| Chapter 1: | Introduction: Technology and Nationalism in India From Colonialism to Cyberspace |
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- 1. What are the defining characteristics of the relationship between technology and nationalism in different historical phases (the era of anticolonial nationalism, the period of Nehruvian socialism, and the present context of globalization and Hindu nationalism)?
- 2. How do these multiple legacies inform technocultural Hindu nationalism?
- 3. What is the consequence of the intersection of Hindu nationalist discourse and the Internet when compared to other Indian nationalisms as these manifest themselves online?
- 4. How do the modalities of Internet communication contribute to the forms taken by Hindu nationalism in cyberspace?
A description of technocultural Hindu nationalism, with reference to its immediate and longer histories, will illuminate the salience of these concerns.
To the observer of Indian affairs, the twenty-first century presents two strikingly contradictory sets of images about the Indian state and society. India simultaneously appears as a rising economic star in the international firmament and a politically unstable and fragile society, at once the vital technology hub of the global future and a land devastated by primordial religious and nationalist conflicts, a nation both poised to play an active role in world matters in the new millennium and condemned to infinitely repeating the traumas of her past. On the one hand, the Indian state and citizens exemplify scientific and technological prowess coupled with economic enterprise—qualities that optimally place the country and people to reap the rewards of global capitalist modernity. On the other hand, the Indian nation and inhabitants seem to stand for chauvinistic nationalism and religious discord—atavistic burdens that bode ill for the economic, political, and social future of the country.
For the last several years, the diasporic Indian media, at least its English-language component, has been churning out stories on the rise of the nation as a new global economic and technological superpower, a development attributed to the free market reforms initiated in 1991. Coverage of India in the American press, although less extensive, has emphasized the same kinds of facts, with cover stories and op-ed pieces touting the success of the Indian information technology (IT) industry as proof of the benefits of the free market and globalization.