Digital authoritarianism and the persistence of caste: Technology,resistance,and structural inequality in India

Abstract

This commentary investigates the intersection of structural authoritarianism, caste oppression, and digital technologies in India, arguing that caste functions as a pervasive system of social and political control that persists despite constitutional guarantees of equality. Adapting colonial logics of domination, caste hierarchies are reinscribed in the digital age, where technology platforms serve as paradoxical spaces, both facilitating Dalit resistance and reinforcing Brahminical dominance. Drawing from literature and examples of online Dalit activism, and digital authoritarianism, the paper demonstrates that digital infrastructures simultaneously disrupt and reproduce caste-based inequalities. While social media enables marginalized communities to organize, document oppression, and challenge dominant narratives, platform governance, surveillance, and algorithmic discrimination often amplify existing hierarchies. By centering caste as an analytic, this work expands critical understandings of digital authoritarianism, framing casteism as a technology of control, one that intersects with state power and corporate platforms to reproduce oppression in the digital sphere.

If you can, but once, fix a bone in your tongue,

stand firm on the ground and ask yourself:

Which Ganges can clean my shit-smeared body?

How many stacks of tulsi leaves will sanctify me?

How many tons of sandal paste will deodorize my body?

Body Purification (Sunani and Das 2016)

This verse powerfully encapsulates the enduring casteist structures that continue to marginalise Dalit communities, historically referred to as “ex-untouchables” who are systematically relegated to the most degrading forms of labour, are vulnerable to multifaceted discrimination, violence, and social exclusion. Caste-based marginalisation is deeply rooted in a socioreligious order that has existed for over 3000 years. Despite constitutional protections established following Indian independence in 1947, caste-based violence persists. Scholars argue that caste hierarchies have been reinforced by the rise of Hindutva ideology and Hindu authoritarianism. These ideologies reassert dominant caste Hindu norms as central to Indian national identity. As a result, they marginalise Dalits and other oppressed communities while legitimising caste hierarchies through the rhetoric of cultural unity. According to the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (n.d.) “one crime is committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes”; and “13 Dalits are murdered every week” These statistics reflect only a fraction of actual incidents, since many go unreported due to fear of retaliation or internalised stigma that normalises subjugation and reinforces perceptions of impurity. These realities indicate that caste discrimination operates as a structural condition characterised by historical continuity, social impunity, and institutional neglect.

The rise of digital media has significantly reshaped public discourse by offering new platforms through which marginalised communities can challenge dominant ideologies. Social media's participatory architecture has, in principle, opened avenues for mobilisation, self-expression, and counter-hegemonic activism. These platforms are often theorised as egalitarian spaces that allow individuals, regardless of caste, identity, or socio-political location, to speak out against caste-based discrimination, particularly those rooted in Hindu authoritarianism. However, Mansell (2016) contends that such digital spaces are inherently paradoxical: while designed to enable inclusive participation, they often replicate existing social hierarchies. Exclusions cannot be attributed only to technological affordances; they must be read in relation to broader ideological and historical formations that regulate minority identities online. This commentary argues that in the Indian context, digital authoritarianism is shaped by deeply embedded caste-based authoritarian logics, and this in turn conditions both the visibility and reception of caste-related discourse online, thereby facilitating the reproduction of caste hierarchies in digital environments.

