Okay here goes: I'm an ex BJP supporter and in this thread I'll tell you how I and many others like me are brainwashed by propaganda. I know that there are many who will tell me that I have blood on my hands and that I'm among those responsible for electing this government

to power. I hope you could for some time drop judgement and listen to understand why an educated (in my case MBBS who has never seen a patient through the prism of religion) person falls into the trap of propaganda and how active hacking of otherwise decent people happens

I'll focus on the tools of propaganda used and how all of this can be deconstructed and prevented in the future by simple dialogue. In this thread I will stick to politics of these 2 decadesand how and why public perception has amalgamated the way it has today. @Shudraism

My first brush with politics in 2004 when I was in 8th grade and India Shining was the slogan for re-election. My friend asked me "If given a choice who would you vote for" i promptly replied "BJP" (i found the then Prime Minister Atal ji to be this affable politician .

"Are you crazy ? BJP is not a secular party"he replied. I didn't understand the connotation of what he said back then as politics was not something we spoke of at home.Around that time there were satirists like Shekhar Suman who openly made fun of the PM

Satire is a powerful tool that conveyed to the audience a powerful message in a palatable way. Unfortunately, Satirists like @TheDeshBhakt won't get a prime time slot on TV as people are too afraid to air such shows on TV due to backlash.

The Congress era managed to keep the narrative and performance up until the end of the second term. Here is where in my opinion BJP's rise to prominence lay and here is where we saw a slew of scams from Suresh Kalmadi's CWG scam,2G spectrum scam, Coal Gate to name a few.

Make no mistake that BJP lackeys like Arnab Goswami went ballistic with this news and in those days were seen as heroes of justice. This era also saw a series of terrorist attacks on mainland India (non-border states) brazen attacks such as 26/11, Mumbai train blasts

I remember, my friends and I were to visit Cafe Mondegar, 2 shops away from Cafe Leopold which was attacked and how the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherji had reached 48 hours after the attack started and people booed him away from cama Hospital's vicinity

This fomented not only the sentiment that the Congress was a corrupt and weak party but also the distrust between Hindus and Muslims grew as in incidents especially the train blasts locals were involved and not Pakistanis.

Arnab Goswami The good Guy turned bad:
During this time Arnab's credibility as a journalist escalated exponentially. During 26/11 he sat on his anchor's chair for close to 50 hours continuously till the attacks were neutralized, he was the one who used to break scams first

with this, a sense of trust grew in the audience that he really is a "saccha maanus" as is the term in Marathi. I will continue the post-2013 era to the 2014 general elections over the next few days

Post 2013Era.Lies, Deception and Pappu:
To understand this time from a common "non woke" person's perspective, you have to see the technologies available at the time. 3G was still around and 1GB of data at the time cost around 250-300 bucks.

So all your Twitter, Political YouTubers were a few years away and mainstream media was the only credible source of news at least for me. Personally, it was my second year of medical college and I had given up using smartphones to concentrate on studies, so my only source of news

was the Indian Express. it is around this time that it was announced that Narendra Modi is the Prime Ministerial candidate, I had also read in the Express, Dr Manmohan Singh's appeal to Indians to not vote for Modi as he would be a disastrous choice. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/manmohan-says-modi-as-pm-will-be-disaster-blames-him-for-presiding-over-riots/

I took his word for it. It happened again one of my friends over lunch in the hostel mess asked me "If given the choice who would you vote for?" and pat came my reply "Congress". I didn't want to vote for the monster of 2002, I believed in Dr Singh

"Are you mad ?" my friend was visibly upset."Just because you look a little bit like Rahul Gandhi, you'll vote for the Congress? Have you not seen the Arnab, Rahul Interview?".

I'm narrating all this from a personal point of view because I'm not a student of political science so I won't be able to give you theories such as Overton window etc etc.

Anyway, so I obviously said "No" since I didn't have a smartphone. He showed me the interview using hostel WiFi on his phone. He also happened to feed me information that it was either him or Narendra Modi who was a demigod according to him

It was also at this point very subliminally fed to my brain over the course of the 40 odd minute interview that "MODI HAS BEEN GIVEN A CLEAN CHIT BY THE SUPREME COURT". My "Dharamsankat" was solved. Modi was now clean and it was either him or Pappu.

Arnab had a clean image, he was a hero who broke scams and reported tirelessly during 26/11, how could he be wrong?. It is stuff like this that is served by the mainstream media, which is the strongest weapon in BJP's propaganda arsenal.

These news anchors have credibility amongst the masses as they project themselves as deshbhakts whose word people trust. During all of this twitter still remained a niche news source for journalists. It was more of an echo chamber, I'm assuming.

