From Marginalized to Supremacist: The Use of Intersectional Identities in Online Networks

The emergence of social media has allowed for new forms of local-global solidarity networks and the sophisticated analysis of their participants’ intersectional identities to achieve their goals. This paper focuses on one particular form of such online networks - those in support of Hindu supremacist ideology and politics in India. Comprising both Indians located in India and NRIs or non resident Indians located largely in Western countries like the US or UK; such networks understand themselves through an intersectional lens as both victims of racism abroad and in danger of marginalization at home. Valid critiques of racism and other forms of minoritization in the Western context are parlayed into evidence of such existential threat in India, despite being both demographically and politically dominant in local contexts.

My paper is a theoretical examination of how the intersectional identities of participants in cross border, online networks allows for new justifications of majoritarianism to emerge. I argue that while consciousness raising of participants’ identities in social networks has often been considered a tool for mobilizing support for social justice - counter movements like the ones in support of Hindu majoritarianism use similar tactics in order to further their goals. I argue that these movements use the rhetoric of intersectionality, particularly the language of inequality and subalternity in the West to posit a sense of victimhood at home that engenders support for Hindu supremacist politics. The language of subalternity is used to win recognition and legitimacy both in India and abroad, allowing for the creation of a compelling counter narrative to democratic solidarity networks. Such networks not only attract further support for right wing supremacist viewpoints, but also succeed in positioning themselves as legitimate spaces that arbitrate the future of Indian nationhood.