ENTERPRISE HINDUTVA: FIVE PROTOTYPES IN URBAN INDIA

MORGENSTIERNE LECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OSLO BY SAHANA UDUPA

DECEMBER 1 2017

The expansion of social media in India has marked a distinct debate culture among the middle classes, shaping a new milieu of ideological affiliations. Amidst a diversity of online voices, social networking sites are active with an alert and assertive group of Hindu nationalist sympathizers whom I call the “ideological warriors of New India”. This talk delineates the new media cultures surrounding this ideological group, and the varied motivations that cluster around the enthusiasm to announce the arrival of the confident “right-wingers”. The talk suggests that this could be best understood as “enterprise Hindutva” which is distinct from a cadre based and organizationally controlled ideological project. The talk will sketch five prototypes of enterprise Hindutva in urban India, and how digital media is crucial for connecting the dispersed agents and providing the conditions for religious nationalism to fluoresce in a net fed urban India.
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