Possibilities for Creating Thinking Spaces to Resist Right-Wing Digital Circulations

In parts of the world where social media and digital platforms have a ubiquitous presence, a few private companies have considerable power over shaping the contours of everyday communication. Even as these companies position themselves as mere conduits, their decisions in terms of design, moderation policies, governing practices, etc. continue to have a huge impact on the media environment that we inhabit1. While it would be erroneous to position social media platforms as essentially the harbingers of revolution or the purveyors of evil, there is a need to locate the transformations they bring about within specific contexts. In the case of India which is the biggest market for many major social media platforms, these transformations intersect with the consolidation of right-wing Hindu majoritarianism. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which gained its biggest ever electoral victories under the leadership of Modi in the 2014 and 2019 elections is part of the Sangh Parivar or Sangh family of organizations that subscribes to the Hindutva ideology that positions Muslims and Christians in India as outgroups.2 The Hindutva groups in contemporary India are able to use digital platforms with precision, expanding their ecosystem of hate that targets the so-called outgroups and other targets who are positioned as dissenters or enemies. WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users in India, is a major platform for the Hindutva groups to make their circulations ubiquitous. While specific affordances of the platform and company policies contribute to the way in which these groups are able to use WhatsApp to expand their networks and reach,3 the position of the majoritarian state that targets the circulatory capacities of those who are perceived as dissenters also plays an important role in the expansion of Hindutva networks.4 These networks’ links to the ruling party allows them to spread misinformation and extreme speech with considerable impunity.5 

In such a context, what possibilities for intervention exist? In the Indian context, the digital distribution engine  that makes right-wing majoritarian narratives ubiquitous draws from the earlier communication practices of Hindutva groups and a history of sectarian divisions that resulted in the violent partition of India and Pakistan based on religion at the onset of independence from British colonial rule.6 My research which was centred around an analysis of the way in which Hindutva groups use WhatsApp was an attempt to find possible ways of forming thinking spaces with the help of artistic practice to resist right-wing circulations. This research which used practice-based artistic research methods relied on the iconoclastic traditions around the work of the weaver-poet Kabir who most probably lived in the 15th century.7 In an atmosphere where even those who attempt to resist the majoritarian narratives are compelled to use the framework of purported Hindu versus Muslim divisions, the idea was to work with the iconoclastic verses of Kabir who refused to identify as either a Hindu or Muslim. While there are differences of opinion about the exact biographical details around the persona of Kabir, verses attributed to him have certainly been part of articulations from the margins of the hierarchical caste order in South Asia.8 The oral traditions around these verses have stood the test of time over several centuries, and even today they resonate with the everyday life of common people in much of North India and other parts of South Asia.9

Against the backdrop of rising tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities in the wake of the increasing success of Hindu majoritarianism, there have been multiple efforts to use the traditions around the verses of Kabir to voice articulations that question essentialist notions of identity. These include documentary filmmaker Shabnam Virmani’s Kabir Project which has been in existence for almost two decades 10 as well as the NGO Eklavya’s work with Kabir singers from the folk tradition in the Malwa region in India.11 My attempts through the project Bura na milya koi (BNMK,I Didn’t Find Anyone Evil) to experiment with the verses of Kabir draw on the trajectory of such works. The project is titled after the famous verse of Kabir which states that: 

Bura jo khojan me gayi / Bura na milya koi/ Jab andar khoja aapna /to mujhse bura na koi 

I went in search of evil/ I didn’t find anyone evil/ When I looked within / There was no one more evil than myself. 12

The elements and outputs of the project BNMK are a response to the insights that I gained from my work on Hindutva WhatsApp Groups.13 Earlier academic work on the use of WhatsApp within violent and sectarian configurations in India points out the transmedial and intertextual nature of such circulations.14 Circulation of misinformation and extreme speech through WhatsApp that targets outgroups, as in the case of Hindutva circulations, are part of a larger ecosystem of hate in which multiple media, digital platforms, and face-to-face communication play important roles.15 As a result, a platform-specific approach may not be the best response to resist such circulations.16 While some quantitative studies suggest that ‘positive messages’ within WhatsApp groups could help to contain divisive circulations, my digital ethnography around specific public Hindutva WhatsApp groups did not corroborate the fruitfulness of such an approach.17 Within more or less homophilic Hindutva WhatsApp groups, those who attempted to voice any difference of opinion were often removed by the administrators of the groups. Another result of an approach limited to the specific platform to counter right-wing messages within the platform are what are commonly termed as ‘WhatsApp wars’ where disagreement between participants leads to a prolonged fight between them in their WhatsApp group. 

