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New Media & Society
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Global primordialities: virtual identity politics in online Hindutva and online Dalit discourse

Rohit Chopra

Emory University, USA

This article analyzes the online representations of the identity politics discourse of the elite Hindu nationalist community and the subaltern Dalit community. The assumptions underlying assertions about Hindu and Dalit identity on select Hindu nationalist and Dalit websites are remarkably similar despite deep ideological differences between the two. Developments in the Indian technological and cultural fields in the 1990s have enabled the emergence of a new mode of representing collective identity (‘global primordiality’), which explains the resemblance between online Hindu nationalist and online Dalit discourse. The logic of global primordiality typically finds expression in cyberspace, where the realms of technology and culture intersect. The representational framework of global primordiality is shaped primarily by Hindu nationalists who also occupy a privileged position as elites in the Indian technological field. In its participation in cyberspace, Dalit discourse may tend to mirror this dominant mode of online representation, even as it remains opposed to Hindu nationalism.

Key Words: Dalit • global • Hindu • history • India • internet • nationalism • online • primordial • technology

New Media & Society, Vol. 8, No. 2, 187-206 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1461444806061942
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[Abstract] [PDF]