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AbstractThis paper explores the ways in which a resurgent Hindu fundamentalism (Hindutva) is redefining Hinduism and Hindu identities in a transnational, global context. The global project of Hindutva makes use of new global communication channels, including the Internet, and is apparently espoused by influential sections of the transnational Hindu middle class, especially in the United States. This paper examines a selected sample of Internet sites devoted to the spread of religious and fundamentalist beliefs and ideas particularly relevant to India and transnational Hinduism, and explores the ways in which the Internet is changing the shape of communities and the ways in which they represent one another. The paper puts forth the argument that in the context of globalization, the Net has become an important space for the creation of transnational religious identities. The Net is shaping religion, specifically Hinduism, in distinct ways and is the newest expression of religion's changing face. The battle for souls is being fought on Internet sites. The questions of this paper relate to the modes of representation of "other religions" as revealed particularly by Hindu sites, the ways in which Internet sites garner audiences, and the strategies they adopt to link themselves with both global audiences and local groups. A sociological analysis will reveal the shape of these discourses and link their popularity with the social and political context of globalization, a liberalized economy, and the organization of religious practice in post1990s India.

This paper examines the teatr, a form of popular theatre in contemporary Goa, and the ways in which it engages with the modern, defining and 'fixing', in the same moment, a particular variant of 'tradition'. The plays of this genre revolve around questions of moder nity. In a complex articulation of the realms of the global and the local, modern culture, social mores, politics and economics, tourism and the global media are all represented, queried, even critiqued. Simultaneously, tradition, gender and family relations are viewed as requiring protection from the harmful effects of the modern. Thus, we are offered a par ticularly glorified representation of the 'traditional' Goan woman and her immurement in the family. Scholars studying cinema, theatre and the arts have spoken of similar construc tions elsewhere. Given their pervasiveness, the temptation to read these constructions as constituting a homogeneous dominant ideology are great. However, while the teatrs contain women within tradition, there are ruptures and moments when different ideas and voices surface. The paper argues that these moments are worth holding as traces of alternative, though suppressed, models, and as reminders of what the dominant ideology has to counter in establishing and maintaining its heyemony.