Technology and surveillance re-write Indian city's past

Dr Kapoor, Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Warwick, expanded the way we think about the relationship between tech capitalism, authoritarianism and fascism through analysis of the Indian city of Hyderabad. She explained this through the concept of 'data nationalism', whereby the growth of the tech sector is aligned with India's goals to build national prestige and promote modernity, as well as to its Hindu nationalism.

She delivered this talk for the annual lecture hosted by the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities as part of their commitment to drawing on methodologies and subject specialisms across arts and humanities fields of study.

Intersecting religion and technology

The state government wanted to attract foreign investment into the city and connect its businesses to the global economy; they achieved this by partnering with multinational tech companies. Administration of the city has adapted, with the local government turning into a corporation - amounting to an explicit privatisation of the state, said Dr Kapoor.

She showed how the presence of tech companies of Hyderabad has re-written history to align with Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist political ideology, by obscuring reference to the city's Islamic past. She traced the way Hinduism and tech capitalism have bolstered one another - for example, tech companies often use Hindu iconography in their messaging, making it hard to distil the difference between the two.

By merging the city's development with Hindu iconoclasm, Hyderabad is reimagined as a more Hindu city, said Dr Kapoor. This fits with the narrative of India as doubly colonised - first by Muslims, and then by the British Empire.

Transformation in Hyderabad has been so prominent that one district is now named 'Cyberabad', showing how the presence of IT companies is influencing the naming of places. Dr Kapoor explored how the physical growth of the city has entailed mass displacement of the poor and small-scale landowners, leading to gentrification and higher levels of inequality - as well as replacing Mogul history with tech modernity. It is also adding to resource scarcity (for example, of water), something which was already a challenge for the city.

Hyper surveillance

Hyderabad is often represented by the symbol of a laptop, but also by the symbol of a CCTV camera. Dr Kapoor examined how growth of the city's technology sector has been used as an excuse for expanded surveillance and police initiatives, as tech companies use the city as a testing ground for the equipment they are developing - often in clandestine ways.

In Hyderabad, there are 480 CCTV cameras per square kilometre, equating to 30 cameras for every 1,000 residents. The Telangana Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), where this camera network feeds into, towers over the city's skyline.

About the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities

The Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities is grounded in the tradition of studying human experience with an eye towards a changing world. Drawing on research expertise in subjects ranging from the medical humanities to cultural production, and from critical theory to politics, the department aims to equip students with the ability to map the contours of contemporary problems using the approaches, skills, and knowledge from multiple disciplines.

The annual lecture series, launched in 2025, brings together experts from across arts and humanities subjects to showcase the different methodologies and specialisms that can be applied to studying the human experience in a changing world.