Manisha Mondal, senior photojournalist at ThePrint, was subjected to casteist abuse and body shaming after she wrote an opinion piece detailing her experience on dating apps as a Dalit woman. The article titled ‘Being Dalit on a dating app. Upper caste men only want to argue over reservation, EWS’, spoke about Manisha’s experiences on dating apps and the anti-reservation sentiments she encountered from upper-caste men there. However, her article invited a lot of online trolling and abuse, targeting Manisha’s looks and caste location.
The opinion piece spoke about Manisha’s experiences on dating apps like Bumble where upper-caste men would cease communication with her after they see her Instagram profile which has ‘Namasudra Dalit, West Bengal’ in her bio. The piece concludes with Manisha suggesting that dating apps could add caste preferences as a filter along with gender.
Several people came out in support of Manisha after the vitriolic trolling. One person said how the upper-caste mentality teaches people to discriminate against people from their birth. They added, “Upper caste people are trolling a Dalit journalist Manisha Mondal on the basis of her physical appearance and caste. Their mentality and caste arrogance teaches them to discriminate from birth, we stand strongly with Manisha.”
Lavanya Ballal Jain, the in-charge for Media and Communications of Kerala Congress also came out in support of Manisha and said, “I read the article, I read the comments. The comments are filled with body shaming and misogyny, that too from men who haven’t read the article. These men are just proving the point made in the article. Manisha Mondal, more power to you.”
Another user mentioned how caste and dating are “very much related.” She added, “YES, dating and caste are related, very much related. Upper caste men who can't digest the reality written by Manisha Mondal are resorting to body shaming, because when men can't logically argue with women they use body shaming or character assassination as a tool.”
In light of the trolling and abuse, ThePrint issued a statement saying the comments put their reporter at risk and they would seek legal recourse if the cyber harassment continued. The statement read, “ThePrint takes note of the vile, casteist comments targeted at our photojournalist Manisha Mondal. They are sexist, objectionable, often bordering on criminality. Their attacks also put our reporter at risk. We are making a record of this. If the behaviour continues, we will report the handles.”