Exclusive: NET RESULT

By M H Ahssan

CLICKING A CAMPAIGN
Beleaguered Byrraju Ramalinga Raju is scoring on the internet. A website with the Satyam founders name as its URL has sprung in e-space batting for Raju like nobody could. Waxing eloquent on Ramalinga Raju’s achievements, the website is a dripping sweet tribute to him with hundreds of messages from across the world supporting him and blaming the media for showing the benevolent man in poor light.

Well, while the content and intention of a website of this nature appear questionable at this point of time, its creation does point a finger at the phenomenon of net activism that the country has woken up to. Since one doesn’t expect a bunch of Raju fans holding placards and taking out a ‘morcha’ in his favour, the website will at best remain an e-support for Raju but other online initiatives have moved to the real world.

While most communities on social networking sites and blogs remain restricted to e-pages, there are a fistful of initiatives that have stepped out of the virtual and are playing out on the streets.

From the candlelight vigil at the Gateway of India, Mumbai mobilised largely by members of a popular social networking site after 26/11 to a Hyderabadi initiative to make travelling in MMTS trains a safer, smoother ride, some online campaigns have come of age.

“We were a group of ten when we started in 2006. Today we are 200-strong,’’ says Vijayraghavan K, one of the founders of the MMTS Travellers group, and an employee of Infosys. The online forum reaches out to scores of MMTS users and if it was until now posting information on train delays it is now in discussion with South Central Railway to beef up security on MMTS following Mumbai terror strikes. “We met the Secunderabad DRM (divisional railway manager) on December 31 after carrying out a signature campaign on improving safety and now plan to meet the city police commissioner,’’ this passionate commuter says.

The MMTS campaign was kickstarted by a handful of techies who used the train to reach work. “Since we were an IT community we formed an e-group and started mobilising people not just from IT but other sectors too to become part of it. Now we use the group for both communication as well as posting messages on issues and train updates,’’ Vijayraghavan says.

Then there were a flood of Mumbai-based online movements after 26/11 but some like Terror in Mumbai played a crucial role during the four-day terror crisis.

For Harish Iyer, founder of Terror in Mumbai, initially it was all about helping the families of victims of the 26\11 attack by furnishing information about their relatives and friends. “I wanted to do my bit and help the victims. I started by updating my personal blog with whatever information I could get. But later when I realised that I could reach out to a large number of people I created a separate space which served as a helpline,” he says mentioning how he was inundated with calls from not only Mumbaikars but people all over the world.

Even though such initiatives are online, creators say the main aim is to mobilise people and take the action out of the virtual mode to ground reality. “We started online but the end cannot be online. It would be a fruitless endeavour if it remained on the internet,” says Iyer whose next step (apart from holding therapy sessions) is to gather a group of proactive citizens, trained in terror management, who would be able to help out on-site during times of crisis.

Another online initiative that has earned a name for its activism is Fight-Back, which was formed as an “immediate stimulation” to the 2007 New Year incident which took place in Mumbai when two women were molested by a group of men outside a five-star hotel. “Fight-Back is a tool box which can be used to strike out all kinds of violence. It is not just a blog. It has numbers of police helplines, lawyers and explanation of laws to empower ordinary people,” says Zubin Driver, a media professional and one of the core members of the team. Fight-Back has now spread all over the country and has also tied up with international groups promoting the same cause.

“The idea is to build a relation between online and offline and generate a simultaneous movement,” says Driver explaining how volunteers all over the country now go around distributing pamphlets and posters to increase awareness.

Interestingly, some initiatives are now taking the physical to virtual route like the one started by city corporates to improve voting in the coming elections. “We are getting in touch with companies and collecting applications, passing them on to the chief election officer and then delivering voter IDs to the applicants,’’ says Sudhish Rambhotla, city-based film producer and member of the campaign. From March, the members would aggressively use the internet to coax these registered voters to step out and vote.

How best such forums are utilised depends on both the content as well as the participants, believes Sanjay Gadhalay, COO SGC Enterprises who has started numerous einitiatives including those on Right to Information awareness as well as one on election watch. He says he has been reasonably successful in them. But he points out that one has to be careful in choosing the group, one that has more participants than “passengers (non-active participants)’’. Also, the campaign’s success is dependent on how the community you are interacting with connects with the subject.

While internet campaigns most often succeed in getting numbers, Iyer feels that the only disadvantage is that it cannot reach out to rural areas and slum pockets in cities. However, Driver is more hopeful and says grassroot organisations can make a difference. “Internet connectivity is immense, especially amongst the youth in our country who is our main target. And where the internet cannot reach there are volunteers on foot who can take the movement forward,’’ he says.

