Digital authoritarianism and the persistence of caste: Technology, resistance, and structural inequality in India
Year: 2025
Type: editorial
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.
Source: Dialogues on Digital Society
Author: Ali Saha
Institution: The University of Melbourne
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,400
OpenAlex ID: W4414313253