Digital Gulaami: When the Feed Became a Colonial Decree

“Real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

In the grand theatre of the 21st century, social media has emerged as a double-edged sword — simultaneously heralded as a platform of empowerment and denounced as a subtle instrument of cultural subjugation. While political independence was secured in 1947, the new millennium has ushered in an era where digital dependence has replaced colonial domination. With over 700 million active internet users and the world’s largest youth population engaging with platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter (now X), India has become a hyper-connected society. However, this connectivity comes with costs — costs that manifest in the subtle forms of digital colonization, the loss of cultural sovereignty, and the erosion of the spirit of Self-Swaraj.

Colonization no longer arrives with ships and guns; it now travels via algorithms, likes, and hashtags. What the British once did with Macaulay's educational policy — replacing indigenous intellect with a foreign, Anglicized worldview — Silicon Valley now accomplishes with reels and retweets. The dominance of Western ideals, fashion, language, beauty standards, and humor over digital platforms is eerily reminiscent of the cultural hegemony once imposed by colonial rulers. Trends on social media are dictated by algorithms built, controlled, and modified by corporations based in the Global North, especially the United States. These corporations determine what is ‘trending,’ whose voices are amplified, and what content becomes ‘viral.’ Thus, the user is subtly manipulated into consuming content shaped by a foreign worldview, often at the expense of native values, languages, and narratives.

The British Empire once ruled through gunpowder and trade; today’s empires rule through algorithms and attention economies. What Macaulay's 1835 Minute on Indian Education did by enforcing a Westernized curriculum, today's algorithmic systems do by elevating Western aesthetics, humor, and narratives as global norms. The hegemony of digital trends — often birthed in Silicon Valley — disproportionately shapes Indian cultural consumption. A typical Instagram feed is dominated not by Kabir, Kalidasa, or Tagore, but by Kardashians, memes, and memes of memes.

Self-Swaraj, as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi, was not merely political autonomy but a philosophical call for internal freedom — freedom from dependence, from the craving of Western validation, from the inferiority complex deeply embedded by years of servitude. Gandhi's idea of Swaraj was more than the expulsion of the British; it was a rejection of the colonial mindset, a quest for inner autonomy. As he wrote in Hind Swaraj (1909), “Swaraj is to be attained by educating the people to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.” Today, instead of foreign rulers, it is the unseen algorithms and platform moderators in foreign tech offices who regulate our cultural expression and societal trends.

The user may feel free, but this freedom is illusory — governed by metrics of virality, by content moderation systems trained on Eurocentric norms, and by psychological design meant to maximize user engagement rather than self-awareness. Thus, Self-Swaraj is obstructed not just externally but internally, as our desires, aspirations, and validations are now dictated by digital colonizers.

Social media trends stand in direct contradiction to this concept. The Indian digital native today often feels an existential urge to be seen, validated, and accepted — not by their community or country, but by a virtual, borderless elite that echoes foreign sensibilities.

Ashis Nandy, in his critique of colonialism, warned that colonization of the mind is more dangerous than colonization of land. Social media, in this regard, becomes a psychic battlefield where the Indian mind constantly negotiates its identity through alien frameworks.

This is no different from the colonized mindset of the 19th century, when wearing Western suits, speaking English, and mimicking the British lifestyle were considered the pinnacle of ‘civilization.’ Today, an Instagram influencer from Mumbai gains traction not by showcasing regional traditions but by copying global dance challenges, lip-syncing to American slang, and wearing clothing inspired by Hollywood stars. The old colonial obsession with mimicry lives on — only the stage has changed.

The virality economy does not reward depth, heritage, or truth; it rewards relatability to dominant cultures. This poses an existential threat to indigenous languages, folk art, storytelling traditions, and regional identities. For instance, a native dance form like Lavani or Yakshagana struggles to trend on a national or international scale, while a random Western meme or audio clip can dominate Indian feeds overnight. This erasure is slow, subtle, and devastating — a digital extinction.

