Cyber-hindutva: Hindu nationalism, the diaspora and the Web.

Hindu nationalists defend the advent of a Hindu state in India, while projecting the universal appeal of their ideology. Their very territorialized yet universal claims have been finding particular resonance among migrant populations, particularly in North America. This study strives to go beyond content analyses that foreground voices to focus on the network structure in order to highlight the new transnational practices of nationalism. Two main points emerge from this in-depth scrutiny. On the one hand, Hindu nationalist organizations have transferred their online activities mainly to the USA, where the Indian diaspora is 3.2 million strong, and constitute therefore a prime example of long-distance transnational nationalism. On the other hand, the morphological discrepancies between the online and the offline networks point to new strategies of discretion developed to evade the gaze of authorities in countries of residence. The recourse to cartography thus becomes crucial not only in understanding what sectarian or illegal movements do and show but also what they seek to hide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]