New Delhi: On June 17, Twitter user Prerna Dawar posted two photographs showing how her mother responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call – during his live address 24 hours after the Galwan clash – to stand and observe silence for Indian soldiers.
In her tweet, Dawar (@theprernaa) wrote that her mother had not been well and could not stand properly. Her photographs showed Modi’s address playing on television and a woman, presumably her mother, standing with hands folded in prayer.
Watching @narendramodi Ji live, he asked everyone to stand for our jawans for 2 minutes and look what happened? I don’t know why this made me emotional coz mom is not at all well, she can’t even stand properly nowadays and this 🙂 pic.twitter.com/0w4kpVnCnn
— Prerna (@theprernaa) June 17, 2020
Within hours, several Twitter users had copied the tweet – photos included – and tweeted it verbatim, as if it was their own mother who had stood up in response to the prime minister’s speech.
Screenshots showing the tweets.
With so many purported sons and daughters purportedly moved by the eerily similar actions displayed by their mothers who all look the same, tweets soon rained on how the BJP’s ‘IT cell’ seemed to have botched up its operations.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. pic.twitter.com/TK6fciRrSC
— Karthik (@beastoftraal) June 18, 2020
Mass tweeting of the same text – usually lauding the prime minister and his policies – is one of the techniques of the ruling party on social media. The content is usually shared via Google document. Pratik Sinha, co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, famously edited an ‘IT cell’ document containing the text of tweets to be posted by members.
Also read: #OperationHashtag: How a Hindutva FB Group Pushes Politically Divisive Topics on Twitter
The result was a then Union minister tweeting that “working for the middle class is low on the agenda” of the Modi government.
How do you get a Union Minister to tweet what you want? Well, you go and edit the trending document made by BJP IT cell, and then you control what they tweet. Thread.
Here’s the video of this morning when their trending document got automagically updated 🙂
1/n pic.twitter.com/6DLwDPg2CV
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) February 13, 2019
The pattern repeated itself when Deepika Padukone’s Chhapak was released and the actor visited Jawaharlal Nehru University to lend her support to those protesting against the attack on students’ union president Aishe Ghosh and several others. Enraged, right-wing online activists posted that they had cancelled tickets to the film. Except all the tweets had photos of the same cancelled seats.
Many IT cell members have booked and cancelled exact same ticket for #Chappak #boycottchhapaak
Gold – A10, A8, A9 🙆🙆 pic.twitter.com/6TDiGPLeO4— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) January 8, 2020
Eventually, Dawar tweeted old photographs with her mother in an effort to prove that her tweet was, at least, genuine.
Now I have to give proof that she is my mom!
There you go….people who are trolling 🥳 #OldPictures pic.twitter.com/KSQ3jM7j6z
— Prerna (@theprernaa) June 18, 2020
What is wrong with these people? Using my mom’s image and making fun…WOW!
But then maa toh maa hoti hai 🙂
— Prerna (@theprernaa) June 18, 2020