US academics say Modi supporters posting threats on blogs

Over 100 prominent US-based academics, most of them Indian-Americans who last month raised privacy concerns about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Digital India' campaign have now alleged they are receiving threats on their blogs by his "Hindu nationalist followers".
The faculty members had said they were concerned that the project's potential for increased transparency in bureaucratic dealings with people is "threatened by its lack of safeguards about privacy of information, and thus its potential for abuse".
In their latest statement on September 1, they have alleged that they have been receiving threat messages on their blogs.
"The threats and ugly tone in the comments section of this blog and elsewhere illustrate exactly how academic freedom, and freedom of expression in general, is compromised by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist followers," it said.

Their statement came after a petition signed by over 1,200 people "rejected" the allegations of these 100-plus academicians.
Vamsee Juluri, professor of Media Studies and Asian Studies at the University of San Francisco on the Academe Blog, wrote: "The digital surveillance fear is a hoax, sir, as is the idea of Modi as a Muslim-hating mass murderer. Simple as that."

"The allegation that Narendra Modi ought to be viewed with suspicion, if not disdain, by business leaders in Silicon Valley because of surveillance implications in the Digital India initiative seems a desperate ploy rather than any genuine concern for India," the petition says.

Meanwhile, the academicians also expressed their "surprise" at the presumption that only science and technology experts pay attention to the effects of technology on society, since the questions of digital society and freedom require attention by scholars in other fields as well.
"Digital Humanities initiatives, for instance, illustrate the ways some of us actively think about the relationship between technology and society," they wrote.
The academicians said that historically, all technology has social, political, and ethical effects - precisely because technology is so powerful and far-reaching.
"Perspectives from our varied fields of scholarship offer crucial insights into the nature of this impact," they said.

However, they clarified that they never asked Silicon Valley companies not to invest in India, but their statement last month was to raise awareness and debate about the various policies of the Modi government.