12 March 2013, 06:37 PM IST
When minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh said India has more mobile phones than toilets, many were surprised. Ramesh was, however, only stating the obvious. We are a nation of cellphones. And, we bullshit.
To understand how mobile phones have revolutionized business, politics and ordinary life in India, you should read the brilliant book Cell Phone Nation (published by Hachette India) co-authored by Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron. Jeffrey is a visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies and Asia Research Institute, at National University of Singapore, and has also written about the rise of vernacular newspapers in India. Doron, a research fellow in the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, too has an earlier India book -- Caste, Occupation and Politics on the Ganges: Passages of Resistance.
By their own admission, Jeffrey and Doron have tried to paint a complete but imperfect picture of an India affected by cellphone revolution -- from the corporate captain in the Mumbai penthouse to the weather-beaten oarsman in a boat on the Ganga.
The authors note that cellphone has a unique status in the history of mankind. "The cheap mobile phone is the most disruptive device known to humanity since shoes. Like shoes, mobile phones go everywhere an individual goes. Like shoes, they show off social class and ideas about fashion. Unlike shoes, mobile phones often get taken to bed."
The cellphone's emergence meant that Indians of every status were able to speak with each other as never before. In February 2012, India had more than 900 million telephone subscribers. 96% were subscribers to mobile phones. "Even if we discount this figure by 30% to eliminate duplication and non-active numbers, 600 million subscribers meant a phone for every two Indians," write Jeffrey and Doron. In a nation where 30% of its population -- more than 350 million – cannot read or write, access to cellphones makes a difference.
The cellphone revolution did not happen overnight. In 1991, there were five million phones in India, none of them mobiles; by 2001, there were 36 million phones, but fewer than 4 million were mobiles. Calls in 1999 were charged at Rs 16 a minute, when Rs 16 was half a day's wage for a labourer. The breaking of the cost barrier happened in 2003 when a minute of talk-time on a mobile phone fell below two rupees.
Just as cash-strapped customers needed to buy matches, soap and shampoo quickly and in small quantities, so they wished to purchase mobile-phone time. To keep to their budgets, customers wanted to pay for their calls in small amounts in advance. In addition, the pre-paid mechanism made service more sociable.
Mass consumption of mobile phones pulverized characteristics of old India: the relative isolation of most of its people, the difficulty of movement and the fact that information was more available to the powerful than to the poor and to men more than to women.
The conquest of India was a conquest of knowledge - initially for profit, then power. The authors write that although India remains a caste-conscious society, now mobile phones undermine these strictures.
Jeffrey and Doron observe that management of radio frequency was intensely political. It involved governments and private enterprise, huge investments and technical judgments - private, public and national interests confronted each other. The spectacular disregard for rules, procedure and fairness eventually led to national uproar over corruption in allotting 2G spectrum.
The authors note that the cascade of new occupations and the training and skills that went with it, resembled to some extent the expansion of the automobile industry in industrial economies after the First World War. If cars in the US bred like rabbits, mobile phones in India gushed like water from a burst dam, rapidly, and into every nook and corner.
The efficacy of the cellphone in politics lay in its being a cheap tool, used for mundane organizational tasks in places that permitted fair elections and public activity. The phone gave groups with limited resources but strong convictions the capacity to connect, mobilize and broadcast. Such capacity was once reserved for the privileged. As a disruptive tool, the cellphone suited democratic India admirably.
As in many other technological innovations, cellphones too can both empower and disempower. The authors note that "the technology exists; immensely powerful economic forces, augmented by widespread social acceptance, have disseminated it widely; and it will only go away if a major cataclysm befalls humanity."
The mobile phone improved some conditions in India but it did not reorder society. Jeffrey and Doron write: "The autonomy of mobile phone enabled fishermen in Kerala to be safer, less wasteful of their catch and less exposed to wide fluctuations in price." But unlike celebrated American economist Robert Jensen and a slew of Indian and American journalists, they bring in the other view. "Though the phone allowed fishermen to compare price at different harbours while still at sea, it also allowed traders on shore to keep in touch with each other, maintain solidarity and keep prices low."
Jeffrey and Doron argue that the cellphone is all about autonomy. They refer to the idea put forward by Manuel Castells that mobile communication is not about mobility but about autonomy. Yes, you have freedom to make decisions, with more access to information and people network. But so too are others who are part of the network and the so called advantage gets neutralized. And what mobile phone has encouraged is idle chatter, rather than sharing of information. There is a lot more public relations around -- not just by corporates but by the common man too. And the power is retained and enjoyed by a minority who are privy to information that matters.
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