The role of Social networking sites in Communal harmony
... Shahzad
Alam Barni (RTI Activist, Aligarh)
India is the second largest country of the world in relation to its population and 7th
largest country in relation to its area. Social networking sites like
Facebook, Orkut, twitter, hi5 etc. have a large number of users.
According
to a news published in Hindustan Times dated February 2, 2012, with
43,497,980 users, India has the world's second highest number of
Facebook users now. It is more than the population of Argentina, Kenya,
Canada and almost twice the Australia's population. In a week, India
has added 5,452,980 more users to beat Indonesia (43,057,320) to the
second place.
USA
leads the number of FB users with more than 152.5 million users,
according to the website checkfacebook.com, a comprehensive analytics
platform for Facebook. While an overwhelming 72.8% of Indian FB users
are male, more than 48% of users are from the 18-24 years age group and
more than 27% from the 25-34 age groups. Interestingly, more women use
FB in the US (55%) than men (45%) while 24% users are in the 18-24
categories with 23% from the 25-34 age groups.
India
has faced a number of communal riots since the very first year
of independence of India in 1947, when a communal riot in
Bengal took place in which more than 2,000 people had died and more
than 3,000 were injured. After that incident of violence there has been
a series of communal violence that destroyed the harmony and
brotherhood - these include the riots of Moradabad, Meerut, Aligarh,
Bhagalpur, and the masscre of Gujarat apart from many others. 
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There
are a number of pages and groups of different interests on Facebook to
promote the things through this social networking site. Social media,
especially Facebook, have become one of the most powerful tools for the
promotion of anything at a large level.
According to a study done on face book regarding communal harmony and the contribution of social media (with
especial reference to the Facebook) has revealed that there are only a
few groups and pages that are related to promote the communal harmony
among people. As far as the pages are concerned, there are only 14
pages of Religious Unity with 15,980 likes, 8 pages of Unity in India
with 255 likes, only 4 pages of respect to all religions with 163 likes
and 6 pages of similarities between two or more religions with 168
likes. As far as the groups are concerned there are 18 groups of
religious Unity with 5,392 members, 7 groups of Unity in India with 274
members, 6 groups of similarities between religions with 421 members.
The
total number of likes and members of all these pages and groups is
22,653 out of the total of 43.5 million users, while at the same time, you
will find 5,579,630 likes of the page named Sachin Tendulkar.
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Pieces of Peace
A boy walked briskly with his clothes full of dust,He didn’t eat for days and hunger churned his guts.With deep thoughts he knocked the factory door,He looked up at the sky and sat down on the floor.No work they said and asked him to leave,How rude the man was, the boy couldn’t believe.Disappointed with the answer he crossed the road,Suddenly a truck stopped and asked him to board.He looked at the man sitting with a gun,His heart skipped a beat and wanted to run.He spoke softly and asked to let him go,The man stared at him and curtly said no.My father died in the war and mother is alone,She will cry for me and would turn into a stone.The boy pleaded with tears rolling down his face,He glanced at the man and his heart started to race.We have a cause and you are God sent,You will stay here and he pointed towards the tent.The boy was brainwashed for many days,He was trained to attack in different ways.You will be a martyr and you will go to heaven,They showed him a path which was myth driven.Then he was sent on a mission to kill,Bombs around his body he couldn’t stand still.He blew himself up entering into a building,Blood was on walls and dead bodies were smoldering.Pieces of peace were scattered among the dead,Humanity just cried and shivered with dread.Wails of a mother were buried in the noise,To live with memories was her only choice.
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