In such a context, the aim of the BNMK project was to create what can be termed as thinking spaces to question the construction of essentialist divisions, especially between Hindus and Muslims, which sustains the majoritarian right-wing project in India. Like in many other parts of the world, anti-intellectualism is a prominent trait of this right-wing project as well. Strategic use of particular affordances of specific social media platforms— including WhatsApp—in a conducive political environment enables the majoritarian right-wing actors in India to significantly contribute to an information order in which the upper-caste Hindu way of life is situated as the only permissible mode of being.18 One major instance of such a strategic use was the employment of various media forms and social media platforms to spread the narrative of ‘coronajihad’ in 2020 and which positioned Muslims as the principal spreaders of the COVID-19 virus in India.19 Other similar instances include the glorification of violence against outgroups—especially Muslims—through music videos which often use YouTube as a locus for circulation.20 

As a small artistic research project which was initiated by a single researcher-filmmaker with very limited resources, it was not the intention of BNMK to attempt to counter the scale and reach of the digital distribution engine of Hindutva. Instead, using the tradition of artistic research, BNMK attempts to experiment with the possibility of creating a template for using context-specific iconoclastic traditions to create thinking spaces to counter right-wing circulations. Within this experiment, it was important to not have an overreliance on social media platforms. This was because within the scheme of this project which was responding to a context where social media was used for sustaining sectarian divisions, it made sense to provide minimal free labour to social media platforms in terms of content creation.21 As a result, one of the important components of the BNMK project, which uses the iconoclastic traditions around Kabir’s verses, was the development of a series of printed cards. These cards contained the adaptation of selected verses from the repertoire of verses attributed to Kabir.22 The creation of these cards which contained artwork that responded to the verses was a result of a collaborative process. Hindi poet and academic Dr. Mrityunjay Tripathi and another writer who prefers to remain anonymous worked to adapt the verses as per the requirements of the project. The artwork and design for the cards were done by artists Dr. Vivek Prasad and Preeti Gupta who run the initiative Aranya Earthcraft. After the cards were developed, Navarun publications, which describes itself as a “publication collective of new ideas in Hindi language”23, decided to publish the cards so that they can be made available at a reasonable cost to the wider public in India. The profits from the sale of the cards will be used to sustain the activities of the grassroots activist film screening collective Cinema of Resistance.24

The aim behind the cards is to create conversational spaces that might have the potential to expand into thinking spaces that can resist the mobility of right-wing circulations around the verses of Kabir. In the information order around Hindutva, the process of fire tending25, which reaffirms the boundaries between the so-called Hindu and Muslim is of paramount importance. Hindutva actors and organizations which have a formidable grassroots presence, as well as a considerable hold over the social media ecosystem in the country, are able to turn even mundane aspects of everyday life including the consumption of meat26 or romantic partnerships across religions into fault lines of Hindu-Muslim divide.27In this context, opposing such narratives without contributing to the framework of the Hindu-Muslim divide is a difficult task. The right-wing logic of turning every conversation into a matter of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ reduces the space for meaningful communication across political and other divisions. This logic gets sharpened within the social media landscape that incentivizes polarized speech, especially in a context like that of India where trolls and other right-wing actors enjoy substantial impunity under a majoritarian state28: such incentivization can also be linked to the design of specific platforms that at times is not conducive to democratic affordances.29 So, the call of the BNMK cards is to create a conversational framework that aims to move away from such polarized speech and to form encounters across divisions that are not framed by notions of essentialist divisions. Here the indeterminacy of poetry becomes an important factor to facilitate such encounters where people might have very strong opinions about what they believe as ‘facts’. The liminality of the figure of Kabir who cannot be reduced to either Hindu or a Muslim also works as an important aspect from which to form such encounters.30 The advertisement for the cards exhort people to gift them to friends and family, especially in situations where those who do not subscribe to the majoritarian right-wing narratives find it difficult to engage with loved ones including members of the family who believe in such narratives,31 in order to foster meaningful conversations around the specific verses of Kabir which challenge the very basis of sectarian divisions. 

