Indian Nationalists Forcibly Censor Orkut

starkravingmad writes "The Economic Times is running a story on Hindu nationalists in India threatening to wreck internet cafes that don't block parts of Orkut that the vigilantes find offensive. From the article: '"Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage," said Abhijit Phanse, president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student group. "We are gently telling Internet cafe owners that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns ... Or else, we will have to do that job for them." Last week, dozens of Shiv Sena workers vandalised some Internet centres, saying they were not stopping their customers from accessing Orkut groups involved in sending hate messages.'"

Comments

Anyone else have to look up Orkut?

[ChromeAeonium]

Orkut is apparently like MySpace, with forums and the like. Just thought I'd throw that out there, since TFA did such a great job of not saying what it is. Here's the wiki

Re:What the hell is Orkut?

[wizardforce]

Google Orkut... it is a social networking site, a lot like Myspace or Livejournal. Here is the orkut homepage link: www.orkut.com Here is the link to the Wikipedia article about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut

Useless Hypocrisy

[Sukhbir]

The reason Orkut is targeted is cause of the popularity. Orkut is like the MySpace of India and people get internet at their homes so that they can access Orkut - so much is the popularity. Shiv Sena and RSS are stupid political parties who have not done anything for the people of India except dividing them on communal lines. If they are so concerned about the people of India, they should stop popularizing their communal agenda and actually start doing something for the people. So what if the communities exist? How does it matter? Is it posing a threat to the country? No. Sentiments are something else agreed, but just cause of one or two things, that doesn't mean they shut the whole thing down. Same was the case with a website by the name of Hindu Unity. It is now banned in India cause it had anti - Islamic content severe in nature. When it was banned, the Shiv Sena and RSS were protesting cause they said censoring was violating the rights of the people. How about it now?

Mod parent up

[mercurialmale]

Spot on - this has nothing to do with religion. Note that the real Hindu clergy is not protesting.

This is pure, filthy politics - the Shiv Sena and their ilk are just trying to fight their own growing irrelevance - this is just to remind the UPA government that they still have the power to make life difficult - an attempt to gain leverage on some obscure internal negotiations, perhaps.

You and I are not the intended audience for this charade - the current administration is. The poor Internet cafes are merely caught in the crossfire.

And finally to all those who lament censorship in India, please don't worry on our behalf. We Indians have seen off graver challenges to our freedoms. We maintain a level of openness unmatched in the third world, and it will take more than a few assholes like these guys to change that. We're far from perfect in this regard, of course, but we'll get by just fine.

Re:Mod parent up

[stony3k]

Umm... when was the last time V. S. Naipaul lived in India, and I mean lived, not visited. He should not comment on things he has no clue about. The problem with many of the Indians living outside India is that they have been fed a lie that Hinduism is under attack in India and is dying. Nothing could be further from the truth, just going by the sheer number of people who are present whenever any so-called "Godman" comes to town.

I'm not denying that there is a section of the Indian polity that is often anti-hindu because of vote bank politics. But there is equally a section that is rabidly pro-hindu because of vote bank politics.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why every news story about Shiv Sena involves vandalism - they're never doing anything constructive, always destructive. It's no wonder then that they find themselves slowly losing favor in the eyes of the common man.

Re:Mod parent up

[XchristX]

The problem with many of the Indians living outside India is that they have been fed a lie that Hinduism is under attack in India and is dying. The problem with Indians in India is that they are too blinded by propaganda disseminated by a Communist intelligentsia, moderated by a socialist regime, and aggravated by the rising tide of Islamist militancy in the country. It is precisely the objectivity of outside observation that Naipaul brings to the Indian social landscape, something which Indians in India do not possess, unfortunately. It is a sad day for the Indian intellect when an outsider like Naipaul is needed to expose the reality...

