The Technopolitics of Communication in Modern India

This book offers a groundbreaking account of the role of media technologies in Indian nationalism and democracy.
From the Brexit referendum in 2016 to the phenomenon of 'Trumpism', there has been much speculation about the role played by new media in an apparent return of illiberal politics and primordial identities. Dhital argues these developments could best be understood by not taking identity for granted as a static and exclusive form of affiliation. She also emphasises how the technical and material are interwoven into human thought and action rather than acting upon them externally. She accordingly focuses on the technopolitical means by which groups have been ventriloquised during critical periods in Indian political history, across various media - from newspapers and magazines to radio broadcasts, speeches and online platforms.
Chapters cover prison writing produced during the emergency of 1975-77, regulation of public speech during the 2014 general election, and the Citizenship Amendment Act protests of 2019-20. Through these case studies, Dhital works towards an alternative, more reflexive, basis for popular representation, one that does not sacralise 'the people' and assume power in their name.

Pragya Dhital is a Lecturer in the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Kaleidoscopic communities
The dispositif of state
The orphan word
Qaum, millat, ummat
Background and outline of the study
1. The immense writing-machine
Ignorance and power
Split publics, forked tongues
The file paper
'An ignorance which liberates'
2. The one-man media house
Abul Kalam Azad: Imam ul-Hind
Aziz Burney: Azizul Hind
Impossible Speech
3. Emergency pedagogy
Chaos in the air
Prison writers
'Back to the barbaric feudal days'
'We, representing the entire political spectrum in the country'
Reader voters
4. The model code
The sacred space-time of popular sovereignty
The numbers game
Social engineering
The ethics of electoral regulation
The scandal of democracy
5. Fearless speech
'I hailed you, you cut off my tongue'
'I am willing to give my life for my own qaum'
'I will sit here till blood stops flowing in my veins'
Epilogue