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The Indian information technology (IT) sector and the mobilization of far-right extremism


Globally, the information technology (IT) sector forms the core infrastructure for the accelerated production and proliferation of far-right extremism. 

While regulatory frameworks responding to this global challenge often work with the assumption that the proliferation of hate is one of the side effects of transformations in information technology (IT), our research and policy advocacy at the Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) points to a far deeper problem, the intrinsically profitable nature of hate. 

Particularly salient here is the collaboration between global tech and far-right extremism, with hate being an intrinsically profitable resource for the IT sector. 

Hate multiplies exponentially on technologically mediated platforms, generating an ever-expanding audience base for advertisers and this forms the business model of big Tech.

In the context of the far-right fascist ideology of Hindutva, the proliferation of the IT sector in India in the form of knowledge process outsourcing centers and its role in feeding global IT as a service and knowledge processing hub is critical to the accelerated circulation of extremism. 

Hubs such as Bangalore and Gurgaon are both IT nodes for the fascist laboratory of Hindutva hate and drivers for tech-based profiteering through extraction and exploitation. 

Consider here the popularity of hate figures such as Tejasvi Surya, linked with the extremist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), representing the Bangalore South constituency. The peddler of Hindutva extremism in IT is RSS-trained, convent-educated, educated in engineering and management, English conversant, and upwardly mobile. Her/his upper caste pedagogy shapes how the IT Hindutva ideologue approaches merit, minorities, and diversity (one that serves her/his caste-privileged interests).

From engineers working in various IT-related sectors producing applications (apps) that disseminate hate (such as the Bulli Bai app that targeted and auctioned Muslim women activists, intellectuals, and journalists), generating automated technology infrastructures for rendering hate viral, to building disinformation campaigns that propagate the far-right extremist ideology, to coders and message producers, the IT workforce in India is trained and mobilized to render extremist hate viral. Critical to the education of this IT sector is a casteist infrastructure that naturalizes the othering impulse of Hindutva, cloaked in the narrative of merit, combined with the deep-seated feelings of grievance that emerge from post/colonial anxieties desiring whiteness.

Complementing this infrastructure of hate production is an IT-based infrastructure for surveillance and monitoring of dissenting voices. Consider here the ways in which the tracking of dissenting voices that challenge Hindutva hate has been intertwined with the mob-based violence that is directed at these dissenting voices, particularly voices at intersectional margins. Such interplays of surveillance and mob-based violence mobilised through platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp are critical to the production and amplification of Hindutva terror.

As witnessed with the global proliferation of Islamophobic hate that largely emerges from the Hindutva ecosystem, it is critical that the extremist terror mobilized by Hindutva on IT infrastructures be monitored and regulated. 

Simultaneously, it is critical to consider the ramifications for the IT workforce globally when a significant proportion of the workforce is embedded within the Hindutva ecosystem both in India and in the Indian diaspora globally. What then are the ramifications of the presence of this upper caste hate-based Hindutva ideology within IT organisations on algorithms? What for instance are the implications of Hindutva for global tech corporations such as Alphabet, Meta and Amazon with strong Hindu Indian presence.

Worth noting here is the strategy of equivocation that forms the pedagogy of Hindutva. 

Hindutva survives and replicates itself by on one hand projecting the image of law-abiding practices that promote inclusion and peace and on the other hand, perpetuating deep-seated hate directed at Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and so on. Across Western democracies (and particularly the U.S.) where the IT infrastructure is concentrated, IT workers subscribing to the Hindutva ideology carefully craft the narrative of peace-loving meritocratic Hindus while subscribing to and disseminating the hateful ideology. Uncritical Western multiculturalism serves as a chador for Hindutva hate, performed ironically under the label of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That the Indian IT sector is deeply intertwined with Hindutva extremism calls for much greater scrutiny of the extremist hate propagated on IT infrastructures. Moreover, there needs to be much greater scrutiny of the extremism in the tech workforce. Finally, immigration policies around the IT sector need to develop screens around Hindutva extremism.


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