Shutdown, shadowbanned, doxxed: Hindutva governance and digital governmentalities
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Taylor & Francis
Department of Politics and International Studies
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2026.2668363
Department of Politics and International Studies
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2026.2668363
Abstract
Description
This article details the internet shutdowns, platform shadowbanning, and countermovement doxxing as endured by feminist activists in India. Taken together, these practices and tools represent a digital Hindutva governance that comprises and co-constitutes the power of the state, corporations, and pro-government actors. This governance works through diffused mechanisms that further construct a new digital governmentality, as activists limit their own activity in response to perceived threats. The findings build on feminist scholarship detailing digital space as gendered and challenge reductive, state-centric narratives about digital capitalism and colonialism. The study is based on digital ethnographic fieldwork with feminist activists in Hindi- and English-speaking northern India between 2019 and 2023 and demonstrates the value of thinking with those who must navigate, endure, and resist digital power.
Leverhulme Trust
Leverhulme Trust