ABSTRACT

Public events over the past ten years or so have highlighted the contradictions inherent in the role of digital technologies and social media in political and social change. In the Indian context, digital technologies have arguably enabled the consolidation of right-wing Hindutva power and of Prime Minister Modi as a political brand, as well as to public protests against corruption and sexual violence. Cyber-mobilization of protests against sexual violence excludes women from the traditionally excluded and marginalized. The chapter seeks to unpack the complexity that is intrinsic to such developments and how it reveals some of the inadequacies in extant conceptualizations of digital activism. L. Diamond prefers the term “liberation technology,” which he defines as “any form of information and communication technology that can expand political, social and economic freedom,” to demonstrate its alleged role in mobilizing popular protests in various locations, from Ukraine in 2004, Lebanon in 2005, Egypt in 2008, to Myanmar in 2007.