Color, commodity, and belonging: a Hindu festival in the digital age

Bhatia, Varuni (2025) Color, commodity, and belonging: a Hindu festival in the digital age. International Journal of Hindu Studies, 29 (2). pp. 277-297. ISSN 1022-4556

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Abstract

This article explores the widespread use of social media enabled by digital technologies in India and its constitutive role in forging mediatized Hinduism by exploring Holi greetings and content that circulated in 2023. It argues that religious content over social media platforms is fundamentally transforming Hindu religious practices and informing religious beliefs in contemporary India by introducing new ways of being religious, forging new kinds of religious publics, and repurposing older narratives and practices. In the process, the article shows, Hindu practices are being heavily mediatized via social media platforms. Mediatized religious practices are authorized, authenticated, and, under certain contexts, censured and disciplined, on digitally enabled platforms by actors who gain their legitimacy and authority through their popularity on social media. Mediatized Hinduism is simultaneously reified and even commodified in the process, made available for consumption by a substantial media-savvy Hindu online public that consumes religion, entertainment, and politics over social media—often simultaneously. Lastly, the article parses out how a social–media enabled religious public can be infrastructural to the forging of a nationalist, even right-wing Hindutva public under certain conditions.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Bhatia, Varuni
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Religion Social sciences Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Social interaction
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Arts and Sciences
Full Text Status:	None
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6877
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-025-09403-x

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