21 E-Diaspora

1. INTRODUCTION :DIASPORA AND TRANSNATIONALISM

Contemporary globalization has revolutionized the very idea of time and space. The process of globalization has been operating under different frameworks over time for centuries from trade and barter exchange , to free flow of capital and culture beyond the boundaries of the nation state spanning the globe. Under the conditions of contemporary globalization , diasporas have a distinct edge in the promotion of their culture and economy, engaging with their communities dispersed worldwide. With the revolutionary advancement in technology of information, communication and travel during the 1980’s and 1990’s, there has been a steep increase in the global transfers of people besides capital, technology, media and ideologies as sketched in terms of ‘scapes’ by Appadurai(1997)across several nation states. Cohen (1997) is tempted to use the word ‘ diasporization’ as a concept akin to globalization. An increasing number of immigrants retain connections to the homeland and to each other via telecommunication networks; thus long distance communication across national boundaries has become a significant part of the construction of a transnational identity that transcends the spatial anchoring of diaspora. Disparate individuals form a community that is neither fixed in space , nor bound to a set of definable attributes, but instead a fluid field of practices and meanings, negotiating, bringing in new spaces of articulation, new relational solidarities across the plane. If we take boundary as a dividing line, then cyberspace has been dissolving divisions. Today, transnational networking among the Indian Diaspora is based on multiple identities of religion, region , caste etc. The process of globalization has also furthered these networks , taking them to the realm of cyber space, creating virtual communities or online communities and identities. . The emergence of such networking and community sentiments cutting across several countries is appropriately described as ‘transnationalism’. Digital technologies are replacing ‘place’ in its usual sense and digitalizing place into virtual spaces of diverse practices. The geographic disconnection from the homeland, the historic rupture with the homeland ‘s nationalism and the cultural confusion that migration produces can be counteracted as the digital diaspora reconnects virtually with the originally national place.There have always been the connecting of diasporas all over the world based on one’s religious identity, ethnicity, nationality , regions etc , but the coming of information communication technology(ICT) has broadened the scope of communication and intensity and speed of connection. Though ICT may be viewed as a space and a platform to the muted voices to express their ideas, it may also be seen as a space where hegemonic discourses are shared (Vikemanas: nd.).

1.1 What is E – diaspora?

Digital diaspora (or E- Diaspora) is a migrant community whose interactions with other community members spread out internationally are electronically mediated via new technologies of communications ( Alex, 2004: 455; Brinkerhoff, 2009: 89; Everett, 2009: 100). According to Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 56), the materialization of digital diasporas has taken place in tandem with the mounting access to online public content and mobile phones. nevertheless, there has been an immense growth of social networking platforms over the last ten years, which has enabled a different kind of diasporic connectivity, one that is happening primarily via the internet ( Diminescu, 2008: 24 ; Brinkeroff, 2009: 73). In actuality, a voluminous body of research which examines the relationship between diaspora, migration and technology, advocates that internet is a chief enabler of developing and sustaining the diasporic public sphere (Swaby 2013).

Rheingold (1993: 45) has asserted that the ‘virtual world’ has been appropriate for connecting diasporas at both- the local and the global level. In fact, it proffers a platform to share ideas, debate the issues, and mobilize opinion. Apart from this, one can also witness the friendships and acceptance among strangers All of thisfosters digital diasporas. It has been documented that diasporas often use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to build communities in the digital spaces, which support integration in host countries (Diminescu, Jacomy, and Renault 2010: 188). Participation in these online spaces , often help in filling the social void in the real lived lives of the users (Riddings and Geffen 2006:55). Alonso and Oriarzabal (2010: 88) have noted that association specific online sites and blogs have been tools for community building and communication, disseminating information relative to the given diasporic population, in both host and home countries. There are grassroots organizations that happen to exist in only ‘Cyber-spaces’, with the sole aim of networking with the diasporic populations scattered arount the globe. These organizations frequently petition for funds to buttress socio economic development in their homelands (Brainard and Brinkerhoff 2004: 677). Tekwani (2003: 355) has articulated that many of these organizations that are ideologically in opposition to the homeland government, may propagate to international networks, with political agendas that enable conflict movements.

Hence, it can be noted that, internet undoubtedly nurtures solidarity among people who are geographically scattered from their home countries. Many studies have documented that online practices have influenced diasporic subjectivity in significant ways. For instance, many people from the diasporic communities feel that internet offers a ‘safe space’ where in they can negotiate their sense of self and express their hybrid identities; to differentiate what it means to be a member of a particular diaspora ( Brinkerhoff 2009). The virtual world, thus, plays its part in the representation of diasporic life.

2.1 How Do E Diasporas Differ From Physical Diasporas?

An E diaspora is a migrant collective, that organizes itself on the internet. Their practices involve interactions which are improved by digital exchange. It is a heterogenous and a dispersed collective whose existence is determined by a common direction which is constantly renegotiated as the collective evolves.