Caste as a tool of authoritarian rule

The caste system is a rigid hereditary hierarchy rooted in Hindu texts Rigveda and Manusmriti. It comprises four varnas or social classes - Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (traders), and Shudras (labourers), while Dalits are excluded as achhuts, or untouchables. Historically, Dalits have faced systemic exclusion and dehumanisation. Framed both as divine order and occupational stratification, caste operates through birth, dharma-karma, and the purity-pollution binary, privileging upper castes with cultural capital while relegating lower groups to ostracism and economic marginality. Joseph (2021) observes that “the monster of caste is primarily supported by religion,” underscoring that doctrine sustains caste dominance. This stratification is further reinforced by Hindu authoritarianism, a political ideology that promotes Hindu majoritarianism and upper-caste Brahminical values to legitimise hierarchies. Hindu authoritarianism marginalises anti-caste discourses, appropriates or erases radical histories, and represses subaltern critique under cultural nationalism (Vanaik, 2017). This ideological project is not merely rhetorical; it manifests through surveillance of Dalit expression, suppression of protests, and legitimisation of caste violence framed as defending Hindu values. Consolidated through state power, Hindu authoritarianism enforces caste hierarchies across religion, culture, and law. Once confined to temples, courts, and village institutions, these mechanisms now penetrate digital platforms, where online spaces become arenas for reinforcing Brahminical norms and policing subaltern voices.

Digital authoritarianism and platform power

Glasius (2018: 527) defines digital authoritarianism as “a pattern of actions, embedded in an organized context, sabotaging accountability to people (‘the forum’) over whom a political actor exerts control, or their representatives, by disabling their access to information and/or disabling their voice.” In the context of digital technologies, platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook are particularly significant in structuring caste discourse. X rapidly circulates caste-related content through hashtags and viral trends, driving mobilisation against caste violence, whereas Facebook fosters community-building and grassroots organising through group interactions. These platforms function both as channels for expression and as arenas for ideological battles over caste, power, and identity, while amplifying vernacular narratives and lived experiences often erased from mainstream discourse.

Upper-caste groups often use social media to circulate ideologies rooted in religious orthodoxy and Brahmanical notions of purity. Facebook groups like Brahmanical Supremacy Memes and Rajputana Samaj, and X pages such as LODHI Kshatriya Samaj, and Voice of Brahmins reinforce caste hierarchies through discussions on religion and ritual, influencing public discourse and aligning with state-backed cultural ideologies. In contrast, Dalit users leverage platforms to challenge caste oppression and assert visibility. Pages like Dalit Camera and The Mooknayak, hashtags such as #DalitLivesMatter and #SmashBrahminicalPatriarchy, and groups like AIDMAM function as counterpublic spaces that document atrocities, preserve subaltern histories, and mobilise resistance. These digital interventions challenge claims of caste irrelevance masked as caste equality or the idea that “caste is past” (from the movie Aap Jaisa Koi, 2025). Yet, in an effort to delegitimise Dalit demands for equality and social justice, content by Dalit users faces greater resistance and scrutiny than upper-caste Brahmanical posts (Raman and Saha, 2025). The silencing of Dalit voices online acts as coercive control, showing that digital spaces often replicate and reinforce caste-based authoritarian power structures rather than serving as neutral platforms.

Roberts and Oosterom (2024) identify five key dimensions that constitute digital authoritarianism: (i) the protagonist, (ii) the technologies employed, (iii) the specific authoritarian practices enacted, (iv) first-order effects on citizens, and (v) the second-order effects on broader power dynamics. Within the context of caste-based authoritarianism in India and the digital contestations between caste-oppressed and dominant caste groups, the “protagonist” in digital authoritarianism is best understood as upper-caste actors who actively reproduce casteist ideologies. However, this role is not uniformly assumed by all upper-caste individuals. Rather, it is occupied by networked, often anonymous actors who consciously or inadvertently uphold caste hierarchies online. Drawing on MacKinnon's (2012) notion of networked authoritarianism and Conduit's (2024) analysis of non-state agents such as patriotic hackers, these digital protagonists function as upper-caste non-state actors who either directly suppress Dalit voices or indirectly shape digital publics by amplifying hegemonic caste discourses.

While digital social media platforms possess counter-authoritarian potential by enabling marginalised communities to resist hegemonic narratives, forge translocal solidarities, and politicise everyday caste-based experiences, they are simultaneously embedded within broader systems of surveillance, algorithmic bias, and platform governance that reproduce authoritarian logics. These systems operate through censorship, uneven content moderation, and the silencing of dissent. Duffy and Meisner (2023) argue that algorithms governing visibility are not neutral; rather, they are programmed to prioritise dominant voices and populist narratives. In context to caste, this often results in the amplification of content aligned with Hindutva authoritarianism, while perspectives that contest caste and Brahminical dominance are routinely deprioritised. Consequently, digital content by Dalit activists and anti-caste groups frequently remains marginal unless it conforms to dominant cultural sentiment.

