The Bharat Bandh on April 2 called by Dalit groups was a result of the successful use of artificial intelligence (AI), the geographic information system (GIS) and big data, according to a core group of US-based Dalit activists.
The protest, which surprised many because of its sudden eruption, was organised against the alleged dilution of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
New Jersey-based Deelip Mhaske, who heads a secretive network of some 100 overseas Dalit activists based in the US, the UK, Australia and the Middle East said the protest shows that Dalits no longer need to be affiliated to any political establishment.
"A new era for Dalit politics has begun by adopting artificial intelligence, the GIS and social media," Mhaske told PTI in an interview as he gave an insight into how Dalit groups were mobilised during the protest.
Most of these Dalit activists in the secretive group are from the IT sector and work in some of the top info-tech companies.
Except for Mhaske, who has formed the Foundation for
Several of them who spoke to PTI on condition of
anonymity, said that over the past three years, they have
worked to create a social-media based network of like-minded
Dalit activists across India, who are primarily focused in 100
parliamentary constituency in six politically crucial states
of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and
According to the 56-page 'Social Media and Dalit Atrocities: A report on social media strategy for Dalit
Advocacy Group' prepared by this London-based data analytics
For about a week, the PTI was also given access to
some of the closed WhatsApp and Telegraph groups created in
various parts of the country to give a sense of the modus- operandi and nature of work of these overseas Dalit activists
and how they are using these social media platform to further
The report says that the Dalit's social media usage is
now sufficiently widespread to have the power to influence the
outcome of the 100 seats in the next Lok Sabha elections and
A London-based Dalit activist said the April 2 Bharat
Bandh was a trial run for "peer-to-peer" targeting, as now it
believes that the mobile revolution in India has created
Initially, the plan was to test waters on April 14,
the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, by a nationwide
However, the group decided to give it a trial run on
Giving an insight into the network, one of the IT
experts from the group said that the census and election
commission data on electorate was collected and compared with
"We culled the data from this page, constituency by
constituency, one constituency at a time," the Dalit IT expert
"The use of GIS in social mapping is new technology and
not tested before with the vulnerable population like Dalits,"
Mhaske said the data analytics and social media
company hired to analyse the caste atrocities relationship to
the people's social media post, government responses and
unrested areas socio-political issues, including the political
representations, found no relationship between the elected
political leaders or party affiliation and increase in the
After the Supreme Court's verdict, a detailed social
media plan was created and feed was sent to the local groups
"People joined the call without knowing who is
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