So with the justifiably growing demands for moving on to Indian apps, amongst those being touted as Indian alternatives is the Hike Messenger.

Understandably, their creators are Indian.

But when I decided to did into them a bit, their wikipedia page gave a V.E.R.Y interesting piece of info about their ‘Indianness’ – Apparently, on 16 Aug 2016, just one day after the 69th anniversary of Indian independence, Hike got a 175 Million Dollar investment from a Tencent Group led grouping (India’s WhatsApp Rival Hike Raises $175M led by Tencent).

Now who is Tencent, I asked.

Once again Wikipedia came to the rescue!

Tencent is a Fcuking CHINESE company based out of Shenzen!

Yup.

A Chinese company owns a substantial stake in an ‘Indian’ App!

What I did next on Wikipedia was to check out the owners of Tencent. Unsurprisingly, out came the name of Shri Ma Huateng.

Who’s Ma Huateng, you asked?

Well, he has a Wikipedia page too!

That page tells that he is a member of the Chinese Communist Party – a VERY SENIOR member at that. Heck, he is a part of the 12th National People’s Congress!

As far as the other co-founders go, not much is available as of now about them, but I’ll not be surprised if they too are linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

But for the time being, I’ll leave it.

And then there is another ‘beautiful’ thing about Tencent.

TENCENT ARE THE OWNERS OF WECHAT!

Yup, let that sink in a bit!

WeChat – the preferred social engineering tool of the Communist Party of China!

And they own a sizeable stake in ‘Indian’ Hike Messenger!

Interesting, no?

Yes, the same WeChat that DELETED all references to the Indian Prime Minister’s statement on the India China FaceOff from their platform!

Now tell me that Tencent will NOT be interfering in content management or such likes in Hike Messenger, and I’ll show you a white coloured marble building in Agra that I wish to sell!

Of course, there is also the ‘small’ issue of private data of the 10 million plus mostly Indian users who have installed this app, that can potentially be accessible to the Chinese Communist Party member owned Tencent. 

Chilling, I’ll say.

Hope you are able to see where I am going with this chain of thoughts.

If not, then let me shout it out for you – HIKE MESSENGER HAS A SUBSTANTIAL CHINESE FOOTPRINT.

Period.

At the very least, they are earning money from you and me and sending a chunk of it to China, thanks to the stake owned by the CCP member led Tencent.

So to all that are selling Hike as an Indian messenger app to me, I’ll say Thanks, but no thanks!

I’m not going to install an app that can potentially make available my personal data to a company owned by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Hence, I am betting on Chirrups App as an Indian alternative instead of Hike or such likes. If it succeeds, I’ll let go of all social media platforms that I’m using.

This is my recommendation for you all – I get good vibes from them.

Rest is your choice!