When I first joined Twitter, I was doing the Bangalore chapter of Humans Of Bangalore. It was pretty popular, I did a lot of fundraisers for causes I cared about. In late 2013-2014, a certain political party got in touch asking if I would be willing to do stories 1/2 https://twitter.com/atharva_karn/status/1249052697233436680

On people from their party. I flat out refused, kept getting phone calls asking why I wouldn’t do it and if their opposition party was paying me money to not work with them. It was absolute hell. They showed up at an event where I was a speaker and asked me if 2/3

I wanted money to run my own NGO, that they would help me grant it if I exclusively signed a deal with them. It was truly scary, since then I haven’t done any stories actively on Humans Of Bangalore. Every time I post a story there, they would call me and harass me. 3/4

It’s sad to see Humans of Bombay give in to this bullshit. I personally would rather not do this on Humans Of Bangalore - it is sad, but it was very difficult to continue doing stories without constantly being hounded by political parties to spin the narrative for their benefit.

I simply do not have the strength to chase after stories now, and I do not have the clout to fight political parties. It’s an endless run, they never give up and it’s a dirty game to play.