Civil Society Movements and the ‘Twittering Classes’ in the Postcolony: An Indian Case Study

Abstract

Using Partha Chatterjee's insights on the formation of ‘civil society’ and how this is distinct from ‘political society’, this paper theorises the mobilisation of popular support via social media during the so-called ‘anti-corruption movement’ in India in 2011. It tracks the main themes of the civil society-led movement's Twitter feeds during two crucial phases of fasting by its self-proclaimed Gandhian leader, Anna Hazare. This highlights the mixing of nostalgic pre-independence discourses with new media savvy and provides a means of contextualising what such discursive mobilisation means for contemporary political formations in a post-colonial society such as India. The case study also sheds light on the urban- and middle-class-centred nature of the protest and its preference for media over electoral representation—this is in line with Chatterjee's conceptualisation of a civil society that undermines the authority of the state and excludes the rural and urban poor.

Keywords:

• civil society
• Twitter
• postcolony
• India

Notes

¹ John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, ‘Law and Disorder in the Postcolony: An Introduction’, in J. Comaroff and J. Comaroff (eds) Law and Disorder in the Postcolony (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007), pp.1–57.

² Partha Chatterjee, ‘A Response to Taylor's “Modes of Civil Society”’, in Public Culture, Vol.3, no.1 (Fall 1990), pp.119–32; Partha Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Political Society in Most of the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); and Partha Chatterjee, ‘Democracy and Economic Transformation in India’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.43, no.6 (19 April 2008).

³ Arundhati Roy, The Hindu (25 Aug. 2011), ‘I'd Rather Not Be Anna’, The Hindu (25 Aug. 2011).

⁴ Chatterjee, ‘A Response to Taylor's “Modes of Civil Society”’, pp.119–32; Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Political Society in Most of the World; and Chatterjee, ‘Democracy and Economic Transformation in India’.

⁵ Chatterjee, ‘Democracy and Economic Transformation in India’, p.57.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Amir Ali, ‘Evolution of Public Sphere in India’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.36, no.26 (June 2001), pp.2419–25.

⁹ Vinod Bhanu, ‘Politics of Lokpal: A Way Beyond’, CLRA Research Paper Series. no.1 [http://www.clraindia.org/include/politicsoflokpalvbarticleforfinalon3.pdf, accessed 15 June 2011].

¹⁰ Saba Naqvi, ‘What's That C-word Now?’, in Outlook, (22 Nov. 2010), pp.36–42.

¹¹ Mohammed El-Nawawy and Sahar Khamis, ‘Political Activism 2.0: Comparing the Role of Social Media in Egypt's “Facebook Revolution” and Iran's “Twitter Uprising”’, in CyberOrient, Vol.6, no.1 [http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=7439, accessed 17 Sept. 2012].

¹² Charles Arthur, ‘Twitter Now Has 10M Users in UK’, The Guardian (15 May 2012), [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/15/twitter-uk-users-10m, accessed 20 Sept. 2012].

¹³ Rahul Sachitanand, ‘Social Media in Your Pocket, Courtesy Mobile Devices’, The Economic Times (24 April 2012), [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-24/news/31392913_1_country-growth-manager-networking-mobile-phones, accessed 20 Sept. 2012].

¹⁴ See, for instance, Karuna John, ‘Help! Someone Please Reboot the Revolution’, Tehelka blog (19 Sept. 2012) [http://blog.tehelka.com/help-someone-please-reboot-the-revolution/, accessed 20 Sept. 2012].

¹⁵ Shubho Sengupta, ‘The Anti-corruption Movement as a New Media Campaign’, Shubho's Posterous (10 April 2011) [http://shubho.posterous.com/the-anti-corruption-movement-as-a-new-media-c, accessed 10 June 2011].

¹⁶ Sudarshana Banerjee, ‘“Fast unto Death” in the Times of Twitter’, Techcircle.in [http://techcircle.vccircle.com/500/fast-unto-death’-in-the-times-of-twitter/, accessed 8 April 2011].

¹⁷ The Economic Times (7 April 2011), [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-04-07/news/29392571_1_facebook-page-social-media-anna-hazare, accessed 10 June 2011].

¹⁸ Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York and London: New York University Press, 2006), p.290.

¹⁹ Ibid., p.291.

²⁰ World Bank, ‘Internet Users—Per 100 People’ [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2, accessed 5 May 2013].

²¹ Kuan-Hsing Chen, Asia as Method: Towards Deimperialization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).

²² Partha Chatterjee, ‘Community in the East’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.33, no.6 (1998), p.282.

²³ Saayan Chattopadhyay, ‘Online Activism for a Heterogeneous Time: The Pink Chaddi Campaign and the Social Media in India’, in Proteus: A Journal of Ideas (2011), p.65 [http://www.ship.edu/uploadedFiles/Ship/Proteus/2011Proteus.pdf#page = 69, accessed 6 June 2011].

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Shubho Sengupta, ‘The Anti-corruption Movement as a New Media Campaign’, (2011) [http://shubho.posterous.com/the-anti-corruption-movement-as-a-new-media-c, accessed 10 June 2011].

²⁶ Aditya Nigam, ‘Anna Hazare and the “Middle Class”: The Many Complications of India's Anti-corruption Movement’, in Himal, (May 2011) [http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4423-anna-hazare-and-the-middle-class.html, accessed 14 June 2011].

²⁷ Cited in Rezwan, ‘India: Social Media Powers Anti Corruption Bill Campaign’, in Global Voices (16 April 2011) [http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/16/india-social-media-powers-anti-corruption-bill-campaign/, accessed 14 June 2011].

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Sahil Shah, ‘Young Indians Fight Corruption on the Internet’, The Asian Tech Catalog, (7 April 2011)[http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/04/07/young-indians-fight-corruption-on-the-internet/, accessed 14 June 2011].

³⁰ Kaustav Sengupta, ‘Anti Corruption Movement and the Youth in India’, (8 April 2011) [http://ingene.blogspot.com/2011/04/anti-corruption-movement-and-youth-in.html, accessed 10 June 2011].

³¹ Aditya Nigam, ‘Anna Hazare and the “Middle Class”’.

³² Sumanta Banerjee, ‘Anna Hazare, Civil Society and the State’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.46, no.36 (Sept. 2011), p.13.

³³ Rajni Kothari, Rethinking Democracy (London: Zed Books, 2007), p.13.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Akhil Gupta, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Rural India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).

³⁶ Jean-Marie Guehenno, ‘The Arab Spring is 2011, not 1989’, The New York Times (21 April 2011). [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22iht-edguehenno22.html?_r=0, accessed 12 June 2013].

³⁷ See, for instance, Angela Sanson, ‘Facebook and Youth Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election’, in Gnovis, Vol.8, no.3 (Summer 2008), pp.162–74.

³⁸ Ibid., p.164.

³⁹ Dhiraj Murthy, ‘Twitter: Microphone for the Masses’, in Media Culture Society, Vol.33, no.5 (July 2001), pp.779–89.

⁴⁰ R. Harindranath, ‘Theorising Protest: The Significance of Social Movements to Metropolitan Academic Theory’, in Thamyris, Vol.7, nos.1–2 (Summer 2000), pp.161–78.