BJP ‘fringe group, propagating non-violent extremism’, says forum funded by FB, MS, Twitter, YouTube

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the world’s biggest political party is a “fringe group”, says an international group named Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), says a report published by Newsroom.

Founded in 2017 by Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube purportedly to prevent terrorist and violent extremists from exploiting digital formats, the GIFCT says ahead in the report that the BJP propagates “non-violent extremism”.

The GIFCT shares terrorism data with big tech companies, enabling them to flag and remove “terror-inducing content”.

The 177-page report has, on page 62, described Bharatiya Janata Party as a “fringe group propagating non-violent extremism”.

Besides the BJP, the forum has included the Australia First Party and National Socialist Movement of the United States in the fringe category.

Explaining its understanding of the concept, the forum says in the report, “Fringe groups discredit or denigrate the out-group, promote isolation from the general public, and promote narratives of external blame for negative outcomes such as conspiracy theories.”

“Fringe groups describe non-violent ideologies that are on the periphery of social movements or larger organizations, with more extreme views than those of the majority,” it says.

Academic-activist Madhu Purnima Kishwar, who has been critical of the Narendra Modi government for what she sees as an increasingly left-leaning BJP, seized the opportunity to question the dispensation of what it achieved by bending over backwards to appease Muslims, Christians and communists. Taunting the “sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” slogan of the Modi government, she tweeted, “उनका साथ, उनका विकास, उनका विश्वास, जीतने की चाहत में आप अपनों के दुश्मन बन गए (In order to win their company, their development, their trust, you turned your own people enemies)!”

Nicholas J Rasmussen, formerly the senior director for the National Security and Counterterrorism of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, began serving as the first full-time GIFCT executive director on 29 June. He oversees all day-to-day activities and operations.

Anjum Rahman is the project Lead for Inclusive Aotearoa Collective at the GIFCT.