3.USE OF DIGITAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE WITH DIASPORA

Over the previous years, India has improved its public diplomacy efforts and made an effort to reach out to foreign publics, especially the diaspora. This also highlights the significance of diaspora in gratifying its foreign policy objectives. Hall (2012: 95) has asserted that since independence, India has made enormous investment in resources to buttress its interests through high level dialogues and cultural exchanges. His argument is that India’s transformed interests and consideration to public diplomacy has been ignited by how China has been applying its soft power1 to wield its global influence. According to Murti (2013: 144) and Nye (2008: 45) soft power derives its potency chiefly from three resources- culture, political values and foreign policies. India has an enormous amount of soft power including its diverse and democratic traditions. However, this has not been utilized fully to progress its foreign policy objectives. Nonetheless, its now endeavoring to use its digital technology and soft power in a more favoruable fashion, in order to engage with its domestic and foreign publics (Hall 2012). According to Hall (2012) there are three key characteristics that are trademarks of India’s “newpublic diplomacy”. 1) India is vigorously looking for new audiences, counting domestic populations in India and the diaspora in the west. 2) India wants to bring in transpercancy to its foreign policy making process. 2) it wants to focus its labors on new media sources relative to traditional media.

According to Suri (2011: 98), there are myriad initiatives that India undertook in the public diplomacy showground as such. Like, in 2010, India projected its soft power by organizing Indian film festivals in several countrIes. The Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs has an informative and well-crafted website to publicize its initiatives.Suri (2011: 83) further mentions that India opened its “Indiandiplomacy” Twitter account in July 2010, the first by any division of government of India. Hall (2012: 33) has asserted that India’s public diplomacy efforts focus on both- the foreign publics and domestic publics. Suri (2011: 76) too has mentioned the significance of more publicity of India’s achievements in order to contradict any non favourable discourses about India. Griffen (2011: 54) has made a mention of how Twitter was used by Indian officials in order to engage with a person living in India during the 2011 Libyan crisis to facilitate evacuation of hundreds of marooned Indians in the city of Mistratah, Libya.

A suggestion by Cowan and Arsenault (2008: 234) was made that public diplomacy practitioners must understand public diplomacy in 3 layers- 1) monologue or unidirectional informational flow 2) dialogue or flow of information in multiple directions and 3) collaboration based n cooperation and partnership with targeted audiences. Each layer has its pluses, and practitioners should know which to apply for productive outcomes. For e.g.: an effective speech for monologue could invoke intense emotions; a thoughtful dialogue could lead to mutual understanding and a productive collaboration could lead to lasting trust.

Arsenault (2009: 245) has further mentioned that these three layers of public diplomacy can be improved by putting them into practice with new digital media. Countless studies have been done to understand, how India and other countires are using digital media to connect with their diapsoras as part of their public diplomact efforts. Murti’s (2013: 423) study reveals that most countries have relied on monologue in order to improve their image or the credibility of messages. He also mentions that many countries still rely on read only websites and other similar digital media resources in order for their public diplomacy efforts. Ma (2007: 56) has demonstratedhow Chinese government has immensely stretched out its virtual territory, which include launching websites focusing on diasporas.

Monologues can be enhanced if the public diplomacy messages are in sync with a country’s foreign policy, so they are credible ( Arsenault 2009; Ma 2007; and Hallams 2010). It has been noted that government is risking alienating the very foreign publics they focus on if their digital postings are devoid of clear attribution.

4. VARIOUS TYPES OF E-DIASPORAS AMONG INDIAN COMMUNITIES

There is a vast and diverse digital universe that links Indian diasporas with each other and with India. As a community, Indians have been quick and efficient in taking to digital communication, and of course, the IT revolution itself has several key contributors from the Indian diasporic communities. Reinforcing the diasporic orientation towards ethnic and cultural identity making are numerous websites, chat groups and blogs on topics ranging from cookery and cuisine to tourism in India to matrimonial alliances. Religious organizations, and religio-political organizations and are active in disseminating their standpoints to their followers . Govt. of India itself, in pursuance of its pro-diaspora policy from the 1990s, has exploited digital technology to push its nationalist agenda forward. A few glimpses from this variety are presented in the following section.

4.1 Digital communication from Religious and Spiritual organizations

The existence of different forms of communication and technology have also given rise to religious transnationalism including the flow of ideologies, religious mass movements, access to information etc using various online sites as a means of spreading their religious ideas. A number of new age Hindu sects for example have followers and devotees who are Indians living in India and diaspora, and also non-Indians. The headquarters is usually in India, and there are often branches or chapters inmajor metropolitan centes of Europe, North America and elsewhere, wherever there is a big group of devotees. Many of these organizations are wealthy and also have talented followers who can manage their online activities efficiently. For keeping the scattered devotees bonded together and their devotion and loyalty to the sect intact, the internet is used extensively as a tool for communication, as we can see in the Home Pages of some well-known ashrams.

