Author: Khodjaeva, Dildora; Agzamova, Nodira

Annotation: This article examines Hinglish, the pervasive Hindi-English hybrid produced by code-switching (CS), in the context of India's digital cultural diplomacy on Instagram and X. It relies on content analysis of the official activities of India’s Ministry of External Affairs (@MEAIndia, @IndianDiplomacy), and three significant hashtag campaigns, i.e. #VaccineMaitri, #G20Bharat, and #DigitalIndia. This study employs sociolinguistic theories (Gumperz, 1982; Myers-Scotton, 1993; Poplack, 1980; Sahni, 2025) to assert that Hinglish hashtags simultaneously serve as identity markers, and soft power and narrative framing tools for domestic and international audiences. As a digital platforms, Instagram is analysed as an integrate aesthetic-visual diplomacy where Hinglish captions humanise policy and project heritage. On the other hand, Hinglish hashtags of X is the real-time diplomacy, provides a means to communicate policy.

Keywords: Hinglish; code-switching; digital diplomacy; hashtag; Instagram; X soft power; cultural diplomacy; multilingualism; South Asia.

Pages in journal: 28 - 37