Understanding Riot in the Age of the Digital MANISHA MADAPATHI ABSTRACT non-religious sentiments can be observed repeatedly in Maharashtra, Assam and other parts of the North-East. This paper tries to locate the impact of new media Ashish Nandy, in his essay ‘The Politics of Secularism and technologies within the phenomenon of mass the Recovery of Religious Tolerance’, makes a distinction mobilization, focusing on riots in India. The cases I between religion as faith and religion as ideology, which examine are from the recent past, dating not more than is analogous to the distinction made between syncretic five years ago. These technological innovations have popular religion and communal ideology. generated new vocabularies in which one can perceive Within this context of uncertainty to life in communities, riots in the subcontinent. I try to correlate concepts of I would like to introduce another very crucial concept digital with traditional social sciences resulting in a with regard to information systems. Contrary to popular hybrid discourse on the current day riots in India. belief, riots are not a spontaneous occurrence, there is a South Asia, comprising a large arbitrary landmass, great deal of planning and a systematic dissemination is home to a multitude of cultures, races, languages, of information that function methodically. Spreading ethnicities, and religions. This region on the geographic rumours and delivering inflammatory speeches in areas map is celebrated for the diversity it tolerates, which itself already torn by communal differences have been tools also throws challenges at its communities to keep them of the old trade. What is of immediate concern though intact within the milieu of differences and the fear of is the coming of newer forms of communication with the alienation. The characteristic of coexistence of the various changing mediascapes1and advancing media technologies. societies in a place, whether peaceful or otherwise, is By this, I am referring to the omnipresent information peculiar to the South Asian region. One that has been systems in the age of the digital. Digital technology the subject of colonization for the powerful Westerners, has made life as easy in some aspects as it has made it South Asia has been in conflict with its occupiers and complex in other. The nature of the binary world has its sometimes with its own people. own characteristics, so radically distinct from previously South Asian societies, India in particular, have been existent media that controlling authorities are at a loss threatened by the lack of cultural homogeneity and the when outbursts caused due to information circulation absence of institutional mechanisms for the managing on new media occur. Such is the pervasive nature of the of differences. Therefore, a strong state is understood as technology. a necessity to ensure order in society and to proclaim a To analyse technology in isolation would defeat new order based upon rational and scientific principles the purpose to validate my observation of how digital of management. (Das, 1990) technology is involved in instigating riots. Hence, I This said, the conditions of unrest between want to locate the new media practices within societies. communities has mostly been a sporadic phenomenon, Societies, in other words, could be understood as and not a constant threat to the harmony of everyday networks that contain nodes2that are interconnected to life. These high tensions, more often than not, translate form a web of networks. The ability of networks to be into collective violence or riots. Case studies from India able to communicate between each other depends upon will be taken as the vantage point from which further the shared communication protocols and the access to theories in the paper will be analysed. With the case connection points (switches). (Castells, 2004) of India, one must keep in mind not only the religious The above jargonized concept basically borrows from conflicts but also the strong communal identities that they Manuel Castells’ theory on ‘Network Societies’. This proliferate. Collective violence arising out of ethnicity or seminal work on the digital information circulation, 26 Understanding Riot in the Age of the Digital and the society will help us connect the dots between Talking about networks, Alexander Galloway says, the advent of new media and the civil unrests along “Networks oscillate between two related but incompatible communal lines that have played out recently. formal structures. On one side, the chain of triumph; Let’s look at what some of the leading media scholars on the other, the web of ruins.” Galloway makes an have to say about how media technologies are convoluted important statement, which makes us weary of the power with the cultural practices of people. McLuhan’s idea of networks, and rightly so. We are familiar with Arab of how all media embodies cultural meaning and Spring, in which social media networks were used as a can be read in his popular phrase, “the medium is the tool to change the course of governance in North Africa message”. Even so, no technology-culture effect can be and Middle East. Individual citizens came together to established because the technologies themselves are overthrow dictatorship through a structurally bottom-up also cultural artefacts, and there is no way of breaking framework made available by digital infrastructure, and into the circle.” Technologies have immediate impact on shared digital literacy. While this may be an optimistic cultural practices, their “effect” can be described only way to look at networks, Galloway is quick to warn us of as observable patterns of consequence emergence. As the double faced nature of it. He calls the web of ruins, a new means develop, individuals as well as institutions nonlinear mesh, unlike the linear chain of triumph. He may create new cultural forms and meanings. This says, “it is designed to ensnare and delimit even the most interchangeable usage of the concepts of technology and intractable opponent. It is commonly characterized as a culture show the inherent dialecticality of the two, the swarm or pack of animals, unknowable in quantity, and way each one effects the other in the process of cultural innumerable in form. Less concerned with connectivity, meaning making. (McQuail, 2010) the web brings with it a flood of insatiable persecution.” The above reinstates the idea that the medium of This paper talks about the web of ruins that networks can information reception is tied with our ability to make be, with reference to violent mob attacks that resulted in meanings differently with different media. Now let us go deaths and mass destruction. back to Castells and establish a deeper understanding of Digital networks are global. Therefore social structures how new age digital media has changed the generation of whose infrastructure is based on digital networks is by meaning by virtue of its novelty and singularity. definition global. Which in turn means that network The pre-electronic communication technology age, has societies are global societies. But this does not mean been characterized by historical superiority of vertically that everybody gets to be a part of the network. Specific hierarchical organisations over networks. The time lag societies, defined by current boundaries of nation-states, of feedback in communication process made the system or cultural boundaries of their historical identities, are a very one-way flow of transmission of information deeply fragmented by the double logic of inclusion and and instruction. Under such conditions, networks were exclusion in the global networks. Inclusion in the network extensions of power concentrated at the top of vertical also depends upon the ability of the social actor to act organisations. But, electrically based communication on programs and modify them to suit their interests. technology developed around vertical production Networks have dominance over people who are external organisations, like the state, without offering any to it. Which means, the global overwhelms the local. All autonomy to networks. Autonomy here refers to multi- these shortcomings show the ‘imperfect globalization’ of directionality, continuous flow of interactive information the network society, which is a highly significant feature processing. Proper technology was not just a sufficient of its social structure. condition but a necessity. In the communication realm, network society is The network society came into being in the 1970s characterised by a pattern of networking flexibility, as a result of two independent processes. One being recombination of codes, and ephemeral symbolic informationalism, which is a new technological paradigm communication. Cultural expression are enclosed and that constitutes the material basis of twenty first century shaped by this inter-linked, electronic hypertext, formed societies. Informationalism is based on the augmentation by TV, radio, print press, films, video, art, internet of the human capacity of information processing communication, in the so called multi-media system. and communication made possible by revolutions in Even though this system is characterised by oligopolistic microelectronics, software, and genetic engineering. concentration, it is not a system of one way messages to Secondly, a new social structure emerging out of the a mass audience. Media in the network society provide ashes of feudalism, one where each individual forms the a large variety