Our Sisters and Daughters: Pakistani Hindu Migrant Masculinities and Digital Claims to Indian Citizenship

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how Hindu migrant-refugee men use the digital smartphone application WhatsApp to make collective claims on Indian citizenship based on their experiences of exclusion as a religious minority in Pakistan. Drawing on long-term digital and in-person ethnography, I explore the ways that Pakistani Hindu migrant-refugee men commonly exchange images of young Hindu women, reportedly forcefully converted as part of marriages to Muslim men. The circulation of these images on WhatsApp facilitates homosocial bonds between migrant-refugee men based on a shared vulnerability, in contrast with dominant configurations of a muscular Hindu masculinity in India. In addition, men share images from WhatsApp in immigration proceedings, mobilizing them as evidence of religious and caste-based persecution in Pakistan. Mobilizing a wounded masculinity, men’s exchange of images on social media fosters a Pakistani Hindu political community. I argue that these exchanges hinge on gendered hierarchies that shape migrants’ patriarchal claims to citizenship in Hindu majoritarian India.