The art practices around BNMK were informed by a framework that locates digital circulations as a part of broader circulatory networks within a specific context. BNMK experiments with the possibility of drawing from specific trajectories from earlier forms of circulation and modes of speech to respond to the use of digital platforms by right-wing groups to deepen existing sectarian divisions. This experiment employs various modes of communication and forms of media. For example, I extended an invitation to people I encountered at certain research sites to respond to the adapted verses of Kabir from the BNMK cards on camera. Selected recordings from these encounters were edited and uploaded onto the YouTube channel of BNMK.32 Here the effort was to work against the logic of aspirational hatred33 where those who aim to gain prominence within the right-wing majoritarian networks use hate speech which is often recorded and shared over various digital platforms.34 Such speech is incentivized by the rising tide of majoritarianism in India, the impunity enjoyed by right-wing actors, and certain affordances on specific platforms. In such a context, BNMK uses filming processes and the cards developed as part of the project to intervene within this scenario and to incentivize a different form of speech that does not lend itself to the sedimentation of sectarian divisions around Hindu and Muslim identities. 

YouTube video of a young student from the state of Uttarakhand responding to the verses in the BNMK cards.

Overall, BNMK emerges out of an understanding that artistic processes can play an important role in reimagining the communicative spaces around us. However, it is not the intention of the project to argue that the current scenario where various digital platforms have deep entanglements with right-wing politics—as in the case of WhatsApp in India35—can be solved through the help of artistic projects alone. There is an urgent need to address the unsustainability of the current landscape of informational capitalism that lends itself to such entanglements with right-wing politics. Artistic research can make important contributions to reimagine the present modes of functioning of digital platforms and the circulatory possibilities around them; BNMK is an effort in that direction.

A video from the BNMK project in which Hindi writer and academic Dr. Mrityunjay Tripathi talks about the philosophy in Kabir’s verses.

Postscript: Institutional purchases of the BNMK cards will help to fund the activities of cinema of resistance which conducts film screenings across small towns and villages in North India with an aim to create spaces for progressive thought. For institutional purchase of the cards please contact navarun.files@gmail.com

Footnotes

1. T. Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media, New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

 2. F. Nizaruddin, „Resisting the Configurations for a Hindu Nation“, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 726–33.

3.  F. Nizaruddin, „Role of Public WhatsApp Groups Within the Hindutva Ecosystem of Hate and Narratives of “CoronaJihad”, International Journal of Communication, vol. 15, no. 0, p. 18.

4. A. P. Chatterji, T. B. Hansen, & C. Jaffrelot, Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism Is Changing India, Oxford University Press. 

5. F. Nizaruddin, „Institutionalised Riot Networks in India and Mobile Instant Messaging Platforms“, Asiascape: Digital Asia, vol. 15, pp. 1102–19.

6. R. Sundaram, „Hindu Nationalism’s Crisis Machine“, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 734–41.

7.  L. Hess, Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

8.  D.N. Lorenzen, „Dissent in Kabir and Kabir Panth“, V. Ramaswamy (ed.), Devotion and Dissent in Indian History, Foundation Books, pp. 169–87.

9.  These traditions are certainly not monolithic and the right-wing also makes serious efforts to appropriate them.

10.  Kabir Project, About Us | The Kabir Project, available at http://www.kabirproject.org/about%20us. 

11.  Hess, Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India.

12. Ajabshahar, Ajabshaher, available at http://ajabshahar.com/couplets/244/Hindu-Kahun-To-Hun-Nahin. 

13. F. Nizaruddin, „Institutionalised Riot Networks in India and Mobile Instant Messaging Platforms“ and „Role of Public WhatsApp Groups Within the Hindutva Ecosystem of Hate and Narratives of “CoronaJihad”.  

14. S. Banaji, R. Bhat, A. Agarwal, N. Passanha, & M. S. Pravin, „WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India“, LSE.ac.uk, available at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2019/11/11/whatsapp-vigilantes-an-exploration-of-citizen-reception-and-circulation-of-whatsapp-misinformation-linked-to-mob-violence-in-india/. 

15. F. Nizaruddin, „Resisting the Configurations for a Hindu Nation“.

16. Here I am talking about the efforts by individuals and civil society groups to contain such circulations. The platform itself can take several steps to limit the use of WhatsApp by right-wing actors such as the Hindutva groups.