4.2 Digital Hindutva

Digital Hindu nationalism gives us a particularly relevant case study to examine the relationship between politicization of religion, migration, technology and transnationationalism. It demonstrates the exact sociology of a mobile Hindu nationalist elite and offers a startling example of how a current offline network is translated online. Furthermore, it enables a better insight into understanding a global movement’s universalist ambitions and a brand of nationalism whose aim is the arrival of a Hindu state in India.

Therwath( 2012 ) has asserted that content analysis of pro hindutva websites is an effective method to assess variations in discursive strategies of online hindutva. She has given a brief preliminary history of the main pro Hindutva outfits after analyzing 228 websites- firstly about Hindu nationalist groups now based in the USA and how Hindutva has become an offshore ideology; secondly, the controversial and illegal nature of pro Hindutva activities have led to strategies of online prudence.

The concept of Hindutva comes with a specific political agenda, that aims to create a Hindu nation state.The main defender of Hindutva ideology is the Rashtriya Swaamsevak sangh, which was founded in 1925 in Maharshtra.

For it, Indian identity is the same as Hindu identity and all the members of the religious minorities- mostly Christians and Muslims – should maintain adherence to the dominant religious community atleast in the public sphere. This organization functions via a heavy network of about 50,000 local shakhas or branches, where physical and ideological training is offered to over 2.5 million activists by cadres. The RSS has become the chief of a centralized structure with plentiful specialized offshoots and sections. The whole structure is called the Sangh Parivar. (Therwath, 2012)

The effort at transnationalising these networks at first, occurred at an unplanned way, through individual initiatives and pre existing family networks. However, it has been documented by Therwath (2004: 72), Jaffrelot and Therwath (2006: 37) and Therwath (2012: 332) that from the 1970s – 2010s, the Sangh Parivar initiated a number of branches abroad and translated its dense structure in every country where its existence was recognized.

Swiftly, the world wibe web ascended to prominence as an outreach medium towards Hindus settled in the west and particularly in North America. As Helland (2007: 163) says, the mobile Hindu elite, who are receptive to Hindutva, are also well acquainted with the ICT and web. Pro Hindutva activists were prevalent on USENET forums as early as 1985. The SanghParivar since then, has considered using new methods to exploit the web. In 1996, the RSS began the Global Hindu Electronic Network (GHEN) through the Hindu Students Council. 1999 saw the launch of cyber shakhas online; first one inaugurated in September 1999 from New Delhi. Lateron, Skype shakhas and e shakhas were formed.

RSS understood rapidly the potential of the web so that it could bind together a heterogenous and geographically spread out community and alter it into an “imagined community”. All this happened in the decreasing of shakhas in physical form in India. RSS realized that web proffered a chief tool for the aforementioned goal .

In order to explicate the structural differences between online and offline nationalist networks, a corpus of 147 websites has been compiled since July 2011, starting from a few core RSS websites that were trawled 4 times till a satisfactory if not absolutely exhaustive list of pro hindutva groups were obtained. About 80 additional websites stand out as the periphery of the corpus. They are frontier sites that is, they share a close proximity to the pro Hindutva groups but do not belong to the pro Hindutva universe. They have common concerns, have dialogues, and are hence in the same “virtual neighbourhoods” if we are to use Arjun Appadurai’s expression (Appadurai 1996: 214).

In Therwath’s study, we can see that the different graphs produced in the context of his/her study substantiate these central points. Firstly, the sang parivar, online, as well as offline is the core f pro hindutva movment. Secondly, the epicenter of Hindu nationalist forces is in diaspora, and more specifically in the USA. One can hence, observe the process of transnationalism of a nationalist movement whose political project is interwined with a specific territory. On the internet spaces, the articulation of a territorial project and of a universalistic ambition is being talked about. And thirdly, it is in the USA that different nationalist diasporas. In her/his studies, it is observed that SanghParivar is the epicentre of hindutva ideology both- in India and abroad.. It can rely on many groups that can disseminate its views.

4.3 Govt. of India’s digital outreach to its diasporas

From the 1990s, when the government of India took a pro-active position to woo its diasporas for national development, all subsequent governments have followed up with various initiaitives which have been detailed in other modules of this course. The current government has continued with this strategy, extensively utilizing digital communication for its purpose. Diaspora organizations themselves have also made themselves prominent in cyberspace. Below, we present a few glimpses of their online activity.

