This book examines the phenomenon of "technocultural Hindu
nationalism" or the use of the internet by global Indian
communities for the promotion of Hindu nationalist ideologies.
Since the introduction of Western science and technology under
colonial rule in the eighteenth century, science and technology
have been used as instruments of transforming Indian society.
Scientific and technological expertise have been authorized as
essential attributes of a modern Indian selfhood. And the
possessors of technological skills have historically been vested
with the authority to speak for the nation. The associations
between technology and nationalism have condensed in ideas about
self and other, they have been incorporated in imaginings of the
state and the nation, and they have materialized as claims about
identity, community, and society. In the present historical moment,
this relationship manifests itself, in one form, as an online Hindu
nationalism that combines cultural majoritarian claims with
technological triumphalism. Technocultural Hindu nationalism yokes
together the core proposition of Hindu nationalist doctrine-the
idea that India is a Hindu nation and that religious minorities are
outsiders to it-with arguments about the imminent rise of Hindu
India as a technological superpower in the global capitalist
economy of the twenty-first century. Additionally, while
technocultural Hindu nationalism is obsessed with 'Western'
technology, it also defines itself, in strategic respects, in
opposition to Western civilization. On Hindu nationalist websites,
this apparent paradox is resolved through the construction of a
narrative where Hinduism is defined as the historical and
philosophicalfoundation of global capitalist modernity itself and
Hindus are presented as the natural heirs to that heritage. This
book locates these and other characteristics of Hindu nationalist
identity politics in cyberspace with reference to the relationship
between technology and nationalism in India from the period of
British colonial rule in the mid-eighteenth century to the present
era of an economically and technologically interconnected world.
This book argues that technocultural Hindu nationalism needs to be
understood in terms of the general dynamic of technology and
nationalism with its continuities and discontinuities: through the
period of colonial rule till Indian independence in 1947; the
period of Nehruvian nationalism with its emphasis on technological
development in a socialist framework; and the current post-1991
context following the liberalization of the Indian economy, which
accords pride of place to information technology and the internet.
This book also proposes that the particularities of technocultural
Hindu nationalism need, at the same time, to be assessed with
reference to the modalities of online communication. Toward this
end, the book takes shape as an interdisciplinary endeavor,
combining qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, and
drawing on historical scholarship about South Asia, social and
cultural theory, and the sociology of new media, specifically, the
field of internet studies. Technology and Nationalism in India is
an important book for all in communication, Internet studies, South
Asian studies, and postcolonial studies.
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