Social Media, Nationalism, and the Fractured Indian Identity The recent controversy surrounding the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on social media has exposed a worrying trend in India's online discourse: the conflation of nationalism with social media metrics.
The BJP's allegations that nearly half of CJP's followers are from Pakistan were met with denials by Abhijeet Dipke, the movement's founder, who claims that over 94% of his audience is Indian.
The row may seem like a trivial dispute on the surface, but it speaks to deeper issues about how we measure and understand online engagement in India.