| Chapter 1: | Introduction: Technology and Nationalism in India From Colonialism to Cyberspace |
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Through its policies of economic and technological development since the 1980s—but especially the 1990s—the Indian state has also endorsed nonresident Indians (NRIs) working in technology as an immensely valuable resource of human capital for the Indian nation.27 Muppidi argues that with liberalization the NRI has been inscribed in state discourse as the most authentic incarnation of postcolonial citizenship.28 Indian expatriates, such as students and professionals, are also a key segment for promoting the growth of Internet usage.29
Scholars agree that the core support for the Hindu nationalist movement is drawn from India’s middle classes or Indian elites.30 Corbridge and Harriss view Hindu nationalism as an “elite” revolt, reflecting “the interests and aspirations especially of the middle classes and upper castes.”31 They also note that India’s urban socioeconomic elites have provided strong support for the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 1996 and 1999 general elections in India. Urban Indian socioeconomic elites are also among the prime beneficiaries of advances in technology in liberalized India. A strong bastion of support for Hindu nationalism is an overseas, largely U.S.-based, Hindu population.32 The IT professionals feted by the Indian state are well represented among the diasporic Hindu nationalists.
The Internet seems to be the chosen medium for the Hindu nationalists working in technology to promote Hindutva. “The much touted thousands of computer and software experts,” who count among the recent Indian migrants to the United States, “help maintain over five hundred VHP Web sites (www.vhp.org) with their messages of Hindutva, Hindu history, and Muslim-bashing.”33 Rajagopal notes that “with the proliferation of software engineers from India, the internet has become a site for expansion” of Hindu nationalist discourse.34 According to Vinay Lal, many Hindu nationalist Web sites are produced by politically and culturally conservative Indian software programmers in the United States.35
The overlap between the profiles of technology workers and Hindu nationalists suggests the existence of a group whose members view both technological expertise and a narrowly defined Hinduness as ideal attributes of Indian identity.