Digital authoritarianism and the persistence of caste: Technology, resistance, and structural inequality in India

This commentary investigates the intersection of structural authoritarianism, caste oppression, and digital technologies in India, arguing that caste functions as a pervasive system of social and political control that persists despite constitutional guarantees of equality. Adapting colonial logics of domination, caste hierarchies are reinscribed in the digital age, where technology platforms serve as paradoxical spaces, both facilitating Dalit resistance and reinforcing Brahminical dominance. Drawing from literature and examples of online Dalit activism, and digital authoritarianism, the paper demonstrates that digital infrastructures simultaneously disrupt and reproduce caste-based inequalities. While social media enables marginalized communities to organize, document oppression, and challenge dominant narratives, platform governance, surveillance, and algorithmic discrimination often amplify existing hierarchies. By centering caste as an analytic, this work expands critical understandings of digital authoritarianism, framing casteism as a technology of control, one that intersects with state power and corporate platforms to reproduce oppression in the digital sphere.