Mumbai IAS officer Nidhi Choudhari's 'anti-Gandhi' tweet has sparked a row

Nidhi Choudhari was compelled to demonstrate her belief in Gandhi

Who: Social media is a minefield of touchiness, where one stray comment can land you in big trouble. Nidhi Choudhari, an IAS officer from Mumbai, endured one such episode after a tweet of hers was reported as being an insult to the Father of the Nation, drew severe criticism and eventually led to her transfer.

Where: Choudhari, a 2012-batch officer who was posted as joint commissioner of the governing civic body of Mumbai, commented on Twitter last month on the ongoing 150 birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi. She wrote: “High time, we remove his face from our currency, his statues from across the world, rename institutions/roads named after him! That would be a real tribute from all of us! (sic)” She also “thanked” Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin. Godse was a member of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. At a time when right-wing outfits and leaders, including recently elected Lok Sabha MP Pragya Thakur, have hailed Godse as a patriot, Choudhari’s comment was widely viewed as a similarly derogatory take on Gandhi.

What: Political parties condemned her words, and leaders of the Nationalist Congress Party pressured the Maharashtra government to take exemplary action against her. She was issued a show cause notice and was shifted to a different department. Choudhari had earlier deleted her tweet, made clarifications and claimed that she would never dream of insulting Gandhi. After her transfer, she posted a poem on Facebook this week explaining her tweet that triggered the storm. Fact-checker website AltNews has pointed out that the comment threads on Choudhari’s profile and her timeline reveal that she has been in fact an ardent admirer of Gandhi, and that she has cited his My Experiments with Truth as one of her favourite books.

How: The misinterpretation as well as misreporting or selective focus by the media on the outrage over Choudhari’s tweet is indicative of a people and institutions that are quick to judge and unable to accept levity of any kind, leave alone gallows humour. From administrative officials and academics to journalists, cops and ordinary individuals, in the past few years several people have faced punishment like suspension or punitive action such as arrests for sharing posts or comments on social media that are deemed critical of governments or political leaders and therefore slanderous. The seemingly increasing loss of a sense of humour among Indians and a readiness to take umbrage — especially in the social media ecosystem — at dissenting and innocuous opinions reflect the growing intolerance in society as well as an us-versus-them tribalism in online behaviour. All users, across the ideological spectrum, have taken her tweet at face value rather than spot any hint of sarcasm. Another effect of this moral scrutiny by vocal members of all political stripes is that an outspoken person such as Choudhari was compelled, somewhat pathetically, to offer visual evidence of genuflection to an icon of history.