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The ‘WhatsApp uncles’ are worried. Like the October weather, the social and political climate around them is beginning to change and they don’t quite know what to make of it.

The youth protests burgeoning across India over the last few months have begun to shake their faith in the Narendra Modi government and its assurance of the equivalent of a 1,000-year reich. For a demographic accustomed to having all the answers, this turn of events is proving unsettling.

In order to understand how the WhatsApp uncle is likely to be dealing with this changing reality, we must first understand his psychology.

The term ‘WhatsApp uncle’, popularised by journalist Ravish Kumar, typically describes a middle-aged or older man who confidently forwards unverified messages, doctored images, fake news and propaganda as fact, relying on WhatsApp forwards rather than credible sources. He is also remarkably resistant to correction. (This definition applies equally well to ‘WhatsApp aunties’.) 

Over the last few years, however, the term WhatsApp uncle has come to represent a broader personality type characterised by the following traits:

He is always right (even when spectacularly wrong)

Bertrand Russell once observed, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” The WhatsApp uncle, sadly, tends to belong in the former category.

To him, self-doubt is a foreign concept, because the facts are whatever he says they are, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Admitting a mistake is unthinkable, because, if he........

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