TechAgainstFascism

We — engineers, researchers, analysts, and designers — of the technology industry, unflinchingly condemn the fascist Indian government and the brutality it enacts on citizens. The teargassing, sexual and physical abuse, and unlawful arrests by the police all over the country are a gross violation of universal human rights. The right to protest is fundamental to India’s constitution and history. Ahimsa was India’s weapon of resistance against the British and showed the path to independence — by demonizing and attempting to suppress nonviolent action that questions its actions, the Indian state is forgetting the values and tactics that India so deeply cherishes. Ahimsa further inspired many world leaders, like Martin Luther King, who said, “we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension […] We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with.” The state-sponsored brutality against protestors must stop immediately.

The multi-cultural soul and democratic ethos of the beautiful country of India is now being mutilated through divisive and fascist schemes by the national government. Militarization, suppression, surveillance, illegal detention, sexual abuse, and religious polarization by the current government are unrecognizably splintering the democratic nation. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 combined with the National Register for Citizens (NRC), is a deeply anti-Muslim scheme that will create greater statelessness and global disparity for Muslims, growing worse with India’s economic decline and climate change. The Act is political and electoral towards building a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, while excluding persecuted Tamil Muslims from Sri Lanka, Ahmadiyya and Hazara Muslims from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. The state of Kashmir is under siege, with leaders, activists and journalists gagged and placed under house arrest. The state of Assam is under lock down and unrest, rendering 1.9 million people as stateless and ‘illegal’ after the imposition of NRC. Religion has never served as a prerequisite for Indian citizenship. Such actions are unconstitutional and act against the very citizens of the country that the government is under oath to serve.

The Internet — the open ecosystem that we, tech workers, worked so hard to build, and our entire humanity benefits from — is banned in Assam, Delhi, elsewhere, as well as in Kashmir for the fifth month in a row (the world’s longest Internet ban). While portraying India as marching towards ‘Digital India’ and courting tech company business investment, the regressive government views the Internet as a political tool for suppression of citizen dissent, while utilizing the same networks to organize and spread fake content.

We refuse to silently witness the violence unleashed on Indians. We oppose We also call upon technology leaders like Sundar Pichai (Alphabet), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber), Mukesh Ambani (Jio), Gopal Vittal (Bharti Airtel), Kalyan Krishnamurthy (Flipkart), and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe) to take a stance and publicly denounce the fascist acts by the Indian government. We call upon the leaders to use technology as a force for good, to refuse to share user details with the government, refuse to shut off the Internet at the government’s whim, provide tools for citizen mobilization, and ensure that content moderation is not skewing pro-government.

With record high unemployment levels, plummeting economy, and rising farmer suicides, such ultra-nationalist and diversionary tactics are attempts by the Indian government to mask over its incompetence over the biggest socio-economic crises in the country. The violent actions and fascist ideology deeply breach the spirit of India envisioned by founding leaders like Bhagat Singh, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Kanaklata Barua, Ashfaqulla Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, Subramaniya Bharathi, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sarojini Naidu.tech company implementation of NRC. We fight fascism back.

***In the face of recent retaliation from tech companies against protesting employees, and from the Indian government on family and loved ones, some of us withhold our names, but every signature here is authentic.***

If you want to sign this letter, fill out this form. If you feel comfortable adding your name and lending your weight to the cause, we welcome it. We will update the total number and names of signatories regularly.

