Rashmi Karandikar has her heart in the right place. The former Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) of Cyber Cell in Mumbai investigated the Bulli Bai case in which photographs of hundreds of Muslims women were posted on an app and an online auction was conducted. She also probed the Clubhouse case where a verbal chatroom had hundreds of young boys and girls using vulgar language and talking about sexually assaulting women.
Ms. Karandikar, not only nabbed the accused in record-breaking time and also filed the chargesheet despite facing the inevitable challenges of tracking the world of social media. She has done her Ph.D. on the ‘Impact of Globalisation on Urban Women’ and is currently the DCP of Civil Defence.
She passionately talks to The Hindu about the need to counsel women who have been victims of abuse on social media and says that social media apps must step up and appoint grievance officers to make women feel safe virtually.
Having probed both the cases of Bulli Bai and Clubhouse, what would you say is the common thread between the two?
In both cases, the accused are very young. Their parents have no idea they have an alter ego in the virtual world, where they don't know each other personally but have group affinity. In both cases, the rules were the same — everyone had to be anonymous, use only international numbers and no Gmail. They all have the same ideology — women should not step out of their homes and are staunch believers and followers of Manusmriti. There is resentment towards a particular religious community and hatred towards the women of that community.
Many accused in both cases have been released on bail, and one of the bail conditions is for them to undergo counselling on social media behaviour. Do you think it helps the accused?
Counselling in a case like this is like sending an alcoholic for rehabilitation. Even if the abuser goes to the rehab regularly and does as he is told to do, he needs to be monitored once he is out of there. Similarly, you can give a young mind counselling for a couple of months, but what really matters is to track his social media behaviour after the sessions are over.
Even victims of social media abuse need counseling. The survivors have been subjected to online auctioning of their body parts through these apps. These women have experienced a very different form of abuse, sextortion — their photographs were morphed, vulgar language was being used against them — they definitely need counselling.
You also caught the one who was giving rape threats to a cricketer's one-year-old daughter? What does this say about our society?
It is very unfortunate to know that people reduce a one-year-old child to one part of her body. It really goes to show that we are a sick society that has a very pervert outlook and mentality.
What do you think needs to be done to create social media awareness?
There is a need to study cyberpsychology through which people must be taught the use of social media responsibly. The dos and don'ts have to be explained to everyone, not just youngsters. For minors and teenagers, parents, teachers, and psychologists need to work on it together so they don't have a false sense of identity and seek fake validation in the virtual world. Today, the youngsters feel that by masking their identity they can do whatever they want and cannot be traced, but they need to be told that wherever they are, they will be caught.
How do you think we can start this?
We need to start by redefining women's safety. One cannot talk about women's need to walk safely on the road and then abuse her online. Social media platforms need to track and block handles and users who use vulgar and inappropriate language or words towards women, and this can easily be done by using their algorithms. The algorithm needs to be developed and promoted in not only English but all vernacular languages. Just like the way their algorithm is used to keep a close eye to handle attempts of suicide so swiftly.
Secondly, all social media apps must have a separate grievance cell only to look after all issues related to women's safety which can work round the clock to prevent abuse and protect women on these apps. If this is done, it will really encourage women to come forward and complain. Social media apps earn so much revenue from India, then it is also their responsibility to make women feel safe while they use their apps.
