Bullying has always been a difficult thing to talk about in India, largely because there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to end its prevalence. With the advent of the Internet, though, bullying has taken on several new forms that continue to plague people of all ages. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that so-called cyberbullying is on the rise in the Subcontinent yet it's still a problem that's largely ignored by the population.
Source: Pexels
An infographic created by ExpressVPN for Stop Cyberbullying Day defines the concept as including various kinds of online abuse and harassment. This often stems from unsecured social media posts, such as photographs with location tags that allow for real-life stalking. Of course, every victim's experience with bullying varies. It may be more or less visible depending on the individuals involved.
India has a problem with bullying of all descriptions. While it can be difficult to gauge accurate numbers, the country is believed to have one of the highest rates of bullying in the world. A 2018 Microsoft study mentioned in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry claimed that 53% of individuals in India had experienced online bullying in their lifetimes. Other sources put that figure as high as 80%.
Both China and Singapore have a larger problem with bullying than India but that doesn't change the fact that the country is still experiencing what might be considered a crisis in workplaces and schools. Why? It all has to do with opportunity. The Internet has dramatically increased the number of ways that people can interact with each other, often with complete anonymity.
Legal Recourse
Internet-based bullying also has several unique properties that make it harder to deal with than face-to-face concerns. For one, the Internet keeps things forever, with even something as seemingly innocent as Facebook's Memories feature dragging up thoughts and feelings that people might want to forget. It's also much harder to prove online abuse, as sites like WhatsApp have message encryption from end-to-end.
Source: Pexels.
As for the law surrounding cybercrime and cyberbullying, it's poorly understood. In India, Section 66A of the Information Technology Act does cover malicious and annoying communications but there are no laws that deal specifically with cyberbullying. This means that arguing about what constitutes online abuse can get in the way of providing legal recourse for the victim(s).
Having said all that, India isn't a complete exception. A report by Mitali Jain and Vinod Joseph published on the Mondaq website indicates that the Subcontinent has much the same critical problem with bullying as many other countries, namely, that it's not widely spoken about. However, the fact that India's reported numbers are so much higher than the rest of the world suggests that there may be cultural and societal reasons for bullying, too.
Whatever the rationale behind it, cyberbullying has been a blight on Indian communities for quite some time. The onus is rarely on victims to change their normal behaviour to avoid the problem but, for people who are concerned about privacy and security on social media, there are plenty of resources out there that cover the topic in depth.
