India’s digital landscape, a roiling cauldron of millions of social media users, has become a charnel house of the human spirit. Faceless trolls, shrouded in anonymity’s toxic veil, have turned keyboards into guillotines. They are spewing venom that corrodes the nation’s soul. Their targets? A grieving widow, a cricketing legend, a tennis pioneer, a Bollywood icon, a sports presenter, and countless others. These are not mere words but digital pyres, incinerating privacy and igniting virtual lynching. Algorithms, the infernal architects of this chaos, have transmuted personal pain into viral carnage, while India’s heart bleed, drowning in this digital pestilence.
Among the tormented victims was a young widow, her life shattered by the Pahalgam terror attack that claimed her husband, a soldier, days after their wedding. Her plea for unity—“We don’t want hate against any community; we seek peace and justice”—had been met with a torrent of cruelty. “Crocodile tears for martyr money!” one X post sneered, racking up thousands of likes.
Another jeered, “Your husband was a coward—good riddance!” It was shared across platforms, each retweet a lash on her grief. Her televised sorrow, meant to honour her husband’s sacrifice, has been twisted into a public pillory, her dignity shredded by a mob algorithm. While Operation Sindoor delivered instant justice, her retort was equally sharp when she said: “Those who spread hatred have no right to live or to be on this earth.”
Earlier, a cricketing titan, once India’s pride, had endured a similar crucible. The 2023 World Cup failure had unleashed a storm: “Selfie-obsessed has-been!” a viral post had spat, amplified by thousands. In 2022, a leaked video of his hotel room—personal belongings exposed—had sparked sneers: “Too fancy for India!” shared relentlessly.
His Instagram plea—“This invasion of my privacy is NOT okay”—had been mocked. Worse, in 2021, his infant daughter had faced rape threats, with posts like “Your kid will pay for your failures!” spreading like wildfire. These were not critiques but assaults, his family’s sanctity turned into a blood sport by algorithms that thrive on outrage.
Others had fared no better. A tennis trailblazer, vilified for her cross-border marriage, had faced relentless hate. “Traitor who sold out to Pakistan”, a 2020 post had roared, gaining thousands of impressions. Even her solidarity with the Pahalgam victims drew venom: “Go back to your husband’s country!”
A sports presenter, attacked for sharing her newborn’s photos, had faced cruelty: “Using your kid for fame”, one post sneered, amplified across feeds. Her retort—“Our son is NOT your spectacle”—had been drowned in scorn. Their privacy had been reduced to ash, their dignity a fuel for algorithmic inferno.
This torment was no fluke. It was engineered. India’s vast digital populace has formed a crucible where hate festers. Algorithms, built to maximise engagement, are acting as bellows, fanning outrage over truth. Algorithmic amplification has yielded much higher dividends than stocks have ever done.
A 2023 study showed platforms like X and TikTok amplified divisiveness, with hate posts reaching millions via bots and hashtag hijacking. This was digital lynching, a public crucifixion where algorithms drove the nails. A widow’s grief, broadcast on news, has been hijacked into a troll carnival, with posts like “She’s fishing for sympathy” amplified to millions.
As a consequence, the cultural rot had spread, sowing division and fracturing communities. A widow’s call for peace had been twisted into “appeasement”, fuelling communal venom. The National Commission for Women had decried her trolling, yet the mob raged on. Celebrities have fled from platforms—Aamir Khan in 2021, citing “toxic scrutiny”; Sonakshi Sinha in 2020, “sick of hate”. This echoed historical purges—Salem’s witch hunts, India’s communal riots—where unchecked mobs devoured the innocent. India’s digital square is no agora; it’s a pyre for the blameless.
Studies show trolling triggered anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress, with most Indian users reporting mental strain. A credible digital content creators, trolled for a self-love video, had shared: “The hate ate my soul—I couldn’t sleep for weeks.” Comedian Agrima Joshua, targeted in 2020 for a joke, had faced death threats: “We’ll burn you alive”, one troll had written; the post was shared thousands of times.
India’s legal framework is a frayed shield, offering scant protection. The IT Act of 2000 penalised cyber harassment, but enforcement lagged. A ban on some foreign YouTube channels post-Pahalgam targeted external threats, but domestic trolls are roaming free. The ‘Kulhad pizza’ couple, Sehaj Arora and Gurpreet Kaur, fled to the UK this year after relentless trolling, hacking and death threats like, “We’ll gut your family”. They didn’t get any justice. Platforms faced little accountability, their moderation remaining a mockery. A 2023 report had flagged “addictive algorithms” as hate enablers, yet reforms stalled. This legal void emboldened trolls, mocking victims without fear.
Social media giants aren’t bystanders. They are profiteers. Algorithms rewards ‘rage farming’, ensuring posts like “She’s a con” or “He’s a fraud” flood feeds. X’s global team has resisted foreign censorship this year, citing free speech, but has sidestepped domestic hate. Meta, facing a US antitrust trial, has deflected blame. Yet, all platforms share the sin: prioritising profit over ethics. A Canadian study found a quarter of users encountered ‘polarising’ fake content, a tactic Indian trolls have mastered. Platforms needed to dismantle these algorithms and ban trolls en masse, or stand complicit in this digital carnage.
Anonymity is the troll’s armour, enabling depravity without consequence. Fake handles hide malice behind pseudonyms. This cloak fosters the ‘Dark Tetrad’—narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, sadism. A 2020 study linked anonymity to aggression, a trait trolls exploited with slurs like “Traitor” or “Coward’s widow”. This veil let them hurl venom without fear, amplifying harm across screens.
The silence of peace-loving Indians is a second betrayal. Bystanders, scrolling past hate, have enabled this plague. India is choking on its own bile. The trolling of widows, heroes and icons is nothing worse than a cultural scourge, fattened by algorithms that feast on hate. Their words like “Fraud”, “Traitor” and “Sellout” are daggers to a nation’s heart that reveres sacrifice and valour. This digital lynching has become India’s disgrace, a betrayal of compassion and sanity. India’s digital arena, a seething maelstrom of 378 million social media souls—362.9 million on Instagram, 25.45 million on X—has morphed into a slaughterhouse of the human spirit.
India has to act. Stricter cyber laws, beyond symbolic bans, are urgently required. Platforms must gut algorithms, prioritising decency over dollars. Citizens have to rise, rejecting this cesspool. Echoing Javed Akhtar’s cry—“Tum kya jaano desh prem kya hota hai?”—what did these cowards know of patriotism when they defiled its icons? The pain of the tormented is India’s wound, bleeding across millions of screens. India must purge this digital malignancy, silence the algorithms of hate, and reclaim its soul from the trolls who would choke it in filth. In their cruelty lies India’s shame. And in India’s silence, her social doom.
PRABHU CHAWLA
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow him on X @PrabhuChawla