In solidarity,

35/M/San Jose, Software Engineer, Google
26/F/San Francisco, User Experience Researcher, Uber
31/M/Seattle, Research Scientist, Microsoft Research
33/M/San Francisco, Technical Program Manager, Uber
Sales Solution Engineer, Google
35/F/Seattle, User Experience Researcher, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Trust and Safety Manager, Google
GTM Strategy Lead, Google
Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, Google Inc.
Software Engineer, Google
Program Manger, Google
26/M/Sunnyvale, CA
Software Engineer, Google
37/M/San Francisco, Technical Program Manager, Google
38/F/San Francisco, Software Engineer, Salesforce
Tech consultant , Amazon
Data Scientist, MIQ
Lalit Gupta, Sales, Google
Anonymous, Program Manager, Youtube
User Experience Researcher, Google
User Experience Researcher, Google
38/M/SF Bay Area, CA, Software Engineer, Facebook
Software Engineer, Quantcast
Software Engineer, Google
Product Manager, Google
46/M/New York, NY, Technical Program Manager, Google
Mohan Konanoor, Software Engineer, Google
Software Engineer, EPAM
31/M/Mountain View,CA, Software Engineer, Google
Kaushik, Research Scientist, Google
Program Manager, Google
Ashish K, Program Manager, Alphabet
anonymous, Software Engineer, Ads
Software Engineer, Google
38/M/Facebook
Software Engineer, Facebook
Naeem Lakhani, Business System Analyst, HCL (Google)
Software Engineer, Google
31/M/Seattle, Research Scientist, Microsoft
Umar Farooq, Research Scientist, Microsoft
Zain Qasmi, Data Engineer, Google
anon, Research Scientist, Google
36/M/Sunnyvale, CA, Program Manager, Google
26/M/Sunnyvale, California, Software Engineer, Google
Nithya Krishnamoorthy, Software Engineer, Google
Irfan Tusneem, Software Engineer, Google
Solutions Consultant, Google
Aashni Ruwala, Sales, Google
anon, Software Engineer, Search
Software Engineer, Google
Product Manager, Google
anon, Product Manager, Amazon
35/M/Sunnyvale, CA, Software Engineer, Google
User Experience Designer, Google
Shubham Chaudhary, Research Scientist, Microsoft Research India
29/F/Israel, Software Engineer, Google
23/M/EMEA, Sales, Google
26/M/Bangalore, User Experience Designer, Obvious.in
26/M/Bangalore, User Experience Designer, Obvious.in
26/M/Maryland, User Experience Researcher, University of Maryland
41/M/Mountain View, Product Manager, Google
30/M/San Francisco, Product Manager, Microsoft
30/M/San Francisco, Software Engineer, Robotics startup
37/M/Menlo Park, Software Engineer, Facebook
34/F/Santa Clara, Product Manager, Ford
33/F/San Francisco, User Experience Designer, Design startup
31/M/Bangalore, Program Manager, Google India
31/X/New York, NY, Software Engineer, Google
Anivar Aravind, Head of Products and Engineering, INBE
Technical Program Manager, Cloud AI
40/M/Chennai, Supervisor, Sanmina
M/Kanpur, UP, India, Software Engineer, IIT Kanpur
33/F/Bangalore, IT Operations, TCS
Eric Schultz, Software Engineer, CommitChange
Software Engineer, SkySrinath
26/M/Seattle , Software Engineer, Microsoft
Vishnu, Bangalore, Software Engineer, Bangalore
26/M/Mumbai, Software Engineer, Accenture
41/M/Washington, DC, Sales, Global Sales, Customer Engineering
Mohammad Najmuzzaman, Product Manager, Capria VentureBasecamp
Anas Mp, Software Engineer, Binalyto Data Services Pvt. Ltd.
Research Scientist, Kerala
29/M/Goa, India, Software Engineer, Freelance
M/35/Binu, Technical Program Manager, Bangalore
31/M/Bangalore, Software Engineer, DellEMC
23/M/Kerala, Software Engineer, Anonymous
M/Bengaluru, Program Manager, Grab
Tajammul ahmed, Software Engineer, Wipro
27, F , Software Engineer, Anonymous
Mujeeb Rahman K, Software Engineer, Alpha fork Technologies
26/M/Seattle, WA, Software Engineer, Microsoft
Vishnu Kumar, Software Engineer, Paychex India
Vignesh Nandhini Velu, User Experience Designer, Xperian
37/F/Amsterdam, Software Engineer, Altran
CS PhD Candidate, User Experience Researcher, Northeastern University
31/F /London, Data strategy , Publicis media
37/M/Sydney, Software Engineer, Dolby
KC , Marketing, Google LLC
Software Engineer, Yelp
30/M/Mumbai, India, Software Engineer, 63 moons technologies, India
Fighter28, Sales, Searchlight Health
33/M/Bengaluru, Product Manager, CrowdANALYTIX
George, Software Engineer, Linways Technologies
22/F/Bangalore, Product Engineer, Obvious
32/M/Washington DC, Software Engineer, Mapbox
Anon, Software Engineer, Wipro Ltd.
Shubham Jain, Software Engineer, Google
29/M/Delhi, Product Manager, OYO
Anonymous, Data scientist, InfoEdge India
Software Engineer, Google
28/M/Noida,India, Software Engineer, GrapeCity India
25/M/Bangalore, India, Product Manager, Allstate
26/M/Mumbai, Software Engineer, Truebil
anonymous, Technical Program Manager, Google
Muqthar Mohammad, Operations Manager, Teleperformance
26/M/Pune, IN, Data Analyst, Cotiviti
Kumar, Software Engineer, Times Internet
Technical Architect, ThoughtFocus
Dr Elizabeth Patitsas, Asst professor of computer science, McGill University
Software Engineer, STC
Mukesh, Business Analyst, IBM
Rehan 24/M/New Delhi, Software Engineer, NTT DATA
Product Manager, Ossicles consultingKP
36/M/ Bangalore, Software Engineer, Intel
Chithra Damodaran, Program Manager, HCL
Shiv, Technical Program Manager, Anonymous
27/M/Mountain View,CA, Software Engineer, Google
32/M/San Francisco, CA, Software Engineer, Google
ali sajid raza, Trainer, Wipro
38/M/Toronto, Technical Program Manager, JPMorgan,
Program Manager, ACC
Rashmi, Business Analyst, DST Worldwide Services Pvt Ltd
Chandra Mohan Jha, Software Engineer, NIC,
Marketing, Active India Digital Products
36/F/Mountain View, CA, Program Manager, Google
Rafi Ahmad, Program Manager, Google
29/M/Tucson,Arizona, Graduate Student, University of Arizona
Anonymous, Software Engineer, Apex technologies

Image credit: Solidarity By Fahmi, SG Creative Commons