A new website has been creating waves because of the massive hits it has received, days after its launch. A website dedicated to the ‘development man’, Narendra Modi. Bringing together content that exposes Modi’s well oiled PR machinery, Pheku.in is one of its kind. An interview with one of its promoters, Shabnam Hashmi.
With social networking sites already agog with discussions on Modi’s development charade and dedicated websites like “truth of Gujarat”, why another website?
Pheku.in just happened during an informal discussion between a few friends. The internet has a lot of material exposing the lies in Gujarat’s development story but they are scattered. Pheku.in integrates this content and is different from the few other sites that exist because of the fact that we use satire.
A website dedicated to one particular leader and his communal leanings is quite unprecedented. Before coming up with the website, did you conduct any survey or research on the opinion on ground about Modi given that he seems to have quite an urban following, and the internet too is largely a city and town phenomenon?
Yes, it is meant to reach out to those who have been intoxicated by the media blitz and false propaganda. Pheku.in is bringing out facts and reporting from the ground. In the coming months and days, it will bring out stories which have never been told.
Take us through the participant profile… PUCL, Anhad, individual journalists…
These are mainly people, organisations who were requested to endorse the website, not necessarily participants in the actual functioning, for that matter even I am not directly involved in the functioning of the website.
So how does the website function? Does it cull its content from articles published on other forums or are there fresh stories too?
There are some fresh stories, videos but as I said there’s a lot of what has already been produced but are lying in different places. So pheku.in becomes a kind of a one click info portal on myths of Gujarat development.
What about the dangers of being viewed as partisan, as close to Congress? How do you counter such allegations?
If people want to call opposing fascism in this country as being close to Congress, they are naive. Almost everyone who has endorsed the site or has been involved in its creation has been in the forefront of criticizing the growing authoritarianism of the state, AFSPA, all other draconian laws, neo-liberal economic policies of the centre etc.
Increasingly we have come across deeply reactionary, right wing nameless forums, profiles on social networking sites like facebook who bombard your page, your website with hate speech, with abusive language… You have faced many such instances. How do they function, what has been your experience with them? How do you deal with them?
Most of them are employees of the call centres run by the Sangh to attack any dissent in the cyber space. They create many fake identities and make certain sites and people as their targets. One has to face these attacks. Yesterday there were over 125 cyber attacks on pheku.in, around 1000 pings but they couldn’t hack it. Others deal it in various ways, some people go offline, and some keep on fighting. I block off those who use abusive language or hatred, others I argue with.
Pheku is about Narendra Modi but what about the larger issues of communalism, that we startlingly witness in our neighbours, in the middle class, in thinkers, erstwhile feminists, in bollywood, in business and so on? How do you address that?
I can’t say for everyone who has in some manner contributed to pheku.in but as far as Anhad is concerned we work at multiple levels from organising training with young people, to regular film screenings, discussions, producing material ( books, leaflets, posters, exhibitions, videos) for propagation of secular and democratic thought, to organising cultural performances, engaging with artists, doing huge campaigns, travelling across the nation, reaching out to people directly. Despite all this we are too small to counter the large political force.
Where does Pheku go from here… say if Modi fails to become the PM? And what if he succeeds?
It’s difficult to say. If he succeeds there will be a major crack down on all secular, democratic groups, probably many of us will be in jail or just eliminated. Hopefully he won’t succeed and the battle will continue against the dictators and fascist ideology.
What has the reaction been to the website so far? Any hate mails, threat calls?
There have been more than 4 lakh hits, huge amount of hate mails, and as I mentioned cyber attacks. And this is when we have just begun, there is a lot more to come.