17. P. Saha, B. Mathew, K. Garimella, & A. Mukherjee, “Short is the Road that Leads from Fear to Hate‘: Fear Speech in Indian WhatsApp Groups“, Proceedings of the Web Conference 2021, pp. 1110–21.

18. A. Basu,“Hindutva 2.0 as information ecology“, I. Keul (ed.), Spaces of Religion in Urban South Asia, New York: Routledge.

19. F. Nizaruddin, „Role of Public WhatsApp Groups Within the Hindutva Ecosystem of Hate and Narratives of “CoronaJihad”.

20. G. Farooq, „Old Conflicts in New Media Assemblages: India’s Cow Vigilantism and YouTube“, Asiascape: Digital Asia, vol. 9, no. 1–2, pp. 47–70.

21. Within the profit-making model of these platforms, both right-wing content and efforts to oppose them using digital platforms contribute to the sustenance of that model. 

22. Within the rich oral traditions around this repertoire, it is very difficult to ascertain the ‘authenticity’ of specific verses as the work of Kabir. See P. Agrawal, Akath kahānī prema kī: Kabīra kī kavitā aur unkā samaya, Rajkamal Prakashan.

23. Navarun, available at https://www.facebook.com/navarunpublication. 

24. For a detailed description of the history and relevance of cinema of resistance which takes independent political cinema to small-town and rural audiences in North India, see S. Kishore, „Reframing the Margin: Regional Film Festivals in India, a Case Study of Cinema of Resistance“, S. M. Tascón & T. Wils (eds.), Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, Bristol: Intellect and also Cinema of Resistance (n.d.), Cinema Of Resistance, available at https://cinemaofresistance.in.

25. P. R. Brass, The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

26. The Wire Staff (2021), „Videos of Hindutva Groups Forcibly Shutting Down Meat Shops for Navratri Emerge From Haryana, MP, UP“, The Wire, available at  https://thewire.in/communalism/hate-watch-hindutva-meat-shop-ban-navratri. 

27. For example, romantic relationships between non-Muslim (especially Hindu) women and Muslim men are referred to as ‘love-jihad’, see H. Ellis-Petersen & A. Khan, „They Cut Him Into Pieces’: India’s ‘Love Jihad‘ Conspiracy Theory Turns Lethal“, The Guardian, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/21/they-cut-him-into-pieces-indias-love-jihad-conspiracy-theory-turns-lethal. 

28. Nizaruddin, „Institutionalised Riot Networks in India and Mobile Instant Messaging Platforms”.

29.  J. Forestal, Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments, New York: Oxford University Press.

30. One of the legends around Kabir’s death says that Hindus and Muslims quarrelled over his dead body and that a shroud was placed over the body which turned into flowers and both communities took these flowers, see S. Pandey „Kabir Das Chose This Place for Death to Dispel a Myth“, Deccan Herald, available at https://www.deccanherald.com/content/202754/kabir-das-chose-place-death.html. Most stories around Kabir’s life say that he belonged to a Muslim weaver family; however, many of these stories suggest that he was adopted as a child by his Muslim parents.

31. AFP, „Fear My Bigoted Parents More Than Police’: Wars On WhatsApp Over NRC-CAA Protests Divide Families“, News18, available at https://www.news18.com/news/india/fear-my-bigoted-parents-more-than-police-whatsapp-wars-over-nrc-caa-protests-divide-families-2434925.html. 

 32. The channel is currently in a pilot phase, and I am trying to raise resources to develop it further.

33. A. Appadurai, „A Syndrome of Aspirational Hatred Is Pervading India“, The Wire, available at https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/unnao-citizenship-bill-violence-india. 

34. R. Mukherjee, „Mobile Witnessing on WhatsApp: Vigilante Virality and the Anatomy of Mob Lynching”, South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 79–101.

35. Nizaruddin, „Role of Public WhatsApp Groups Within the Hindutva Ecosystem of Hate and Narratives of “CoronaJihad”

References

AFP, „Fear My Bigoted Parents More Than Police’: Wars On WhatsApp Over NRC-CAA Protests Divide Families“, News18, available at https://www.news18.com/news/india/fear-my-bigoted-parents-more-than-police-whatsapp-wars-over-nrc-caa-protests-divide-families-2434925.html. Last accessed on 13 September 2022. 

