‘Social Media Is the Second Ambedkar’: Bhim Army and Social Media Mobilisation in North India

Abstract

Understanding the increasing Dalit activism on social media through the lens of publics and counter-publics, this paper shows how the Bhim Army, a popular on-ground Dalit organisation in North India, makes use of two social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, to further its organisational agenda, and to recruit, inform and mobilise. Using insights from digital ethnography and interviews with Bhim Army leaders, this paper also builds on the theoretical and methodological understandings of social media usage by marginalised actors and intervenes in the debates regarding the role of social media in social movement mobilisation, as well as the frameworks of organisational activities on Twitter and Facebook. Finally, it shows how the different techno-architectural make-up of the two platforms produces different kinds of mobilisations and functions.