Discuss the role of social media in communal polarisation. Suggest ways to combat it

Role in polarisation

• Algorithms reward outrage, so ethnocentric content travels farther than a village argument once did.
• Forward chains and closed groups create echo chambers that confirm Dumont-like us/them purity in a digital idiom.
• Fake videos and identity tags turn Muslims, Dalits, or migrants into instant types, which identity politics of domination exploits.
• During riots and after, social media archives shame and coordinates mobs; Tripura-type FIRs against accounts show the state’s late chase.
• It also lets counter-publics speak. Polarisation is the dominant commercial use, not the only use.

Why it bites in India

• Beteille’s disharmonic society already had ranked honour; the feed supplies daily proof and daily insult.
• Informal youth with phones and insecure jobs are a ready public, as urban slums and campuses show.
• Traditional media and politicians launder social-media frames into ‘public opinion’.

Ways to combat it

• Fast, independent fact-check that is trusted across communities, not only a ministry banner.
• Platform liability for amplification of riot speech, with due process so the tool is not only used on dissent.
• Local peace committees and police that treat rumour as a law-and-order fact, as old riot studies already knew.
• School and NEP-style digital literacy that teaches source doubt without teaching cynicism about all journalism.
• Cross-group offline work: unions, co-operatives, and mixed neighbourhoods reduce the monopoly of the feed over the we.
• Ambedkarite public culture of fraternity is a content strategy, not only a statute.

Limit

• Combat fails if the offline political economy of ethnocentrism is rewarded at the ballot.