India, Nov 20 (TNS): Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey has been accused of inciting hate against India’s highest caste after being photographed holding a poster declaring “smash Brahminical patriarchy” during a visit to the country.<\/p>\n
Dorsey was snapped holding the offending poster alongside six women who participated in a discussion last week on the role of Twitter in India, where caste is a flashpoint issue and grievances can turn violent.<\/p>\n
The reference to Brahmins, the traditional priestly class who sit atop the rigid caste hierarchy, outraged some Hindus when the photograph was posted online on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you realise that this picture has potential of causing communal riots at a time when several States are going to Assembly Elections in India,\u201d tweeted Indian police officer Sandeep Mittal.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven now an apology is not offered. Actually its (sic) a fit case for registration of a criminal case for attempt to destablise (sic) the nation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Twitter defended Dorsey in comments posted on its official India page on Monday, saying a low-caste activist had \u201cshared her personal experiences and gifted a poster to Jack\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a statement from Twitter or our CEO, but a tangible reflection of our company’s efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the world,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Another user, tweeting under the name Prassant DeshPehle (country first), wrote: \u201cShame on you @jack. Hate against any community or group should be condemned. Spewing hate on one to please the other isn’t right.\u201d<\/p>\n
But others praised the Twitter chief for touching on the plight of marginalised, low-caste Dalit communities and women in India, a conservative country of 1.25 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cDalit lynching and oppression, incidents of which we read about every other day, do not cause as much Twitter outrage as Jack Dorsey holding up a placard saying ‘End Brahmin Patriarchy’,\u201d wrote user Ranjona Banerji.<\/p>\n
South Asian historian Audrey Truschke said: \u201cMy Twitter feed is full of elite men hyperventilating about Twitter CEO @jack holding a sign that calls out sex-based & caste-based discrimination in India.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCaste and sexism are real and virulent in modern India. If you want to be angry about something, let it be that reality,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Caste politics can explode into violence in India, where a centuries-old hierarchy has divided Hindus into classes starting with Brahmins and ending with the Dalits \u2014 formerly known as \u201cuntouchables\u201d.<\/p>\n
Although the system has been officially abolished, it still prevails in rural areas and determines where people live, who they marry and what type of work they do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India, Nov 20 (TNS): Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey has been accused of inciting hate against India’s highest caste after being photographed holding a poster declaring “smash Brahminical patriarchy” during a visit to the country. Dorsey was snapped holding the offending poster alongside six women who participated in a discussion last week on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79960,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79958\/revisions\/79960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}