In addition to the valid critiques that this tweet is both ignorant and blatantly bigoted towards an indigenous tradition, under the guise of woke critique, it is important for us to pay attention to how the response will be deployed against Hinduism and Hindus. 1/n https://twitter.com/therealnaomib/status/1305779461934080001

I'll refer to NB's tweet as "The Bait". The Bait pretends to fall under a broader, valid critique of oppression that the community must deal with *internally*. It is not a relevant or cogent example provided to inspire reflection. It is simply mockery. This is intentional. 2/n

Having endured a thousand years of psychosocial warfare, physical attack, and epistemological violence on the tradition *as a whole*, the purpose of the Bait is to trigger transgenerational trauma. However, the Baiter gets away with this openly cruel move for a few reasons. 3/n

1) Historical negationism (ignoring/refusing to recognize the full history)
2) Progressive jargon that feels familiar to the audience
3) Partial truths to make false allegations (I.e. rescue don't buy your dog is valid, but has nothing to do w/ Hinduism) 4/n

4) The demographic majority of Hindus in India is conflated with psychosocial hegemony. This is ahistorical almost everywhere in the (post)colonial world. It also skirts the fact that Hindus are a global religious minority & discards local and global sociopolitical analyses. 5/n

Anyway, having baited Hindus, and triggered transgenerational trauma, NB then categorizes the folks who call out her ignorance and bigotry as "trolls". For sure, there are likely folks who said horrible things to her. Twitter gonna twitter. 6/n

But notice how she takes no real responsibility for her mistake, doubling down by making an even broader, even more ignorant comment in response to "the trolls". She is gearing up to weaponize the responses. Pay attention. 7/n

Because the way in which we'll hear about this (esp. in the West) is that it is yet another example of how a brave, Indian female reporter got trolled for telling the truth about oppressive Hinduism by misogynistic Hindus. Or that "Hindu nationalists" want to censor her. 8/n

This will only lend her reportage a greater sense of bravery and authority. And folks will fall for it, because it fits with the story they've already been sold. Meanwhile, she's literally laughing at and baiting the practitioners of an indigenous tradition. 9/n

It is insidious and deceptive. It's exactly what people like Audrey Truschke do. Bait Hindus, get angry responses, erase their bait (or make light of it), and then publish articles/papers about how misogynistic and hateful oppressive Hindus are. 10/n

Pay attention. It is bait. It is used to control and train people to react, to gaslight and trigger people's pain and then weaponize that against folks under the guise of doing good. It is not about being mean and it is not about sentiments. It is intentional & strategic. 11/11