Queering the Hindu Rashtra: Hindu Nationalism and Social Media in Contemporary India

Abstract

This paper looks at how 'ordinary' citizens make use of social media, notably Twitter, in order to delineate how certain queer communities are either being co-opted or completely erased from the populist language of contemporary Hindutva that increasingly seeks to portray itself as a 'liberal', 'progressive' force. It looks at queerness in terms of both a sexual and a political idenity, in order to address how caste, class, religion, and sexuality inform each other, while complicating our understanding of the internal 'Other' of Hindu nationalism, and of contemporary Hindu nationalism itself. Instead of entering the conversation around religion, gender, sexuality and caste in relation to acts of physical violence meted out on those who fall outside of the Hindu nationalist ideological ambit, I use gaalis (abuses) and the discourse around cows, as it emerged on social media, as my 'ordinary' analytical framework to understand how women from the marginalised communities (non-Hindu, non-upper caste, non-heteronormative) access and lay claims to Digital India.

Full essay to appear soon