Imagine scrolling through your Instagram and you see a mental health professional you follow posting content with #ProudRandi and reclaiming a word that has wounded women for generations. You skip to give attention to that post but the next post pops up to your screen is of your minor daughter with the same hashtag. You will stop her or the influencer? This is what the latest controversy of therapist Divija Basin's #ProudRandi campaign is.
The word “Randi” has always used as a general insult against women even without directly implying them as sex workers in literal sense. Even Delhi Dwarka court in a case in a judgement declared that using such derogatory slur is not merely an insult but a criminal offense under section 78 BNS. The Justice Mr. Harjot Singh Aujla emphasized that such language directly attacks the dignity, modest and character of a women. The message of Divija basin's campaign may seem empowering to some as it emphasis on to take back the slur and wear like an armour but the alarmed parents and divided activists have another perspective to the same.
In this digital age where India is talking about the accountability of the media and personal autonomy, such everyday examples again embarks the need to have freedom, responsibility and the threads to connect out constitutional rights to digital actions. Our constitution guarantees us fundamental right to Freedom of Speech and expression under Article 19 (1)(a). It's a beautiful promise of our nation that every citizen has a right to speak their vice, the truth, injustice and participate in public discourse without any fear. But what we often forget is the co-existence of Article 21 which protects our right to life and personal liberty. When Bhasin encouraged women to reclaim the word with proud and give it back to the one who commenting the same, she exercised her freedom of speech and expression. Her intention, presumably, was therapeutic to carve out the slur and the meaning and the shame associated with it. But what happened after that took everyone's attention. Over 5 million people including teenage girls encountered this message and with the limited knowledge, context and experience started following the campaign by adding this #hashtag in their profiles and posts. This is the exact point where the innocence met influence and intention got carried away. This lead to the question of accountability of situations when the older men sees the same on her profile, classmates and teenage boys slides into her DMs'? The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act complaints filed against Bhasin asked the same deeper questions of when does freedom of speech become the expression to intersect with the child's right to protection? Even if we remove the minor girl and influencer from the picture, can. We bring Instagram's accountability in this conversation? The content never spreads in a vacuum. The algorithm amplifies it and engages the crowd. India's IT Rules 2021 puts emphasis on due diligence obligations on intermediaries regarding the content that holds the capacity to influence children. But the enforecement is still the challenge where the platforms benefit from the user engagements even when the ethical and legal lines are crossed. So is the influencer only to held liable or the platform which facilitated the reach or the parents for not restricting their children because the world outside is not ready to change?
Lastly, we can't ignore the social aspect of the campaign which commodified the trauma for content, changing the actual tears into a viral moment without meaningfully addressing the issue. Reclaiming the slurs is not a new concept. We saw LGBTQ+ Community reclaiming “queer”, Dalit moments to reclaim “Caste slurs” and many other. But these efforts on grounds come from the people within the community who are harmed by these words and not from the privileged professionals with a different social position without knowing the actual stigma and pain attached with the word. This is all again a different debate but it's high time we need to work on tripartite role of the influencers, platforms and legal framework. Influencers needs to understand that with power comes the responsibility and reasonable foresight of their audience before taking any issue in hand and a meaningfully engagement with the communities whose struggles are being referred in order to actually sensitize and bring a change. The platforms needs to implement a stronger safeguard for content being viral and the audience it is reaching to with a clearer accountability mechanism in such situations. Finally, we also need to develop nuanced standards that protects both the rights and interests with a regulatory mechanism that don't require criminal prosecution only as an accountability tool because behind every hashtag or viral moment there are people trying to heal, protect and fight and it's a collective responsibility of all of us to stand and share the humanity.
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