they're never doing anything constructive, Really? Who do you think improved living conditions in the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai (the worst slum in Asia)? The Shiv Sena. Yet, nobody but Naipaul wrote about that obvious fact (known to most Mumbaikars). Who do you think build all those expressways in Mumbai and removed the congested traffic that was choking the city's economy, the Shiv Sena. Also a fact known to most Mumbaikars. Yet, it is only mentioned by the media as an insignificant footnote.
There is most definitely a pervasive media bias against the Shiv Sena. A bias that stems from Islamist votebank politics, motivated primarily by a sense of "My enemy's enemy is my ally" style of realpolotik and the desire of the left to ultimately eradicate all criticism from Hindus and render India a totalitarian, communist regime.
What about the thuggery and villany of the Communist Party? What about the decades of nepotism, corruption, and state-sponsored buggerry conducted by Communist bastard despots like Jyoti Basu in West Bengal? What about the thugs and murderer Communists called Naxalites inIndia's red corridor (Bengal, Bihar, orissa and northern AP)? How well does the Indian Media report about their killings, rapes, bombings and Pakistani support? No, the Indian media is only obsessed with Hindus.
How well does the media report the attacks on poor Hindus carried out by the Communist thugs in Nandigram just a few months ago? In the finest traditions fo Stalin and Mao, the CPM massacred dozens of poor Hindus in Nandigram , and the media conveniently hid the whole damn thing under the rug. Only the international media reported on it with any degree of objectivity.

Re:Mod parent up

[snottgoblin]

I see that your attitude is no different from the so called communist propagandists. I do not see any objectivity in your comment. You seem to want to selectively highlight the constructive role of the shiv sena and the RSS while downplaying their religious intolerance.

"It is precisely the objectivity of outside observation that Naipaul brings to the Indian social landscape, something which Indians in India do not possess, unfortunately. It is a sad day for the Indian intellect when an outsider like Naipaul is needed to expose the reality..."

Merely because you are unaware of Indians within India that objectively evaluate the conditions in India, doesn't mean they do not exist. Check out the many number of books and articles written by Arun Shourie during his journalistic days, read the columns by Tavleen Singh...

"What about the thugs and murderer Communists called Naxalites in India's red corridor (Bengal, Bihar, orissa and northern AP)? How well does the Indian Media report about their killings, rapes, bombings and Pakistani support? No, the Indian media is only obsessed with Hindus."

I see the Indian media report on naxalites almost on a daily basis and toe the government line of blaming everything on the ISI and Pakistan. Again you are being dishonest to try and prove your own point. I do not condone the actions of the naxalites, but I do not hate them or their idelogy either. They came into being because the 'State' failed to do its duties and instead abused the citizens. It is a well known fact that the police and the politicians abuse their power and the poor are hapless observers. This was the cause for the naxalites to come into being. Merely brushing aside the cause and condemning the consequences does not make you seem any more intelligent than the communist intelligentsia.

As to your claim that the India media is only obsessed with Hindus, they are equally reticent about any disruptive actions of the Indian military in Kashmir and the various Kashmiri leaders that are under house arrest. Such actions are no different from those of an autocratic state.

In conclusion you have brought no sense of objectivity to this discussion but merely stated views that are the extreme opposite of the "communist intelligentsia".

Re:India is not a Western nation.

[whackeroony]

I am feeding the troll (sigh!) but well here it goes. I am an Indian and you, AC, are full of crap.

India may be a democracy, but it is not a Western nation. Being a democracy does not mean that a nation is a democracy. Look at Singapore.

The first sign that the AC is out of his league. Yes, India is not a perfect democracy ( who is anyway? ) but comparing it to Singapore - a small island nation whose citizens themselves consider the polls to be a sham (wiki link here ) - is a complete joke. Come on, at least India does not have a one-party government that tries to sue the opposition into oblivion.

India, as any other democracy, has its share of nutjobs. The BVS and Shiv Sena, as has been pointed out by other posters, are essentially groups of uneducated riff-raff that try to present themselves as nationalists to distinguish themselves from common thugs ( which they are in reality ). They have little influence beyond Mumbai.

In the India of today, honor killings are so widespread that it is a national pasttime. An honor killing is murdering a wife because her family has not provided sufficient dowry to the husband.

No my dear AC. Honor killings are not what you presented (link). They are women that are killed if they are suspected to have brought dishonor to the family (unwanted pregnancy, etc.). They are extremely rare in India and are more a part of life of our friends across the border in Pakistan ( and other such Islamic societies) than ours.