Agrawal, P., Akath kahānī prema kī: Kabīra kī kavitā aur unkā samaya, Rajkamal Prakashan.

Ajabshahar (n.d.), Ajabshaher, available at http://ajabshahar.com/couplets/244/Hindu-Kahun-To-Hun-Nahin. Last accessed on 13 September 2022. 

Appadurai, A., „A Syndrome of Aspirational Hatred Is Pervading India“, The Wire, available at https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/unnao-citizenship-bill-violence-india. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Banaji, S., Bhat, R., Agarwal, A., Passanha, N., & Pravin, M. S., „WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and circulation of WhatsApp misinformation linked to mob violence in India“, LSE.ac.uk, available at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2019/11/11/whatsapp-vigilantes-an-exploration-of-citizen-reception-and-circulation-of-whatsapp-misinformation-linked-to-mob-violence-in-india/. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Basu, A., „Hindutva 2.0 as information ecology“, I. Keul (ed.), Spaces of Religion in Urban South Asia, New York: Routledge.

Brass, P. R., The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Chatterji, A. P., Hansen, T. B., & Jaffrelot, C., Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism Is Changing India, Oxford University Press.

Cinema of Resistance, Cinema Of Resistance, available at https://cinemaofresistance.in. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Ellis-Petersen, H., & Khan, A., „They Cut Him Into Pieces’: India’s ‘Love Jihad‘ Conspiracy Theory Turns Lethal“, The Guardian, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/21/they-cut-him-into-pieces-indias-love-jihad-conspiracy-theory-turns-lethal. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Farooq, G., „Old Conflicts in New Media Assemblages: India’s Cow Vigilantism and YouTube“, Asiascape: Digital Asia, vol. 9, no. 1–2, pp. 47–70. 

Forestal, J.,  Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments, New York: Oxford University Press.

Gillespie, T., Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media, New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

Hess, L., Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kabir Project, About Us | The Kabir Project, available at http://www.kabirproject.org/about%20us. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Kishore, S., „Reframing the Margin: Regional Film Festivals in India, a Case Study of Cinema of Resistance“, S. M. Tascón & T. Wils (eds.), Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, Bristol: Intellect.

Lorenzen, D. N., „Dissent in Kabir and Kabir Panth“, V. Ramaswamy (ed.), Devotion and Dissent in Indian History, Foundation Books, pp. 169–87,

Mukherjee, R., „Mobile Witnessing on WhatsApp: Vigilante Virality and the Anatomy of Mob Lynching, South Asian Popular Culture, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 79–101. 

Navarun, available at https://www.facebook.com/navarunpublication. Last accessed on 13 September 2022. 

Nizaruddin, F., „Resisting the Configurations for a Hindu Nation“, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 726–33. 

Nizaruddin, F., „Role of Public WhatsApp Groups Within the Hindutva Ecosystem of Hate and Narratives of “CoronaJihad”, International Journal of Communication, vol. 15, no. 0, p. 18.

Nizaruddin, F., „Institutionalised Riot Networks in India and Mobile Instant Messaging Platforms“, Asiascape: Digital Asia, vol. 15, pp. 1102–19

Pandey, S., „Kabir Das Chose This Place for Death to Dispel a Myth“, Deccan Herald, available at https://www.deccanherald.com/content/202754/kabir-das-chose-place-death.html. Last accessed on 13 September 2022. 

PTI. , „PM Modi Invoking Saint Kabir for Political Gains: Mayawati“, Indian Express, available at https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pm-modi-invoking-saint-kabir-for-political-gains-mayawati-5237575/. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.

Saha, P., Mathew, B., Garimella, K., & Mukherjee, A., “Short is the Road that Leads from Fear to Hate‘: Fear Speech in Indian WhatsApp Groups“, Proceedings of the Web Conference 2021, pp. 1110–21. 

Sundaram, R., „Hindu Nationalism’s Crisis Machine“, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 734–41. 

The Wire Staff, „Videos of Hindutva Groups Forcibly Shutting Down Meat Shops for Navratri Emerge From Haryana, MP, UP“, The Wire, available at  https://thewire.in/communalism/hate-watch-hindutva-meat-shop-ban-navratri. Last accessed on 13 September 2022.