Archiving as History-Making: Religious Politics of Social Media in India

• Published in: Communication, culture & critique Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 212 - 230
• Main Author: Udupa, Sahana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-06-2016
• Subjects: Hindu Nationalism; India; Online Archiving; Online Religious Politics; Social Media
• ISSN: 1753-9129; 1753-9137
• DOI: 10.1111/cccr.12114

This article explores the case of right‐wing Hindu nationalist volunteers in India, to turn a critical eye on a digital practice that has become prominent on new media in India in recent times—the assembling of facts, figures, and treatises as an ideological exercise by the net‐savvy “nonexperts.” Using qualitative methods, I argue that this practice of online archiving constitutes a distinct politics of history‐making. I show how archiving‐as‐history‐making is pertinent especially for religion's interface with cyberspace and the varied ways in which online users participate in religious politics. Online archiving for religious politics offers a sobering, and even troubling, picture of the digital commons, and unsettles some of the universalist claims underlying much celebrated user‐generated content.