In summary The mainstream channels such as R*public Tv,Ze News,Aj Tak are the CPU of this entire propaganda machine that reaches the common man while he/she is having dinner. These newsmakers have shows which has emotive issues that mean a lot to the common Hindu even though

they are pure rhetoric for eg "Rahul Gandhi wears Janeu" he is an "opportunistic Hindu","Why does the Congress party hate Hindus...let's debate". All they do is attack the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, when he can't even come to defend himself.

Part of the blame lies with Rahul Gandhi and the Congress too, he should have been courageous enough to give another interview, and be on the face of news channels, take the fight to the opposition. But he didn't do so.

BJP ended up winning the election, I still remained a skeptic of Mr. Modi. The rest of the story post-2014, from my Skeptic to bhakt phase, please keep watching this space. @Shudraism

Also, close friends and family, as you know are the ones who feed you this information. A very powerful way to counter this is to be informed on various issues via credible channels like the Quint, Newslaundry, Akash Banerji and fact check false claims via Alt News and Boom

You should as far as possible counter them otherwise this mindset spreads like wildfire, unchecked. Don't believe anything that your closest friends tell you blindly. Be the change and Question everything.

Before I continue I'd like to apologize for the delay in updates. I assure you post 5th jan updates would be much more regular, kindly bear with me due to some personal issue i'm not being able to devote as much time to the thread. Okay here goes

Post-2014 election era: Mega Modi the Mega Lie created by the Indian media:
2014 was the time where the average Indian was disillusioned by a "weak prime minister" and a corrupt government and were looking for a change. Mr Modi won the election that year

and what followed was an era of sycophancy of the Indian media that has been central to the creation of the Bhakt culture of Mr.Modi. Below I attach videos that we as students saw playing in the mess. What you also have to realize is that this is the only media that an average

Hindi speaking Indian consumes.






.

This image of Mega Modi or Super Modi was a far cry from the old "Maun-Mohan Singh" who was viewed as a puppet at the hands of Sonia gandhi

His misdeeds of 2002 were slowly being whitewashed and as the helpless romantics, gullible, innocent and eternally hopeful that we Indians are, Mr Modi was hope of ushering a new "Golden Age of India". It also intilled a sense of pride in the average Indian that

"Our prime Minister is an International Rockstar and that finally, India stands, as equals, with global powers.". Alas it was to be a smokescreen. I shall continue the post 2014 election era post 5th Jan, beg for your patience till then. Thank you. Kindly RT @Shudraism

Okay Guys I'm back..... I had an exam on the 5th and post that some personal commitments so I couldn't update the thread .Also since twitter refused to show the videos I attached to my thread I worked on a blog, a podcat and a youtube channel, All of which are fully functional

Also I was working on the artwork of all these platforms, which as you can see is ready. So here goes

9/1/2019
Post 2014 era Yoga Day,JNU, Demonetization, and all that jazz.
During my later college days, I used to call my folks almost daily. During one such conversations Modi came up. "He is bringing Indian culture so much respect, you know he is also doing a project to clean up

the Ganga (ABOUT WHICH NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT NOW. GADKARIJI HAD SAID THAT THE GANGA WOULD BE CLEAN BY MARCH 2020 AND THERE IS NO FOLLOW UP IN THE MEDIA DUE TO ALL THE ASS KISSING AND COVERING THE SHITSTORM THAT IS UNFOLDING IN THIS COUNTRY)

I came home a few months later and my mom told me that "You know he went to the Himalyas to do tapasya for many years and his Guru after a certain point told him "You must now go and take care of India". A lot of Hindu families have gurus who say they have divine vision

And most families who have these gurus blindly follow what the guru says because he/she says that this is what the Higher power is telling them. If you're thinking that this is some tier 3 city I'm talking about, you need to rethink. People staying in localities such as Bandra go

to gurus. Critical thinking is considered unwise and arrogant. Blind following of the Guru's word considered obedience. My family is amonst that has a guru. To my guru's credit most of what he said turned out to be true, he was responsible for urging me to try for my MBBS

entrance exam despite me having many years' gap of leaving class 12 science behind to pursue a degree in the Mass media. My father is an orthopaedic surgeon who has his own hospital, I was always inclined towards MBBS and the only reason I didn't persue it post my 12th standard

was because I failed miserably in my first attempt at MHCET and did't think I could make it in the next attempt."You will get through this time, just work hard " he said, I didn't believe in myself, he did, I worked hard and got through. That was it, his word was the word of god

I did suffer because of blind belief, but this is not an autobiography, it is to make a larger point. I'm not here to say "All these gurus are fake, you idiots believe in it" etc etc. No, to each his/her own faith, whatever works for you.

