My take on the WhatsApp lynching epidemic:
At its roots, this is just controlled communal violence gone wrong or out of control.
For years now, WhatsApp and other social media platforms have been used by the IT cells of political parties to whip up general insecurity in the society, heighten paranoia, and, as a corollary, create latent rage towards specific communities. Their fake messages would occasionally be fortified by some genuine cases reported in the media, giving way to an easy mix of a little fact and tonnes of fiction.
In Kerala, for instance, "the kidnapper are coming" messages mostly named Muslims as the culprits. Coming from untraceable sources, nobody would give this angle much thought. Often the voice in the message would itself claim to be that of a Muslim, using the typical Malabar accent. To deflect potential allegations of community profiling, these messages often described the said criminals as "outsiders". So it was always "Bengalis" or "Biharis", without explicitly calling them Muslims. For an average Malayali, though, the Muslim identity of the said kidnappers registered subliminally.
In short, the ideal tinderbox situation was being created.
Once such a state is reached, it is easy to spark super-specific and controlled violence against targets. Imagine, a young father bombarded with "kidnapper" messages for months on end. Leave alone strangers, he would begin to doubt even his own father. That's the nature of insecurity.
Fortunately enough, this strategy didn't bear fruit in Kerala as much as it did in other states.
But now, it has begun to unravel. Wound up Indians are extending the lynching sport to their own community members, like in the Assam artist's case.
Nobody knows how to put the genie back into the IT cell's bottle.
So Happy Bloodsport India!
PS: When someone says these killings are different from beef lynchings, beware. Such sophistry is meant to camouflage the intent of the "kidnapper" message. Make no mistake, "Kidnapper" lynchings ARE beef lynchings by another, subtler name. And denying that is another, subtler form of the famous "isolated incident" trope.
