Social India: 'Cultural harmony has kept India intact till now'
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Version 0 of 1. Voting is under way in India’s general election and the Guardian has extensive coverage of news from the polls. But who are the alternative online voices from India that can shed light on what is happening in the country? We asked our readers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers in India to recommend the people that they follow online for a different take on events in India. Starting with political blogger Politicalbaaba, we move on to Atul Kumar Mishra, 29, the founder of the online forum The Frustrated Indian and linked Facebook page. Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Mishra, who now lives in Gurgaon, Haryana, runs the site with a team of six "highly motivated and concerned" Indians living across the country: Suneil Shrivastav, Sunil Pandey, Rahul Sharma, Shefali Vaidya, Kishore V. Ramsubramonian and Yogi Raj. According to Mishra, the site started as "a vague and motiveless social experiment" and is now a thriving discussion forum. What is the most important issue for you in the forthcoming election? India is a huge country and there are many issues that we face every day – there is rampant corruption, India is the top target of cross-border terrorism, there are issues with population, pollution, poverty, sanitation, poor infrastructure, healthcare, education, religious intolerance, women's safety, the rich poor divide, inflation ... The issues are many and each political party claims it can cure all these social evils, but if I were to name one issue for this election, I’d say it is the "pseudo-secularism" sold by parties in the name of secularism and unfair reward. People are being awarded education, jobs and even promotions based on their religion and caste. There has been a cultural harmony in India that has kept us intact till now, but new political factions keep sprouting. Each one of them claims of being the custodian of a religious or a linguistic minority. This creates animosity. Communal riots are on a rise and the leaders fan the embers for their own selfish interests. This election is nothing but a tussle between political heavyweights who represent different strata of society. We need to put an end to this. We need to make India a land of equal opportunity. We need to get out of our shallow mindsets. Does it make a difference to you how active politicians are online? Yes it totally does. It generates a healthy bond between people and their representatives. Social media allows highly granular and targeted messaging. Websites like Facebook and Twitter are a revolution – we can directly tag the politicians and tell them how we feel. We can praise them, we can criticise them or we can simply ignore them, but it is always a good thing to have an access to them. Although the advent of social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, there are a large number of first and second-time young voters who spend more than two hours online. How would you like to see the election parties using social media? Currently the politicians have a very agenda-based presence. They are on social media to announce different agendas and policies of their parties. In their spare time, they keep criticising their political opponents. What we need is the following: Who are the online voices in India that help provide an alternative perspective on the election? Let us know in the comments and share your views of the 2014 election by using the GuardianWitness contribute button. |