The UK's Indian Diaspora: Reflections of Hindutva Ideology Online and Offline

India home to over a billion people has around 17.9 million as a diaspora community around the world. With the onset of a far-right political power in India who are proponents of extremist Hindu ideology, the diaspora’s engagement and participation in this is notable. The paper proposes research questions which aims to observe the UK Indian diaspora’s participation on Twitter and WhatsApp to spread and mobilise for the Hindutva cause. The objectives of the proposed research are to explore themes and contextualise diaspora politics from the lens the Indian diaspora, and to understand how digital media spaces are used by both the political party and its diaspora supporters in creating nationalistic discourse and an identity solidified within these means. The study will also aim to gain in depth understanding of how these online discourses and practices reflect in offline mobilisation. Since this is a MPhil thesis, the paper only proposes a plausible methodology using digital ethnography and semi-structured interviews, that may be used by future researchers either to complete the research questions or for a similar study.