'Humans of Hindutva' page quits Facebook after admin claims receiving death threats

‘Humans of Hindutva’, a parody page on Facebook that routinely took aim at right-wing fundamentalism and 'Hindutva' ideology, went offline on Facebook yesterday. The page was inspired by ‘Humans of New York’, a page created by Brandon Stanton that posted regular satirical content on topics such as politics and current affairs.

There were several posts with commentary on casteism, moral policing, recent lynchings in the country and right-wing political issues on the page. It had as many critics as it had loyal readers. In a note on his website, the administrator of the page explained that he was quitting of his own accord and he was taking the page off after having received threats to his life.

He wrote on his website, “I’m quitting out of my own accord. I’ve not been banned or mass reported. I have recently received some threats to my life which I can’t take lightly. I am outnumbered, live in a BJP state and come from a middle-class family with no political or police connections. I have no desire to end up like Gauri Lankesh or Afrazul Khan. Actually, more than myself I worry for the safety of my family. I hope those who threatened me consider this as a victory and leave us alone. I have deleted the HOH page and will delete this website soon. Congratulations to Hindutva for winning this David vs. Goliath fight. As for those who were kind enough to lend me their ears for the last eight months, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year. Cheers and alvida. Thanks for giving me some of your time.”

This has kicked up a storm on the social media since a lot of regular readers of the page are calling this a stifling of freedom of expression.

The administrator of the Humans of Hindutva page had been taken down before as well due to similar reasons, but due to a lot of requests from his readers, he had decided to restart his posts.