A crucial site of this colonization is language. English, once enforced through colonial education policies, now dominates digital discourse. According to KPMG's 2021 Digital Report, only 12% of internet content in India is in vernacular languages despite over 80% of the population preferring to consume content in their mother tongue. This imbalance reflects the continued cognitive dominance of colonial language hierarchies, resulting in linguistic inferiority complexes and cultural alienation.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, an author from Kenya, resonates with the Indian context when he writes in Decolonising the Mind (1986): “The language of the colonizer became the language of the elite, of power, and therefore of truth.” In the Indian digital space, this holds painfully true.

Moreover, the younger generation is increasingly engaging with the world through borrowed idioms. The richness of Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, or Punjabi is sacrificed for a hybrid, diluted, ‘cool’ English that has no emotional root or cultural memory. In this context, social media is not merely a tool of communication — it becomes a device of detachment.

Every viral dance challenge, lip-sync reel, or meme format consumed uncritically feeds into a cultural mimicry that displaces native expression. While creators from the West can commodify their subcultures, Indian creators often feel compelled to conform to global templates to be relevant.

Swami Vivekananda once thundered, “We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care what you think.” The crisis of today is that our thoughts are no longer our own — they are coded in California, packaged as trends, and delivered via notifications.

Digital colonization is not limited to culture — it’s economic too. Social media platforms generate massive revenues from Indian users but pay back little in taxes or infrastructural investment. Meta’s 2022 annual report revealed that India contributes over 15% of its global user base, but the country sees only marginal economic returns or control. This is a neo-mercantilist model, where raw data is exported, processed abroad, and monetized in foreign financial markets. We are data laborers without digital rights.

Beyond the cultural front, digital colonization has a sinister economic face. The vast data generated by Indian users — their habits, preferences, fears, and desires — is harvested by tech giants headquartered abroad. This creates a form of economic dependency and surveillance capitalism where the digital lives of Indian citizens are monetized by foreign companies, with minimal regulation and almost no profit returning to the local economy.

In essence, we are providing the raw material — our data — while they produce and profit from the digital empires built upon it. This is algorithmic colonization, and it mirrors the exploitative economic models of historical colonialism where the colonized provided labor and resources, and the colonizers reaped the wealth.

Reclaiming Self-Swaraj in the digital era requires a cultural and psychological revolution. We must shift our focus from chasing what is "viral" to what is rooted in "vichaar" — thoughtful, meaningful, and indigenous content. This means empowering creators who use native languages, promoting platforms that prioritize regional culture, and building digital infrastructure that respects local narratives.

It also involves challenging the trend-based culture that rewards superficiality over substance. The goal must be not just digital literacy, but digital sovereignty — where we control our content, our data, and our cultural expression.

Social media trends are the new missionaries of cultural erasure, dressed in the garb of fun and relatability. They are not inherently evil, but in their unchecked domination, they erode the essence of Indian identity. If the 20th century demanded political freedom, the 21st demands psychological and cultural emancipation — a digital Swaraj.

To reclaim our narratives, we must first recognize the subtle tyranny of the algorithm, the invisible hands of foreign influence, and the false gods of virality. In the words of Rabindranath Tagore, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high... Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” That freedom, today, is not just from chains, but from trends.

Reclaiming Digital Swaraj requires systemic intervention. Firstly, India must prioritize algorithmic transparency and regulation, ensuring that content moderation systems do not suppress indigenous voices. Secondly, public investment in regional content creators and vernacular platforms is essential. Initiatives like Koo and Bharatverse must be supported not only financially but also culturally.

Thirdly, digital literacy must be coupled with civilizational consciousness — schools and colleges should teach students not only how to use the internet but how to navigate it critically and culturally. Finally, policy frameworks like the Digital India Act must include provisions for content diversity, language protection, and platform accountability.

As India strides into its digital future, it must pause to ask — are we sovereign in our thoughts, our culture, and our data? The battle for Swaraj is no longer fought in the fields or streets, but in feeds and stories. It is time to move from mindless mimicry to mindful memory, from trending to thinking, from colonized consumption to conscious creation.

As Sri Aurobindo once proclaimed, “India must protect her soul.” Today, her soul lives online — and it must be reclaimed.