In addition, moderation practices on these platforms depend heavily on automated systems and underpaid often outsourced, human moderators who typically lack the cultural and political literacy to assess caste-related discourse with the necessary nuance. As Kumar (2024) notes, anti-caste speech, particularly when it critiques Brahminical hegemony or names caste-based perpetrators, is misclassified as “hate speech” or labelled as “divisive,” while casteist abuse is overlooked. This asymmetrical application of content moderation policies systematically disadvantages marginalised voices, reinforcing existing power structures under the guise of platform objectivity.

The digital authoritarian practices extend to shadowbanning and deplatforming. Social media users from marginalised populations have reported instances where their content visibility was restricted without notification (shadowbanning), or where accounts were suspended or banned for breaching vaguely defined community guidelines (deplatforming) (Lopezmalo, 2025; DuBosar et al., 2025). While no academic study has systematically examined the specific impact of shadowbanning and deplatforming on Dalit users, several experiences have been shared and/or reported on digital media. For example, during a webinar on caste discrimination in Australia, unknown intruders hijacked Dr Kishore's Zoom session to display indecent images. In 2017, YouTube briefly terminated Dalit Camera, citing copyright violations, though founder Raees Mohammed argued the real issue was discomfort with Dalit content ( Why Has Dalit Camera's YouTube Channel Been Terminated Without Notice? 2017 ). These exemplify how digital authoritarianism disproportionately silences challenges to caste hierarchies, turning platforms into sites of algorithmic and socio-political control that reproduce caste power under the guise of neutrality.

Authoritarian control also manifests through state pressure on digital platforms to comply with content takedown requests, especially when posts are critical of the government, its institutions, or dominant religious and caste groups. India uses the IT Rules (2021) to pressure platforms into removing material deemed detrimental to the “national interest,” a category shaped by authoritarian Hindu nationalist ideologies. As a result, posts exposing caste violence or state abuse are often removed under the guise of safeguarding caste-linked cultural values. Surveillance and content moderation constitute the third key dimension of digital authoritarianism, encompassing online harassment, disinformation, coercion, and manipulation aimed at silencing dissent (Feldstein, 2021). Raman and Saha (2025) document the backlash Dalit men face on Twitter for challenging the symbolic importance of the moustache. Similar cases (see Singh, 2025) reflect the continued presence of online harassment and disinformation campaigns used to amplify the caste ideologies. These practices although stem from entrenched caste prejudice and a desire to preserve caste-based dominance; they function as tools of authoritarian control designed to suppress challenges to state-aligned power structures. This reproduction of authoritarianism in online spaces has been called the first-order effects on citizens, i.e., the fourth criterion that shapes digital authoritarianism on citizens.

The fifth criterion, the second-order effects, refers to the indirect consolidation of power via digital authoritarian practices (Polyakova and Meserole, 2019). For a Hindu authoritarian regime, the central goal is to maintain hegemonic regime stability and suppress dissent. The various examples discussed above demonstrate that participation on digital platforms in India is increasingly instrumentalised to uphold caste hierarchies aligned with Hindu nationalism. These practices extend beyond immediate repression, entrenching Brahminical norms and marginalizing subaltern counter-publics. In doing so, they produce systemic, long-term effects that stabilize hegemonic power and make dissent structurally more difficult, exemplifying the second-order consequences of digital authoritarian control.

In conclusion, the architecture of digital authoritarianism in India is not just about control of expression; it is about whose voices are heard and whose are silenced. When caste hierarchies are coded into algorithms, platform governance, and state policy, digital spaces cease to be democratic. They instead become the new battlegrounds where Brahminical dominance is algorithmically maintained, and Dalit resistance is both semi-visible and vulnerable.