[Reader-list] the new authoritarianism

[Rana Dasgupta]

What is interesting about the article Ravi sent - as
with most accounts of this issue - is that the
statement of the problem ('hacking, credit card
misuse, death threats, pornography, morphing and
terrorism' ... 'threats of murder and extortion or
porn mail') always seems either completely trivial
compared to the draconian solution - or completely
wild.  Even those advancing these counterthreats seem
unable to state the threats in a convincing way.

But in addition to the predictable sanctimoniousness
about pornography there seems to be a strong class
element to the description of the situation in Bombay
that is presumably a major concern for the powers that
be there.  I think a lot of this is about the
disruption to class hierarchies that happens when
armed guards around your house become completely
ineffectual in preventing outsiders from communicating
with you whenever they wish.  why else this double
mention of death threats in the article?

In a city where fabulous inequalities of wealth and a
number of high-profile examples have made the threat
of kidnapping/blackmail/murder/etc a part of the
self-imagination of the elite, it does not seem too
surprising that the easy access the Internet provides
should be used to take advantage of this.  Just how
easy this access is must alarm the police, whose hard
work to keep the city segregated has no power over
cybervilains.  (Presumably the Internet also allows
would-be blackmailers to know much more about the
misdemeanours of their targets than ever before.)  

Is it fanciful to take this still further into class
and caste anxieties about the promiscuous 'mixing up'
of different people in the public space of a
cybercafe, especially a public space that allows some
people to think about lewd or criminal things whilst
others work dutifully on their history coursework. 
or, worse still, mixing up in a virtual space where
the traces of class and caste may be considerably
effaced.  How can you tell when the cybershadow of an
untouchable has fallen across you?



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