Following the Prime Minister’s clarion call of “Start up India, Stand up India” from the ramparts of the Red Fort, NASSCOM, TiE, and IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE India are hosting the first India-U.S. Startup Konnect in the Silicon Valley on 27th September, to showcase the strengths of India’s startup ecosystem. This day-long event, on the sidelines of the Prime Minister’s visit to the Silicon Valley, will highlight the multiple dimensions of Indian innovation capabilities, represented by more than 30 startups across a variety of sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, energy, financial inclusion, and biotechnology, as well as leading technology business incubators in the country. These startups will also exhibit their products, prototypes, and achievements to investors and other potential Valley partners. The Prime Minister will visit the exhibition to encourage the Indian startups showcasing their products there. The Prime Minister has also graciously agreed to address the India-U.S Startup Konnect, and share his vision on “Start up India, Stand up India”.

See for more details: http://www.nasscom.in/startup-konnect/

4.4 Parsi debate on community issues on internet

A prominent example of a community which uses online spaces as a platform for sharing of ideas and discussions regarding issues within the community itself are the Parsis, a miniscule community whose dwindling numbers spell a grave danger to the existence of the community itself. Arguably Parsis in India are themselves a diaspora, having migrated in the 8th century AD from Iran to Gujarat. From the British period onwards, as businessmen and supporters of the colonial empire, they migrated out of India to various parts of the globe. As a educated community, Parsis have always been vociferous about matters pertaining to the community through discussions in the English and Gujarati Press.

The internal groupings that divide the community on these issues are broadly ‘Bombay Parsis’, Parsis in other cities and towns in India and Parsis in the diaspora. One of the most fiercely debated issue among them are whether the spouse and children of a Parsi married to a non parsi can be accepted within the religion. The other is whether conversion into Zoroastrianism should be allowed. The former is a significant issue only within India. The latter is taken up more frontally in the diaspora. In the diaspora, the view is generally more liberal and accepting of change. In India, there are two streams: the liberals and the conservatives. Although the influential Bombay Parsis have representatives fromboth streams, it can broadly be said that Parsiswho do not live in Mumbai are more open to change than the Bombay Parsis. Mumbai is the stronghold of the community, where its trusts and charities are located, and the influential Bombay Parsi Panchayat functions from. The diaspora community is a leading player in the debate. There are also Zoroastrians from Iran who have out-migrated and form their own diaspora. In the diaspora, Iranian Zoroastrians and Indian Parsis interact and influence each others views. So we can see that this small but significant community is dispersed in various parts of the globe and yet is in constant communication regarding community issues. There are numerous websites and chat groups that represent various stakeholders and diverse views – which proffer a forum for discussion. Ganesh (2008) in her article tracks the digital and off line debates and their interlinkages through the various formal and informal fora in which they are expressed. She makes a mention of how diaspora in terms of social relations generally locates itself in the triadic relationship of diasporic community, host, and home. On a more general note, the transnational community has penetrated the dispute as a significant player, but has not displaced locality. Scholars have raised the issue that while global trends are often re-inscribed in the local contexts, localities in turn are producing differentiated responses, their own forms of organization and their specific brands of racism.

Concluding

According to Brinkerhoff (2009: 78)

“The Internet pretty much performs the same function as a physical group i.e., that is, it provides a connection to the country of origin, eases security concerns, improves a member’s quality of life, creates communities that represent hybrid identities and encourages solidarity amongmembers.”…“Information technology is interactive and is an easily access tool for Diaspora storytelling, sharing and narration, thus enabling members to make sense of their experiences and feelings in their new culture and identity. The anonymity of the Internet eases the Diaspora participation especially when sharing painful memories or discussing potentially conflictive topics.”

She also articulates how the digital networks helps in increasing social capital: the bonding of which gives the diasporic community its collective identity. The networks then formed, can release personal disorders and psychic crisis. Their identity is mobilized to enhance the quality of life of the fellow diasporians in the host country, and fellow citizens in the home countires.

For example, the IIT Roorkee Alumni Association of North America (host land) is working with IIT Roorkee (homeland) to help students explore and fine-tune their entrepreneurial instincts by pitching business ideas for start-ups to a panel of senior venture capitalists and entrepreneurs for mentorship and incubation using the digital medium. Brinkerhoff (2009) in one of her chapters also asserts how digital diasporasby the creation of cyber communities counter the marginalization conducive to violence, using examples of Somalinet and AfghanistanOnline. These cybercommunities potentially prevent conflict through opportunities to express feelings and bond with others online, as the difficulty of communication inthe physical world is simplified in the cyberworld where a certain degree of anonymity is permitted to an individual.

Brinkerhoff (2009) elaborates on how these digital Diasporas help negotiate hybrid identity and contribute to homeland societies. Hence, it can be noted from myriad studies that sites on religion, history, culture, jobs, matrimonial sites – not merely help diasporics to cope, but are also actually producing and reproducing culture of nationalism and a shared identity.

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