Last week’s Cockroach Janta Party protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi was a media spectacle. Reporters captured the crowd, asked founder Abhijeet Dipke some tough questions, and heard from the angry students, parents, and concerned citizens gathered. Some, however, found a shortcut to cheap views: shoving the camera in the faces of queer folks and calling them transphobic slurs.
“Are meetha (fruity) people like you going to bring change in the country?” Anjani Vats from 99 Khabar asked 19-year-old Ujjwal Singh in a horrific video Vats shared on Instagram.One could see the hurt and indignation on their face even as they raised a finger in defiance—their long nail painted a delectable maroon—and refused the slur. In a telephonic conversation with ThePrint, Ujjwal, who has just passed class 12, called Vats “a pathetic excuse for a journalist.” They also said they’ve noticed a trend among the comments.
“I’ve received support from around the world—the US, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan. But the hate comments are only from India, though. And most of the trolls are from accounts with zero followers, or from people with ‘RSS, BJP, Brahman, Jai Shree Ram, and Jay Mahakal’ in their bio,” Ujjwal said.The video isn’t the first of its kind. After every other pride march or protest, incel influencers post clips of queer people with slurs, malicious commentary, and overused sound effects—the “FAAA” phenomenon is a recent example. But over the past three months, the hate seems to have galvanised.A similar incident happened at Delhi Pride this year. Then came the protest against the infamous Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, where Shabnam, a trans designer and educator, was recorded without her consent through Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. The video mocked her appearance (Shabnam is bald and was wearing a sari at the protest), and the trolling that followed was even worse. Organisers often send out advisories about such jeering attempts at protests. But no one could have anticipated that the Meta creep tech would get to its base business in India this soon.
