Chowk the joke's on you!

Five years ago I wrote an open letter to Chowk. It is still here, all its 100 + posts. It is possible for people to change their minds, and I did. Once upon a time I wanted more moderation, I wanted censorship just as much as I wanted freedom of expression, and I could not have both. The responses were awesome. Most of those people are not here any longer, some for their own reasons, others . . .welll. . . . .

In 2008, nothing changes, except that Chowk staff decides, oh, and the urgency is so clear and present, we must implement this policy, to provide a fair and open environment, unfortunately because of the few disruptive and malicious interactors. That hasn’t changed. My reaction to this has changed. Because Farzana was correct, as were some others in saying three years ago, it was the serious interactors we needed to be wary of, not the give us this day our daily abuse ones. And what is happening even with the serious interactors of today?

For years and years now, Chowk has been unsuccessful in implementing any kind of policy for fear of it bordering on the fascist and the authoritative. Yes, Chowk staff, is not so much concerned with freedom of expression as they are with saving their own face. I am not biting the hand that fed me, because Chowk staff did me a huge favor once in my time of need. I was concerned with something I wrote being visible here because of something that was happening in my family life, and they took care of that for me at my request. For which I will be forever grateful. But my gratitude does not involve not being able to speak up and disagree at the risk of being “malicious and disruptive.” I would like to see myself more as Cordelia than Regan, for those who understand the King Lear reference.

Chowk staff will not respond to Sadna’s question about why certain responses to Farzana’s ilog were removed because they cannot, other than to say that it was malicious and disruptive due to certain interactors. They should have filtered those fucking posts rather than removed a discussion between Sadna, Rahul Capri and some other interactors because heaven forbid, it was contrary to certain people’s views on Jammu and Kashmir, and critical of a beloved ex-editor whom they hold in high esteem.
But where was Chowk staff when Sadna was being insulted as a baby-killer. Where were they when some consistently referred to her as a Hindutvadi because of her views? Never mind the fact that she was one of the first if not the first on Chowk to condemn the Gujarat massacres. In some eyes that does not take away from the fact that she embraces Hindutva. Even in the face of abuses, Sadna has handled conversations with much more civility than others. Chowk staff was at the same place when all this was going on, as when Farzana was the recipient of awful abuses. Nowhere. And where will Chowk staff be, when the man who is always right, HP, the “serious interactor” hounds Sadna about being communal and attacking her intelligence? Nowhere.

News flash people, everyone is communal to some extent or the other. Those who think they are being insulting by referring to someone as communal are no less communal themselves. It is when you let communalism become the be all and end all that it is dangerous. Crimes committed against one’s community can increase one’s sense of “the communal”. It is when these people decide to take out their rage and vengeance blindly on an entire community that they become dangerous. And it has happened in Pakistan as well as India. So much for higher “moral” ground.

And women interactors – including myself – have lost our ground as well, whatever it was. Some of us could have taken the higher ground, when our persons were insulted, our families, but no, we let the fuckers win. We let them win, when we sank to their level, and then called them out on their maliciousness? The women who are victorious here, are those who do not and will not sink to their base level. I am not one of those women.

What is the big deal about banning someone, especially if that someone is Arjun? Oh the immense glee and gloating by some of you. More than a few of you have been banned, but have been able to return. Arjun was banned permanently. For doing things that some of you have done yourselves. He is more than a troll, but haters cannot see the truth beyond the “trolling.” And he does not have any rights? No appeal? And then there are those who call him bigoted and hateful. Where is Chowk staff when it comes to reading the serious interactors? Where was Chowk staff when two people they have allowed to come back again and again, referred to me as Arjun’s lover because of their sick and twisted minds? It’s okay to remove malicious and disruptive posts referring to Farzana’s sex life, but obviously and consistently you, Chowk staff, are inconsistent with your “must implement your biased policy”

One of you, I think it was Dost Mittar who said, “At the end of the day, it is your website, your rules and your decision how you want to interpret or implement those rules . . .” At the end of the day, it is our website. This website would not continue if it were not for the members of Chowk. The staff flicks out their whips every once in a while, and whimpers that it would behoove us to behave. It would behoove Chowk staff to remember more often, that we exist beyond redflagging.

The ironies abound. An interactor derisively calls this a pick-up joint, but has no problem posting pictures of parties that let me guess, aren’t pick-up parties?

Speaking of pick-up joints, suno kahani, kaafi puraani. A “serious” interactor and a woman become friends. They begin interacting outside of Chowk, messenger, phone calls, the “relationship” goes a little beyond “friendship.” And then one day he informs her that he is getting married and wants to end the friendship . The woman finds out later that he was already married. He had told her he was not before, and she foolishly believed him. The joke was on her.

This story is no fabrication. It happened to me, here at Chowk. And I have no reason to lie about this. Certain people are already aware it happened. I think about that every once in a while, knowing that kisi aur bhes main voh waapis aayega. A friend told me, one should not get involved in internet relationships. For my part, it is not AS IF I knew, going into our off-Chowk conversations that this would happen.

And I needn’t be so open about it now. But it just makes me laugh. It makes me laugh, that Chowk Staff thinks it can do a purging which will lead to a free and open environment. Let me tell you it will not stop liars and deceivers from entering this community. But since you cannot stop the liars and deceivers from entering this community, then you are going to stop the immature sods who you give the power to when you take their rants, and abuse seriously. Rock on, Chowk staff!

Certain things that Farzana wrote made an impression on me. I recall the image of pygmies aiming so low that their arrows kept missing their mark i.e. her. I understood this to signify that those people who insisted on calling her names could not bring her down. Chowk staff, have the pygmies finally broken Farzana? Is that why you feel you must now erase all the same things that you would not erase when she was still writing here, the writings that with good reason were made invisible due to plagiarism? Will protecting Farzana, and the chosen few make Chowk a fair and open environment?

As long as you give freedom of expression to some who abuse, and take it away from others who abuse because of your own biases, the answer is no. And Chowk staff, you must, oh, you truly must implement this in order to provide a free environment to our readers and writers.

P.S. Just in case the assholes were counting, I used Arjun in the same paragraph three times. :)