Non-Marathi Hindutva Pop Culture and the Imagery of Shivaji: A Digital Ethnographic Exploration of YouTube Contents and Communities

The presence of cultural materials across Internet platforms should not be solely seen as diffused and disconnected propaganda materials directed towards a passive target audience. Instead, they should be seen as elements representing a community and as having the potential to form a dynamic and active community of their own through their presence in certain digital spaces through certain channels. Hence, a study of such online communities and their constituent cultural materials, together with their interrelation with the physical community, can help us to understand the actual social phenomenon marking such cultural production. In this background, the aim of this article is to understand the ways through which the image of Shivaji is employed in Hindutva cultural discourses, along with the reasons which account for the large-scale emotional appeal of the figure of Shivaji, particularly in the non-Marathi cultural landscape. This is done through an analysis of certain popular YouTube channels, their contents and the communities they appear to form. For this purpose, the article is divided into two parts: While part one surveys a few selected YouTube channels, their communities and contents, the second part analyses and contextualises the data thus gathered within the larger historiographical debates concerning Shivaji, to argue that the reason behind the popular emotional appeal and acceptability of the figure of Shivaji in Hindutva cultural discourse emanates from the sociocultural and historical ambivalence associated with his character, where he represents a fresh new revolutionary force against external onslaught as well as against internal orthodoxy. It is argued that it is this ambivalence which has made the figure of Shivaji emotionally appealing and hence acceptable to a wide section of the Hindu populace, allowing each of them to interpret, appropriate and relate with the figure of Shivaji in its own way.