Indian diaspora, caste and public diplomacy: a study of digital diaspora

ABSTRACT

This article critically engages with the conceptual framework of diplomacy and the question of caste. Although Nehruvian foreign policy enunciated the spirit of anti-colonialism, anti-racial discrimination, and anti-imperialism, it failed to uphold anti-caste diplomacy in post-colonial International Relations. The caste system eclipsed Indian foreign policy by treating Dalits as ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault 1979). An increasing role of Indian diaspora in foreign policy discourse has established a new typology of diplomacy, ‘people-to-people’ relations in India’s transnational communication. Long ago, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had warned that although caste is a local problem, if the caste Hindus were to migrate to other regions on the earth, it would become a global problem. In such context, this article examines the role of digital diaspora networks in legislating anti-caste laws and policies in UK, EU, USA, and Canada. Eventually, it provides a perspective on the lack of diplomatic protection for Dalits in the international relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Caste
• people-to-people diplomacy
• Dalits
• digital diaspora
• India

Acknowledgements

The Authors would like to thank Prof. Balmurli Natarajan, William Peterson University, USA for his erudite inputs and Mr. Vamsi Surapogu for his comments on first draft of this paper. The Authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewer for his/her detailed comments and suggestions to develop it as a robust article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Kunti was a low-caste, chamar woman and working as an indentured labourer in Fiji in 1913. She was blamed as immoral woman for revolting against men’s harassment due to her low-caste status among the indentured labourers (Nijhawan 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gurram Ashok

Gurram Ashok is an Assistant Professor and MURTI Faculty Fellow at Department of Political Science, GITAM School of Humanities and Social Sciences, GITAM (Deemed to be) University. Hyderabad, Telangana state, India. His interests include Technology, Digital, Datafication, Surveillance and Privacy, Biopolitics, and Social Justice. He obtained PhD from University of Hyderabad and his doctoral research explores the Politics of Technology and Welfare in the state of Telangana, India. He published research papers on themes such as surveillance, biopolitics, caste, privacy in Sage journals and upcoming book chapters in Palgrave edited volumes.

Donthagani Veerababu

Donthagani Veerababu is currently working as Assistant Professor at Dept. of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. He obtained his PhD degree from Osmania University, Hyderabad and specialised in areas of Public Policy, Rural Development, Governance, and Public Administration. He has published several research articles in Scopus indexed journals published by Sage and Wiley publishers. He also regularly writes editorials for Telugu and English newspapers. Email: [email protected]