JNU violence: Protests feed off social media outrage

KOLKATA: The photograph of the bloodied face of JNU students’ union president Aishe Ghosh, who was assaulted by allegedly masked armed goons on the campus on Sunday evening, was widely circulated on social media within minutes, instantaneously triggering a nationwide protest against the

JNU attack

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In fact, the wide reach of the social media helped students’ groups organise impromptu rallies within an hour on Sunday night. It was on social media that the schedules and venues for rallies on Monday were announced far and wide. Like the rest of the country, Kolkatans shared and retweeted the image, along with hashtags #StandwithJNU and #JNUterrorattack, making it one of the top-5 trending topics on Twitter from Sunday night till most part of Monday.

“I was attending an invitation when I came to know about the assault on JNU students from WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts. Immediately, discussions over the attack began on our friends’ groups and it was decided that we will take out a protest march on Sunday night itself. Accordingly, all of us began sharing on our social media profiles and WhatsApp groups, asking people to join us in the protest. We all reached the university by 10.15pm,” said Debadrita Bose, a BEd student at Jadavpur University.

Some of the students who were already hanging out on the campus and those who could manage to reach quickly began writing posters, pasting the photo of Aishe’s bloodied face. A group of 200-odd students took out a rally around 10.30pm and walked up to the BJP party office at Sulekha crossing, where they staged a demonstration and stayed back till 12.30am. Several students made live videos on social media, which was again shared several times.

Sympathisers, like photographer Ronny Sen, who could not travel to the protest march gave updates on his social media page, asking people to join the protest. Many others even shared numbers of those who were at the rally. “The entire rally was orchestrated over social media. I was at my home in Jadavpur, when I joined in seeing the Facebook live video of a friend,” said Subhasis Ghosh, a former JU student.

Not only the march from JU on Sunday night, but all the other major students’ rallies that were organised on Monday were also decided over WhatsApp groups and shared over Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. “Monday’s rally was decided on the WhatsApp group of our students’ union. Posters were added to the posts announcing the rallies. Once we had the materials, we kept on sharing posters of the protest meet through Monday morning and by afternoon, 600 students and sympathisers joined the rally,” said Sneha Nandy, one of the protesters who was part of the rally from Jadavpur University to Baghajatin crossing and back to the university on Monday.

Students at Presidency University and Calcutta University, too, followed the digital move to garner support for their rallies. Same did students of Rabindra Bharati University, who took out a rally along BT Road on Monday morning, slamming the assault on JNU students and teachers.

Several netizens, who could not make it to the rallies, expressed their solidarity, hosting multiple “watch parties” of the rallies and sharing it on social media. Many even changed their display pictures to black or with a black badge.