this hashtag trend, just the way many with large social media following tweeted for PM’s campaign. One of the examples is Kapil, a well known face who flaunts his allegiance to AAP, who tweeted using ‘India does not support CAA’. But he ended up using derogatory terms for the Prime Minister.
At last count, his tweet drew more than 850 retweets and more than 1,200 likes.
Actor Swara Bhasker, a known dissenting voice from Bollywood too used this hashtag. She tweeted: “On the last day of the darkest year for #India as democracy a BIG shout out 2 the STUDENTS OF INDIA & civil society members who are leading peaceful protests against unethical laws & schemes like CAA-NRC-NPR! U have returned to this country her conscience #IndiaDoesNotSupportCAA”.
While there is no conclusive evidence as claimed by Lekhi that this is a hashtag driven by neighbouring countries, there’s enough evidence to suggest India’s opposition parties and influencers who are known for their anti-government stand, made this hashtag go viral.
