Mobile witnessing on WhatsApp: Vigilante virality and the anatomy of mob lynching

Abstract

ABSTRACT In contemporary India, Hindutva chauvinists, self-labelled as ‘gau-rakshaks’ (cow protectors) actively create misinformation campaigns through WhatsApp to set up mob attacks against alleged ‘gau-taskars’ (‘cow smugglers’), who are often from minority communities – Dalits and Muslims. Such communal incidents of mob behavior are on many occasions viewed as ‘flare-ups’ triggered by rumors, and yet for the triggering rumor to have the consequential effect it does, there has to be a regular build-up of communal atmosphere. The easy camera recording technologies of today’s mobile phones and the cheap circulatory affordances of WhatsApp make acts of cow vigilantism seem like performative rituals, very much ready and available for ‘mobile witnessing’. Such witnessing from members of their own community is crucial for the aspirations of the majoritarian Hindutva boys today who are recording and circulating the videos because they want their acts to be recognized so as to gain stature within their community. Many cow-vigilante outfits maintain multiple WhatsApp groups where enthused Hindu men are exhorted to converge on particular locations on interstate highways to catch alleged cow smugglers. Instead of focusing exclusively on Indian cultural divisions and governmental failure or affixing responsibility solely to WhatsApp for the epidemic of fake news and mob lynchings, I look closely at the coupling of religious ideology and media habits. I understand the media practices of cow vigilantes – that is, their use of Facebook and WhatsApp – as being part of their habitual micro-actions and social practices (including their performances of manliness).