What you did state about dowry killings(link) is exaggerated. While it is true that bride burning is still present in India, due to many high-profile convictions in the recent past, it is abhorred widely and the burden of proof is on the suspected in-laws. However, unfortunately, dowry as a social phenomenon still exists in India.:(

Finally, the Indians are aggressively building nuclear weapons.

Having been attacked by 2 totalitarian neighbours (who are allied strongly with each other) 4 times in the last 50 years is not a good enough excuse ? Then, pray, why do the United States and Russia, which are far removed from their enemies, have the largest nuclear arsenals in the world ? Anyway, having nuclear devices without a proper delivery system can hardly be considered aggressive.

So, India is a democracy, but it is not a Western nation.

So, you took all this effort to point out the obvious. As we say in north India, shabaash mere puttar ! ( well done, my son !)

Coming back to the topic, as I said before, this is a very local event. The Economic Times is HQ-ed in Mumbai which is why it has received more prominence than necessary. From my personal experience, I can speak of places with worse kinds of restrictions in India. There are hamlets controlled by some political party/ religious group/ communists where information from the outside world, in any form, is not allowed unless they are filtered by the party thugs. But, I would be more worried by the fact that most of rural India, if they ever cared, would not be able to connect to orkut because of the pathetic infrastructure in those parts, rather than being banned from doing so by a collection of retards.

My INR 10

Obscure words explained

[Old Wolf]

Orkut is a social networking site
Shiv Sena is a Hindu fundamentalist group
Canard presumably means a deliberately false story, in this context.

Re:chocolate christ

[Inverted Intellect]

Even though you appear to have mostly been joking, you've hit on a bit of truth.

Easter is a heathen celebration of fertility (as demonstrated by the large amounts of eggs and the ever-symbolic rapidly-breeding rodent) taken over by Christianity. Christmas happens to be celebrated on the Winter Solstice, even though the time of Jesus' birth is a somewhat murky matter.

In some nations, despite being overtly christian, they still call the Winter Solstice celebration by its traditional name, Yule, or variations thereof.

Re:India: 5000 Slain Brides & 3 Million Prosti

[slashdotlurker]

The year of the report is 2002. The report proceeds to note the similarity between Indian culture and Islamic culture. Note that "5000" is the number for only murdered brides. That number does not include the many Indian women murdered by Indian man for supposedly shaming the Indian family.

Forgive me for pointing out an obvious flaw in that "argument". Are we not assuming that honor killings are widespread in India ? I have lived for years in India as a bureau reporter, and while one hears of 3 or 4 bride burning cases every few months, I have never heard of honor killings. That is something that is extremely common in Pakistan. I am sorry, but your attempts to equate Indian and Islamic cultures simply do not wash. That figure of 5000 is on a population that is now 1 billion plus. I daresay that more women are killed by their husbands in crimes of passion, in my home state of California in an average year. 3 million prostitutes in a population of 1 billion ? Eastern Europe and Russia have a far greater proportion than that.

The parent article tries to paint India as a Western nation. The facts indicate otherwise. Vietnam is more Western than India. Honor killings are extremely rare in Vietnam. It has a much lower rate of children prostitution than India because Vietnamese law enforcement actually punishes the customers of child prostitutes. Note that Vietnam is still a relatively poor nation, so poverty cannot explain the popularity of honor killings and children prostitution in India. The explanation is in the non-Western culture of India.

India is clearly not a Western nation. These are people from a proud ancient civilization that developed almost completely untouched by the various schools of thought that moulded our European and American histories until beginning of colonialism in this part of Asia. Why would you feel the need to knock down a strawman ? I have lurked on slashdot for many months, and have learned that India is a fairly disliked country among the tech types who post here. I can understand why that is so. While Silicon Valley is stagnating, Indian tech cities are experiencing a boom unprecedented in their history. There is a massive loss of jobs back home and that is an emotive issue. How this translates into an obsession that includes painting India as a retrograde and primitive Islamist culture with honor killings, is something I will not comment on, as I do not understand your motivation behind raising such canards. In my experience, India is one of the most virulently anti-Islamic countries I have ever lived in (and my prior jaunts include Serbia in early 90s, Russia in mid 90s and Israel for a few months in 2002). I do not sympathize with such notions, but given what I have learned of Indian history, its not surprising at all.