{"id":307042,"date":"2025-11-07T15:05:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/?p=307042"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T05:24:16","slug":"targeting-of-jemimah-through-rage-bait-highlights-failure-of-xs-policy-and-success-of-bjps-hate-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/targeting-of-jemimah-through-rage-bait-highlights-failure-of-xs-policy-and-success-of-bjps-hate-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting of Jemimah through rage bait highlights failure of X’s policy and success of BJP’s hate politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even as the country was celebrating India’s cricket World Cup triumph, the social media space saw a proliferation of rage-bait content through which a section of Hindutva flagbearers targeted Indian batter Jemimah Rodriguez for thanking Jesus Christ after her match-winning knock in the semi-final match against Australia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Rage Bait?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Rage bait refers to content deliberately crafted to leverage a strong emotional reaction — most often anger or indignation — and thereby maximize engagement and ensure reward for the creator. The chronology is simple yet insidious: A post that evokes anger prompts one to react strongly. Reaction ensures engagement. More engagement means greater visibility and rewards from the platform.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A similar and perhaps more familiar concept is clickbait, which refers to content, typically a thumbnail or a headline, that evokes curiosity and entices the user to click on something.<\/p>\n

Even if a user finds rage-bait content difficult to relate to, they cannot ignore it, typically because it creates a strong emotional response. This, in turn, forces them to engage, ensuring financial gains for the author. It is a business model that encashes outrage.<\/span><\/p>\n

The spectrum of rage-bait content<\/a> spans from seemingly innocuous videos of influencers like Winta Zesu<\/a>, calling herself \u2018incredibly beautiful\u2019, to videos showing bizarre food concoctions, to videos of women answering basic general knowledge questions incorrectly to far more troubling content woven with communal and misogynistic undertones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In targeting Jemimah Rodriguez over her faith, Right-wing users such as Chandan Kumar (@HPhobiaWatch) made perhaps the vilest possible use of rage bait. Readers should note that Kumar has a history of targeting women on the internet. Alt news has documented this in the past<\/a> in detail.<\/p>\n

On November 2, the day India won the Cup, @HPhobiaWatch shared a distorted image mocking Jemimah Rodrigues, accompanied by a caption sarcastically implying that Jesus was not with her this time. In the final, Jemimah scored 24 runs. The post is pinned to the user\u2019s profile and has garnered around 3.2 million views, 13,000 likes, 2,700 comments, and 2,900 reposts at the time of this article being written. (Archive<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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It is worth noting that the user also posted an image stating \u201cwake up and ragebait like it’s your favourite breakfast\u201d on November 3, 2025. (Archive<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Another X-account, @FltLtAnoopverma, whose bio claims that they are a retired Indian Air Force official, shared a picture of Jemimah Rodrigues, with a caption \u201cJesus didn\u2019t help today?\u201d – mocking her faith after her dismissal in the final.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The post received 10,300 views and was thereafter deleted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The account made several such communal posts attacking Jemimah Rodrigues. The archives of those posts can be seen here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The propaganda handle, The Jaipur Dialogues (<\/span>@JaipurDialogues),<\/span> shared a similar post. It had a picture of Jemimah Rodrigues and in the caption, the user mocked her for her performance in the final match. \u201cBeing Sunday, Jesus is on holiday\u201d, @JaipurDialogues wrote, alluding to Jemimah’s faith.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The post amassed around 327,300 views, 10,000 likes, 1,800 comments, and 2,200 reposts. (Archive<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

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The account went on posting and reposting such communal rage baits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is noteworthy that the user also shared an X post with a caption, \u201cRakh Vishwas, Tu hai Shiva ka Das!\u201d, which, when translated to English, states, \u201cKeep faith, you are a devotee of Shiva\u201d. Women cricketers are seen in the post engaging in Hindu ceremonial practices. (Archive<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

The contrast is quite striking. Rodrigues\u2019 expression of her Christian faith and gratitude to Christ is ridiculed, while Hindu players engaging in religious rituals are celebrated. In fact, several cricketers who are Hindu by faith thanked their respective gods in post-match interviews. Jemimah was singled out because of her faith. That is, however, a different story.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanjay Dixit, the chairman of Jaipur Dialogues, also taunted Jemimah’s show of faith by writing, \u201c<\/span>What kind of Lord abandons its Australian children and makes a heathen team win? Abandoning 11 to gratify 1 – highly condemnable!\u201d (Archive<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Several X users have shared similar problematic and communal posts. Many of them are examples of rage bait. See the gallery below:<\/span><\/p>\n