Maharashtra polls: ‘WhatsApp forward’ brigade takes to ‘political punditry’ amid election buzz

PUNE: The stereotypical dubious ‘WhatsApp forward' brigade usually restricts their posts to sparkly ‘good morning' images with flowers, tips to improve digestion or often unfounded historical and cultural references, say users at the receiving end.

Now however, come election time, a host of these habitual message senders have transformed from sunrise greeting enthusiasts into self-appointed political strategists for everyone on their contact lists, regular — mostly younger generation — users of the messenger app claim.

These freshly anointed ‘digital warriors' — armed with forwarded messages and WhatsApp statuses filled with questionable claims — have expanded their daily routine to dish out piping hot political commentary.

"An uncle who lives in our society used to send typical pictures of roses with dewdrops at 8am. Now, he sends conspiracy theories about opposition parties even earlier, at 7am," said Raul Joseph, a 23-year-old city resident, who added that he has started opening his WhatsApp only at noon to avoid a barrage of largely unverified political messages at dawn.

Anasuya Basu, a 20-year-old college student, told TOI, "When I wake up, I see over 100 messages in my family group with all these uncle and aunties trying to prove how each one's ridiculous conspiracy theory is correct. The messages are downright absurd — right from how reading someone's name backwards spells something evil to long paragraphs about why we should vote for a particular party. Nowadays, I put my phone on ‘do not disturb' mode before sleeping to avoid being woken up with political arguments on the group."

Many Gen-Z users said they often find it difficult to explain to the senders how such forwarded content cannot always be trusted. Piyush Gaikwad, a 24-year-old working professional, said, "At least the ‘good morning' messages had pleasant flowers. Now, we wake up to people explaining economic policies using cricket metaphors and calling themselves ‘WhatsApp Warriors for Democracy'. I tried to explain to my father that this is nonsensical, but he said he has to indulge his friend circle by forwarding the messages they send him."

The forwarded content has further evolved, too, from slogans like "forward this to 10 people for good luck' to "forward to 10 groups to save democracy" chains.

The phenomenon has also led to the creation of several WhatsApp group admins making rules to ban such political content.

"We've implemented a no-politics policy on our housing society's WhatsApp group. Throughout the day, people were posting messages about politics. But even then, some elderly folk manage to post political messages after being called out for it," said Vijay Sharma, a 32-year-old entrepreneur.