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Paper short abstract

From “AI Hanuman” to the Digital Mahakumbh, this paper traces saffron imaginaries of AI in India. That is, how does Silicon Valley's “AI Hype” become saffronized – warping shape, but retaining structure – as it travels across the world to a millenia-old climate of brahminical terror?

Paper long abstract

“The AI Hanuman of Shree Ram!” – so was called the JARVIS software for facial recognition sold by Gurgaon startup Staqu to the Uttar Pradesh police. In January 2024, amidst the death-making violence of India’s famed Ram Mandir inauguration, Staqu installed 10,000 CCTV cameras in Ayodhya, powered by JARVIS. Headlines lauded this technological “Hanuman” (a revered monkey-god in the brahminical pantheon) that would swoop in to protect Lord Ram, with its algorithmic policing database of 8.5 million criminal records. From rebranding Ayodhya as the "world's first Vedic smart-city" to launching the Sah'AI'yak LLM chatbot at the 2025 Digital Mahakumbh, brahminical lore has come to lend a fanatically religious cover to normalize surveillant technologies in India.

In the words of journalist Sigal Samuel: “Silicon Valley’s vision for AI? It’s religion, repackaged.” Scholars have long noted the religious dimensions of (Western) “AI Hype” and its transhumanist devotion to a post-racial techno-imaginary. Drawing on scholarship by Timnit Gebru, Emille Torres, and Sun-ha Hong, I ask: How does this “AI Hype” then become saffronized – warping shape, but retaining structure – as it travels across the world to a millenia-old climate of brahminical terror? Utilizing discourse analysis and primary interviews, I trace the strange Hindu imaginaries, gods, and mythologies that come to animate and justify biometric intrusion in India. Amidst increasingly violent strands of Hindu fascism, techno-religious campaigns offer a cutting modern facade to timelessly ancient brahminical theology – with AI as a purifying presence that can divinely realize the project of ethnic cleansing.