As Modi Takes Oath, the BJP’s Delhi Website Gets Hacked to Display Beef Recipes

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is back for more following a thumping victory in the 2019 Indian elections, with Day 1 of Modi 2.0 starting today. But while Modi was caught up taking oath of office at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Thursday evening, someone hacked the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi website. And clearly they had a bone to pick because they made the ruling party’s website all about beef.

Not only did the hacker add the term ‘BEEF’ to website sections, but he also replaced the pages of the website with images and recipes of beef dishes. Even the homepage came with a hunky serving of meatloaf, with ‘LEADERSHIP’ giving way to ‘BEEF LEADERSHIP’.

Hovering the cursor over ‘BEEF ITEMS’ (in the place of the original ‘DELHI TEAM’) opened a dropdown menu with a list of six different beef dishes. Clicking on one of them led to a different page with the list of ingredients and detailed recipes, along with a message: Hacked by SHADOW_V1P3R. The website has been restored now.

And this isn’t a rare case. The BJP’s official website was hacked earlier this year and came loaded with lines that basically said ‘the party is fooling the Indian citizens’, anti-Modi memes and Muppet videos. Apparently, one of the reasons this keeps happening is because BJP’s website doesn’t have the https certification which can keep a website secure.

In Hinduism, the cow is considered a sacred being to protect and revere. So while some politicians want to solve all our problems by making the cow India’s national mother, the BJP’s stance since 2014 has been to try and ban people from eating beef across the country. They’ve succeeded in certain states. But amidst accusations of BJP aiding the recent arrest of an Adivasi professor who spoke about eating beef on his Facebook two years ago, and the various incidents of violence by cow vigilantes, sections of the country are kinda pissed. And that’s probably what prompted this hacker to dissent. Using humour to expose the ridiculous and challenge the absurdities, anyway, has been a long-standing tradition for activists.

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