Introduction

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. One should note, however, that there is a significant gender gap in internet access, with fewer women having access compared to men, particularly in rural areas. Additionally, internet usage is lower among older adults due to lower levels of internet literacy and technological expertise. <‘India: Number of Internet Users 2040’, Statista, accessed October 12, 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/255146/number-of-internet-users-in-india/.

2. Aadhaar is a unique identification system that assigns a 12-digit number to every resident Indian individual by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), containing their demographic and biometric information, such as name, address, date of birth, gender, biometric details (photograph, fingerprints, iris scan), and mobile number. Its purpose is to provide a unique identification number to Indian residents that can be used to access various government and non-government services, including bank accounts, subsidies, and social welfare schemes. It is the world’s largest biometric dataset. Over the years, there have been several reports of Aadhaar data leaks and breaches, which have raised concerns about the security and privacy of the database.

3. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) was passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019, offering non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan a fast track to Indian citizenship. There are concerns that the CAA, along with a proposed National Register of Citizens, could be used to establish a religious test for Indian citizenship and lead to the disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. Following its passage, large-scale protests erupted across the country, resulting in a violent crackdown by the government.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Souraj Dutta

Souraj Dutta is a postdoctoral fellow at Birmingham City University, working in the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research within Arts, Design and Media. He is currently working on a book project on digital public culture and internet memes in India.

Avishek Ray

Avishek Ray teaches at the National Institute of Technology Silchar. He the author of The Vagabond in the South Asian Imagination: Representation, Agency & Resilience (Routledge, 2021) and co-editor of Nation, Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Religious Politics in India (SAGE, 2020). He is currently working on two co-authored book projects: the first, on the social life of selfies in India, and the second on digitally-aided mobility in the wake of the pandemic in the context of Kolkata. In 2021, he was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship.

Rajinder Dudrah

Rajinder Dudrah is Professor of Cultural Studies and Creative Industries at Birmingham City University. He has lectured, researched and published widely across film, media, cultural studies and the creative industries. He is currently recipient of a 3-year Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship working towards his next book, entitled, E-Bollywood: Popular Hindi Cinema in the Age of New Media.