Sayima Ahmad
ChatGPT’s viral 80s AI image and video trend has turned into India’s toxic political meme war, escalating the harmless nostalgia vibe into gendered regional stereotyping and personal attacks on women. The online trend, in which users began transforming modern selfies into grainy, film-camera-style 1980s portraits complete with retro clothes, date stamps, film grain, and faded backgrounds, was later weaponised by political parties against each other, crossing the line between satire and character assassination.
In the meme race, the Congress Kerala social media handle fired the first shot, uploading a series of posts targeting several BJP senior leaders. In one post, the handle posted an AI-generated image showing a “Tuti Shah”, an infamous ruthless crime lord fictional Bollywood villain played by the late actor Rami Reddy, sitting in the front passenger seat of a Maruti Suzuki Omni, which is stereotypically known as a “kidnapping van” and looking outside the window with a scary look. The post was uploaded with a caption “A Gujarat street in the 80s.”
In another post, the Telangana Congress social media handle also posted an AI-generated photo depicting a man in underwear resembling BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a pickpocket at a retro-style Indian railway station tea stall. The photo was uploaded with the caption, “Vadnagar railway station, 1970”. Pertinently, Vadnagar is an ancient town located in the Mehsana district of north Gujarat, the birthplace and childhood hometown of Narendra Modi.
Soon after these posts, BJP handles across social media platforms responded instantly and personally. The Telangana BJP social media unit posted a counter AI photo showing a woman in a short red dress dancing on a table inside a bar full of liquor bottles. The photo was uploaded with a caption “Lusiana, Italy. Circa-1970s.” Pertinently, Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Sonia Gandhi was born and raised in Lusiana.
Later, the BJP’s Gujarat unit went one step further than this and posted a distasteful image of Sonia Gandhi, depicting her in a plunging neckline top, raising her glass of alcohol, surrounded by foreigners in a setup that seems to be a bar. The implication was unmistakable; however, soon after the public outrage, the BJP handle deleted the post.
Following the BJP’s series of posts targeting Sonia Gandhi, people expressed their anger towards the AI creation of the party and called the posts “obscene and misogynistic”. Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke also raised his voice and, while hitting back at the BJP’s AI posts, he described misogyny as “the last resort for men who lack wit and humour”.
Several social media handlers argued that the BJP’s “creativity” revolves around only dehumanising minorities and women. “A misogynist post against Sonia Gandhi from the BJP’s official handle. This is not a bug. It’s the feature. The ideology is inherently MISOGYNIST. Blame us for expecting better. With Sanghis, the bar is already six feet under. MODI HATAO. NARI BACHAO. P.S.: As a Malayali, I hang my head in shame for this coming from the BJP Kerala handle”, wrote one user.
Another user wrote, “Will take another lifetime for these men to understand Misogyny”. The users did not stop here and dug out old videos of Narendra Modi’s 2012 election speech delivered in Himachal Pradesh, in which he is heard mockingly referring to Sunanda Pushkar, the late wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, as a “50-crore girlfriend”, saying “Wah kya girlfriend hai. Apne kabhi dekha hai 50 crore ka girlfriend?”(“What a girlfriend. Have you ever seen a 50-crore girlfriend?”).
In retaliation, Congress Youth on Instagram shared Modi’s recent candid clip uploaded after a minor girl at a Jantar Mantar protest used abusive language about his late mother, in which he calls such “language and behaviour of a youth as “cultural shock.” In the juxtaposed video, a commentator is seen describing a scene, saying, “Sonia Gandhi ji’s AI-generated false photos are being telecast from the BJP state handle. This is an extremely objective and shameful act. On one hand, PM Modi ji expresses feelings over the insult of his mother, and on the other hand, his party handles mess with respect to a respected woman. Has political protest now reached personal insult and hurting women’s respect”.
The recent AI-generated photos especially targeting Sonia Gandhi are the latest version of an old habit of the BJP. The party leaders, its staunch supporter accounts followed by Narendra Modi and pro-propaganda pages have been repeatedly using sexist posts, body shaming, character assassination and moral policing against opposition women leaders and female influencers who don’t fit their narratives.
Over the years, BJP leaders and its IT cell workers have been repeatedly using the “bar dancer” label against Sonia Gandhi, creating her fake AI images and then circulating them on social media platforms to tarnish her image. The party reduces her to a sexualised caricature instead of debating her politics. According to a published article authored by Glen Owen and Nick Meo, Sonia Gandhi studied at Bell Education Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 1964, where she met and married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968. During her studies, she worked as a part-time server at a local restaurant in Cambridge.
