The following piece is entirely fictional. It is merely an imaginative piece penned to explore the possibilities of where this on-going debate around the documentary could head, if social media joins the mix, in ways other than people merely commenting and debating the ban.
I repeat: The following piece is entirely fictional. It is merely an imaginative piece penned to explore the possibilities of where this on-going debate around the documentary could head, if social media joins the mix, in ways other than people merely commenting and debating the ban.
Sukesh kept asking his jail warden again and again, “What are people saying about the documentary?”.
The warden was silent for most parts, and was even annoyed with Sukesh’s persistence. But he finally gave in and shouted at Sukesh, “Shut up! Stop asking so much. They have banned the documentary in our country!”.
“What? But why? Any reason?”, retorted Sukesh.
“Who knows?”, the warden sniggered, “They perhaps didn’t like your face!”.
Sukesh seemed thoughtful. And angry. “What about internet? I keep hearing that people see it on the internet and there no one can ban anything. I have seen movies there too, you know,”, he asked.
The warden had enough of this chit-chat and said, “Oh that’s it. You’re not getting any information from me”.
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But Sukesh kept thinking about the ban. He wanted to do something, but didn’t know what.
He got an opportunity soon enough.
The documentary film maker, Meslee Edwin had sought permission to meet him again, the next week. He was informed about this and the jail superintendent had approved the visit too.
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As soon as Meslee entered the courtyard where they were meeting, Sukesh asked Meslee, “Do you have a cellphone?’.
Meslee was a bit surprised by this question. The guards were watching too. But she obliged and said yes. Sukesh wanted to use her phone, but didn’t want to talk in it.
Meslee considered this for a bit – after all, who can he speak to, anyway? And to what purpose?
The guards were looking, a bit jittery, as Meslee handed over her smartphone to Sukesh. Sukesh answered all her queries while glued to the phone and fidgeting with the screen, busily doing something.
One of the guards came into the room and snatched the phone from Sukesh. As he saw the screen, it had some Android game running. The guard smiled grimly and gave the phone back to Meslee, and left the room.
Sukesh asked for the phone back. “I’ll talk only when you give me the phone,” he said.
Meslee gave it back to him and he continued talking to her while fidgeting with the phone. There was no video recording that day and the meeting got over in about 30 minutes.
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That night, there was utter chaos across the news television channels in India and on Twitter.
It seems Sukesh had used Meslee’s phone to create a Twitter account and send about 10 tweets from his new account, all in Hindi.
He had merely reiterated his views, as he spoke in the documentary, in his tweets. But he had also tagged a couple of TV channel handles in the last 2 tweets, calling their attention that this was The Sukesh Singh from That documentary, straight from the prison!
By 10pm that night, his tweets were retweeted over two million times.
Arnab Goswami, on Times NOW was demanding the tweets be deleted by Twitter.
Twitterati in India was divided right at the center. “If he can speak in the documentary, why can’t he say the same on Twitter?”, asked one social media celeb.
Another chimed in, “I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know the legal implications. Can someone enlighten us about the legal rights of death row inmates in India? Can they tweet?”.
A rabble-rousing NRI added, “Waiting for Government to ban Twitter and smartphones in India”.
Many Twitter users pounced on a Pune based student when he tweeted, “Isn’t he allowed to say what he said on the documentary? His freedom of speech, like ours?”.
“He has no freedom of speech, given his crime. How dare he talk to us, using Twitter?”, offered one angry response.
“But he already spoke to us, via the documentary, no?”, responded the student from Pune, adding, “How is this any different?”.
A Bollywood actor tweeted, “Disgusted that a criminal is having a conversation with us, misusing technology! Scared to open my Twitter feed now!”.
Someone responded to that actor, “Magar Bhai is tweeting everyday yaar… he is not criminal?”.
A Bhai-tard responded angrily, “Shut up! Bhai hasn’t been convicted, that case is still on… how dare you compare our Bhai with this lowlife?”.
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By the morning, next day, Sukesh Singh’s Twitter handle and the 10 tweets were missing, even as people were sharing screenshots of his 10 tweets all over Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp, with their own translation of the Hindi tweets and their own additional commentary.
The day after, every print newspaper carried his 10 tweets’ screenshots in the front page.
That week, every weekly print magazine, across every language in India, carried screenshots of all 10 tweets from Sukesh Singh, with local language translation for people of various states to understand what the Hindi tweets meant.
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