Communities at the Heart of Digital Design
Becoming Digital Citizens

The progress of digitalisation in India has been steadfast with over 650 million smartphones users and over 950 million internet subscribers. Yet, the same country accounts for the largest number of unconnected citizens, exposing a deep social divide. This paradox raises questions about accessibility and equity in India’s digital journey.

By Osama Manzar and Dr. Arpita Kanjilal

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data reveals a stark divide: only 24% of rural India has internet access compared to 66% of urban households. The Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide highlights contradictory and concerning trends: there has been a noticeable decline in rural internet access, dropping from 31%, compared to 67% among urban population.

Digital Transformation

India has taken numerous steps to address the impending crisis of digital divide. Since the launch of Digital India in 2015, a range of initiatives were rolled out to improve internet connectivity in rural India. These include creating access points such as Common Service Centers building digital infrastructure to create digital citizens. The journey has not been without challenges.

Take demonetisation, for example, which was a drastic regime shift that forced millions to adopt digital banking and transactions. This adversely affected rural households reliant on agriculture and the informal sector. Soon after, basic citizen entitlements, benefits, subsidies, and welfare schemes including the Public Distribution System were digitalised and linked to Aadhar, a centralised biometric identity database.

To navigate and adopt this unprepared shift towards e-governance – marked by the digitisation of identities, databases, and government interfaces - building robust digital infrastructure, enhanced connectivity, facilitating access through digital platforms, and empowering citizens, especially those at the edge of information became sheer necessities.

Persistent Gaps: Infrastructure and Inequality

India is a country with two-thirds of the population residing in the rural region. Despite numerous multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral efforts, many fundamental infrastructure gaps and social-economic divides continue to persist, permeating even the digital realm. The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced the urgency to extend connectivity to every remote corner of the country. In this scenario, how can the internet be made accessible to remote areas and marginalised communities—historically deprived of basic amenities and infrastructure such as transport, electricity, telecommunications, healthcare, education, banking and financial services? How do we build a digital design that addresses the graded digital inequalities? How do we ensure meaningful connectivity and digital adoption in the last mile?

Deploying wired internet across India’s vast and diverse geography is expensive for the Internet Service Providers. It became essential to democratize the access to digital infrastructure and e-governance adoption among citizens especially at the level of Gram Panchayats. This has made it important to decentralise, de-monopolize and democratise the availability of connectivity and access to information. For instance, Community Radios were trialled as rural Internet Service Providers, which later got recognised as ‘Public Wi-Fi networks’ by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. These Community Networks, that are built, managed, and used by local communities, played a crucial role in strengthening the local telecommunications infrastructures, especially in areas where commercial providers did not offer services. They, however, face challenges of costs, scalability, and sustainability.

Initiatives and Innovations

In the last two decades, India has seen significant efforts directed to bridge the digital divide. National Digital Literacy Mission was one of the first initiatives conceputalised by Digital Empowerment Foundation and later adopted by the Government of India for a large-scale implementation in the last mile. Built on this initiative was a broadband revolution in rural India taking digital connectivity to Gram Panchayats through the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN).

There have also been efforts to explore frugal connectivity solutions, which included trials using unlicensed spectrum. The idea was to ensure affordable connectivity in remote and unconnected areas. Following policy changes, the purchase, and sales of connectivity without a license were legalised. This eliminated the need for an Internet Service Provider, allowing distributors or users to establish a private connection by simply paying a regular subscription fee.

Several interventions in this line of approach have been undertaken to enable and scale internet connectivity and digital access among rural and underserved communities in India.

Citizen-Centric Digital Design

Despite these efforts, there continues to be a stark gap and ever-deepening divide in access and adoption of the Digital Public Infrastructure among citizens and communities. With the advent of AI, digital adoption has become further challenging, with critical concerns about data, storage, privacy, security, bias, accessibility, and ethical use. Where are we going wrong? Are “We, the People of India” part of this digital design at all? Is digital design citizen-centric or consumer-centric?

Today, about 2.4 billion people worldwide remain unconnected. In India, many communities, including weavers, artisans, farmers, frontline workers, women, youth, persons with disabilities, queer and transgender communities, fisherfolk, nomadic tribes, Dalit and Adivasi communities, urban slum dwellers, elderly populations, and communities residing in remote or mountainous regions, continue to face digital exclusion and largely remain disconnected from the broader digital ecosystem. How do we envision a digital design that strengthens social justice and includes the knowledge and wisdom of grassroots, unconnected, and indigenous communities?

This will require a perspective change. The digital landscape today largely continues to operate in a top-down manner where citizens are treated as mere data points. To develop a digital design that is inclusive from the outset, integrated into the core of the design-thinking process rather than as an afterthought, we need to shift to a bottom-up approach that treats communities as key stakeholders in policymaking. Hyperlocal solutions designed for specific contexts can help address the graded digital inequalities by strengthening local digital ecosystems.

Connectivity should not just be treated as a technological milestone but also as a social revolution, something that bridges the gap between aspiration and accessibility.

Related Links for mentioned statistics:

• The progress of digitalisation in India has been steadfast with over 650 million smartphones users and over 950 million internet subscribers.
• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data reveals a stark divide: only 24% of rural India has internet access compared to 66% of urban households.