CYBER SPACE BUGGED
The power of the internet might have driven people out of homes to unite against terrorism or successfully persuaded citizens to exercise their electoral rights, but it has also aggravated feelings of hatred and intolerance among people by providing an ‘unlimited’ platform to the ‘negative’ voices of society.

Post 26/11 when an email condemning such acts reached peoples’ inbox, several gathered at prominent locations across cities to light a candle and appeal for peace. But even as these crowds prayed for harmony, some others were busy logging onto social networking sites and creating ‘hate clubs’ that called for more violence and bloodshed to avenge the misdoing. Abuses were afloat on all these communities that left a bitter taste in the mouth of all who happened to chance upon them.

But this was not the first of its kind. Exercising the right to expression, individuals have often used this open forum to vent their anger and frustration either in the form of blogs or social communities with discussions frequently taking an ugly turn, say netizens.

That these groups spread bad blood and create a rather unhealthy environment is evident from the transcripts of the conversations that the members have. Members as young as 18-20 years encourage each other to commit suicide, use abuses against parents and siblings (perhaps after a fight at home) and cultivate feelings of disrespect for certain communities and individuals.

“It is rather unfortunate, but then there is not much that can be done about it. We can neither block people out from cyber space and nor can we stop them from saying what they want to,” says Vijay Mukhi, chairman of the IT committee of FICCI adding that the only way to counter them is by using the same weapon against them. “We need to try and spread the right message by putting up a counter view against wrong notions of people,” he says.

With the growing strength of the internet and its easy accessibility it is no surprise that citizens are getting worried about the outcome of such forums. If today it can bring crowds onto the road for a noble cause, tomorrow it can also unite people for a violent act, they say.

Col. Ramachandran, formerly of NASSCOM, however, feels there is nothing to worry. “I do not think such forums can become a cause of concern. The internet is generally accessed by educated people who know what to read and what to avoid. They know what to get influenced by and what to forget about. I am also against regulating the internet and do not feel something like that would help either,” he says.

Well, would it then take another internet initiative to check this growing sense of distress?

e-PAPER TIGERS
A “fuming, annoyed and shocked” Amit Kumar, a Hyderabadi and an IT executive, went straight to his personal computer after the news of recent Mumbai terror attacks on television that “shook” him to his bones. Within minutes, he had poured out all his angst against the “brutal terrorists”, “callous defence system” and “corrupt administration” on his computer screen. Soon he polished his ‘article’ and put it up on his personal blog. A month passed and a proud Amit boasts of over 100 comments on his piece that coaxes its readers to “take some action”. The debate stirred by the piece died down and the demands he made remained confined to his computer.

Well, Amit could be a “socially concerned citizen” like thousands others who did exactly the same after the terror attacks. However, such communities and blogs “fighting’’ terrorism stirred only more words. Such activism, in the words of actor Nasseruddin Shah in a recent interview, could just be an illusion that people have done their bit for the society.

Take for instance, the over 2,000 members of an online community for people “frustrated by rampant corruption’’. After months of cribbing on the issue, one of its members, Mohd Saleem, tried inducing some “real, concrete action” into the group five months ago. He appealed to all members of the community to hold meetings and devote a few hours to actively work against corruption. However, till date, not more than 10 members have even cared to reply killing the proposed “campaign” even before it could take off.

Unlike the handful of communities that have stirred activism among people, there are innumerable instances of ‘armchair’ activists in cyber space with a new blog being created every second and new online communities every day. Blogs and social networking sites throw up scores of results for searches on terrorism, environment and controversial murder cases. Each community boasts of at least a 1,000 and even a whopping 10,000 members. “While all communities start as serious discussions on serious matters even throwing up logical questions at the officials concerned, soon most of them end up as either a means to date like-minded people or random conversations remotely related to the main topic, sometimes even making mockery of the whole business,’’ says Aroona Guthi, once an active blogger, who is now “weaning’’ herself from internet communities.

Agrees Arun Kumar, an IITian, who has in the past year, forced the local administration in his native village in Bihar into ensuring safer roads and better electricity by fighting it out through the Right to Information Act. “I was earlier very active on such online discussions against poor administration but soon realised that it seldom goes beyond mere blabbering on blogs,” he laments.

Even V S Krishna, state secretary with Human Rights Forum, notes that merely writing online tends to make people think they have done enough resulting in little purpose served. However, he insists that the information flow it generates can’t be brushed off as fully inconsequential.