TIRUCHY: “It stopped being about what I said. It became about me,” said a Chennai-based journalist, describing the flood of personal and gendered comments that followed a recent political post.
As election campaigning intensifies in Tamil Nadu, women – including journalists, activists and political voices – say online abuse is not new, but becomes more intense, frequent and personal during poll season. Several women told TNIE that expressing political views often draws responses that go beyond disagreement.
A former Tamil TV anchor said she faced sustained abuse and threats from accounts, she identified as BJP supporters, including messages sent directly to her inbox. “It doesn’t stop with comments. It enters your personal space,” she said. Others described a sudden surge of responses within minutes of posting, suggesting coordinated pile-ons.
Writer Meena Kandasamy told TNIE that she had to block hundreds of accounts, she identified as DMK supporters, after they began targeting her over her criticisms of the government. She described the responses as “slanderous, vulgar and plainly false”.
Meena said she has long spoken about issues during the DMK’s tenure and faced online abuse consistently, but chose to speak out more openly after the model code of conduct came into force. After being targeted online by ‘DMK supporters’ for her views, she later addressed Chief Minister MK Stalin on the trolls in a post. “It is always personal, always gendered, a form of character attack,” she said, adding that the scale of the abuse made her reconsider engaging online.