Virtual Belonging, Digital Diaspora, and Sindhi Hindu Identity in the Early 2000s

Abstract

Abstract This article explores online articulations of Sindhi Hindu identity in 2010. The early 2000s mark a key moment of generational shift in the post-Partition Sindhi Hindu diaspora during an era of engagement with websites and virtual discussion forums more broadly. Tracking three diasporic websites, this article helps us to understand what virtual spaces have offered those who are distal from the imagined homelands of their longing. My analysis of the websites and a discussion forum reveal how Sindhi Hindu identity is negotiated around dominant narratives of Hinduness and Indian national identity, but in ambivalent ways that elude religious nationalist binary taxonomies in post-Partition South Asia. In its focus on websites and virtual discussion forums, this article thus brings together questions of deterritorialization and the digital to extend insights about the multiplicity, pluralism, and interconnectedness of the Sindhi diaspora more broadly.