I grew up in India - nationalism is definitely a growing concern for the country IMO, more so than can be expressed online by articles such as this. And nationalism definitely has a huge overlap with hinduism in the country.
Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen.
The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know back home) leads to an aggressive defence strategy that is pretty much focused on some variation of nonsense arguments rooted in 'talking points' being pushed by nationalists that aren't rooted in any fact.
Some variations I've experienced: it's foreigners trying to stir the pot, farmer protests have nothing to do with farmers but it's to do with destroy India's unity by fringe groups, etc. On Greta/other celebrities shining light on farmer protests: they're being paid money by third parties to meddle in local politics, etc.
Other scary things I've seen are pretty much labelling anyone that disagrees with you as the other (this includes the opposition party Indian National Congress, etc.) and instead of listening to valid points being brought up, there's this Meme-fication of the person/party that's worse than trolling and borders on attacking every trivial detail from the person's life.
Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen.
The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know back home) leads to an aggressive defence strategy that is pretty much focused on some variation of nonsense arguments rooted in 'talking points' being pushed by nationalists that aren't rooted in any fact.
Some variations I've experienced: it's foreigners trying to stir the pot, farmer protests have nothing to do with farmers but it's to do with destroy India's unity by fringe groups, etc. On Greta/other celebrities shining light on farmer protests: they're being paid money by third parties to meddle in local politics, etc.
Other scary things I've seen are pretty much labelling anyone that disagrees with you as the other (this includes the opposition party Indian National Congress, etc.) and instead of listening to valid points being brought up, there's this Meme-fication of the person/party that's worse than trolling and borders on attacking every trivial detail from the person's life.