I'm not writing this post to change people's beliefs or belief systems, all I'm trying to do is tell you how the BJP uses these religious sentiments to create a god out of a man whose government is dangerous for this country's integrity. This "Tapasya in Himalyas" story

struck a chord with me and my family and we weren't an uneducated lot, all 4 of having a Dr. in front of our names. In hindsight, all of this must be a Whatsapp forward on some group that my mom received. But that had a profound impact. Till that moment I was skeptical of Modi

After that, he became sort of a "Karma Yogi" in my eyes. You can reserve your "woke" judgment and say "are you blind, dumb, stupid to believe something like that?". A lot of your electorate is still like that. Just the other day I was at my cousins' place.

The issue of the protests came up, she's not into politics but she casually said: "these protestors are getting paid to protest naa?". This is how far the propaganda machinery has reached. The solution to this is an aggressive counter with facts on the same groups through which

this lies spreads. This content has to be palatable and talk to the audience in a tone that does not in any way have a tinge of anti-hinduism. It has to be believeable and people who cannot generate or create content, instead of being self-righteous liberals should

have conversations wherever possible with near and dear, counter fake news with facts. This is baby step in the right direction. Don't call yourself woke and anyone who supports the BJP "Sanghi, Gobar, Gau mutra wala" instead indulge them. One must appeal to the Hindu mindset

by being respectful of whatever beliefs people hold but point out lies that is being spread to them. The next post will be on the JNU debacle later today please RT thanks.

Thread update today kindly RT

Since this thread has been receiving a lot of attention i will update it bi weekly due to time constraints. Please do rt If you find them interesting.

The JNU debacle and the introduction of the “anti national” narrative.

It was a regular morning in our hostel. I had finished breakfast and when a batch (whose family had close ties with the BJP ) came upto and said “brother did you see what they did in JNU ?”

I had no idea so I said “no”. “They chanted bharat teri barbadi tak jang rahegi,....Kashmir teri aazadi tak jang rahegi” he said “that is what they were chanting on the campus”. I was shocked. This was the same time as Lance Naik Hanumanthappa had lost his life after being buried

Under snow for days . This debacle was the hot topic my friends were talking about. Around this time the friend who had originally shown me the Rahul Gandhi interview ,showed me the News hour where Arnab was grilling Umar Khalid.

Again this is the time where i had little to know awareness about the Afzal Guru case & would like to mention here that although there are many narratives to the Afzal Guru story I stand by my country’s side and consider him a terrorist.

He may have been forced into doing committing the act, but that’s not an excuse. “You, guys hold the Indian passport?” Arnab asked Umar.

Umar interjected only to be shouted down by Arnab “DON’T YOU DARE SPEAK OVER ME WHEN I’M TALKING ABOUT LANCE NAIK HANUMANTHAPPA”....”WE ARE PROUD OF HIM AND WE ARE ASHAMED OF YOU”. This solidified Arnab’s credibility even more, he was THE nationalist anchor.

Liberalism in my opinion is very different from being left wing. Liberalism arises out of one being a decent human being and sensitive to some one else’s pain. This happens however only when the people’s stories are told. The turning point for me was when i saw the Quint’s

Documentary on the detention centres in Assam. These stories are hidden by the main stream media and hence do not percolate to our elders or our “sanghi” relatives. They are not bad people. But they don’t exactly have the time to read an article on the quint or Newslaundry.

They still get their news from the likes of Arnab. Here is where we can come in. I have made my parents fans of @TheDeshBhakt . While having dinner that’s what i put on a lot of the times. If your family is the kind that watches TV while having meals make it a point

That they see stories that meant something to you. Instead of shouting down your “sanghi” cousin on the family whatsapp group share an article with him that would change his mind. There are A lot of bigots out there some too committed to their bigotry to change

But then there are others who are genuinely decent, it’s they who need to be spoken to. This might not even change their voting behaviour but even if it brings down the amount of hate and bigotry against minorities (especially Muslims) that mainstream media has poisoned their

Minds with, it will be progress harder governments to go ahead with acts of minority persecution like the proposed NRC without being held accountable. The mainstream media drowns stories. The alternative media therefore must be made mainstream.

In the next se of tweets i’ll talk about how i became a full blown Sanghi due to the amount of hate that is written about Hinduism on Twitter and the role people like Brumby, Opus of Ali and Zed ply to solidify someone who is iffy about liberalism in the first place. After that a

Thread on confirmational bias