Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Spring 2024

Date of Submission

2025-02-26

Advisor

Dr. Ahmad Azhar, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts

Committee

Dr. Ali Gibran Siddiqui, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Ram Mandir, Hindutva, Social media, Nationalism, Historiography

Abstract

The growing of influence of Hindu nationalism in India gives rise not only to questions on the status of minorities and political future of India, but also highlights the contentious nature of historiography. The destruction of Babri masjid in 1992, the subsequent riots and violence all the way up to the inauguration of Ram Mandir in 2024 (what is called the Ram Janmabhumi movement) is a manifestation of this influence. With the current development in communication technologies, such as social media, the adherents of Hindu nationalist ideology have found new ways to propagate the Hindutva narrative on a range of social and political issues while often implicating discourse of history.

Through a discursive analysis of audio-visual content of three YouTube channels: “Prachyam,” “Upword,” and “India Unravelled,” this thesis aims to explore the Hindutva narrative propagated on social media in the form of highly stylized YouTube videos. Through a nuanced discussion on historiography and nationalism, we seek to explore how the “Hindutva Content” situates itself in the historiographical discourse vis-à-vis academic history. By drawing parallels in symbolism, narrative, and orchestration, this research demonstrates a complementary relationship between Ram Janmabhumi movement and the social media content.

This study highlights that these channels present a self-consciously intellectual and revisionist historiographical discourse which justifies Hindutva ideology, otherizes Muslims through demonic representation, vilifies academic historians and secularists by questioning their loyalty to India, while relating a theme of a golden Hindu past in anticipation of an Indian/Hindu cultural renaissance under the leadership of BJP.

Pages

v, 88

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