Perils of digital determinism in addressing the rural-urban inequality in India

By Aishwarya Acharya

The notion of “digital determinism”, i.e. digitalization provides a one stop solution to all the problems in India, needs to be questioned. While digitalization as a process has undoubtedly brought significant changes in our country, the idea that it will help us remove our structural inefficiencies will fail to actualize until the structural inequalities themselves are not addressed. One of such grave inequalities prominent in India is the rural-urban inequality.

India currently has a constantly increasing digital population of 692 million. But the parameters such as data usage, purchase of and access to digital services cannot be the signifiers of whether the use of digital mediums is translating into productive outcomes at par with the investment. In this context, understanding the impact of digitalization on rural-urban divide in India focusing on the important factors of education, employment, healthcare and financial inclusion is important.

Education

According to UNESCO, approximately 0.32 billion students in India have been affected by school closure due to the pandemic. Out of them, 84% were residents in rural areas and 70% were from government schools. Furthermore, the ASER 2021 report showed that Covid caused economic turmoil in rural areas led to steep dropout from private schools bringing enrolment ratio at a low of 24%. Private schools are already more well equipped in terms of digital infrastructure than the government schools. Furthermore, the ASER 2023 report showed that post Covid, three-fourths of the students have come back to government schools instead of private ones due to contraction in family incomes.

According to the latest data, only 4% rural households have access to computers compared to 23% in urban areas. The use of smartphones and internet has surely increased due to the falling prices after the telecommunications industry revolution in the country. In 2022, Indian users spent an average 4.5 hours per day on the phone. But the use of internet connection and smart phones turned out to be majorly for calling and entertainment purposes. Social media and entertainment destinations have seen 51% YoY growth, leading entertainment services to top the data-usage chart. Thus, an increase in availability of the internet automatically does not translate into better education, until the institutions are not changed accordingly.  For example, economic distress leads to more increase in dropout rates in rural areas as the child becomes a means to earn extra income. Similarly, even with the minimum facilities, teachers are not well-versed in technology which incorporates teaching and learning digitally.

Employment

Majority of the progress and job-creation made under the digitization process is in the high-tech and startup industry. Though it has resulted in a significant increase in demand for mental labor, the scope for manual labor has decreased, leading to no efficient change as far as employment in the rural sector is considered. Instead, due to lack of education and employment in the digital field, there is consistently increasing migration from rural to urban areas, further weakening the rural institutions. Manual work in rural areas majorly comprises the agricultural and SMEs sector. “Open Skills Report 2021” notified that digitalization will not bring significant change in working conditions of manual workers or any substantial economic benefits for them.

While the economy in urban areas has developed deeper digital management, rural-based economy is not attended to, keeping the aspects of micro management in mind. Thus, just like small businesses in urban areas are regulated on digital platforms, such cases in rural areas are not pertinent. The Self Help Groups are educated for digital marketing and assistance in states like Odisha and Telangana. But, the attitude towards digital learning and incorporation is not the same across the country. NABARD has launched EShakti services to ensure digital and financial inclusion in rural areas. But substantial results are yet to be seen.

Though digitalization of agriculture is in progress, the majority of the villagers are unaware due to lack of digital education in the rural areas. This impacts their earnings, as villagers do not keep the track of the market price of their products. They do not have the technical know-how of digital marketing or ways of conducting online businesses leading to a loss in significant earnings that could have been made otherwise.

Healthcare

Covid-19 has highlighted the necessity to make improvements in healthcare services, with digitalization becoming its backbone. Telemedicine, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), remote monitoring systems and other health applications have been serving the purpose. Transferable EHRs facilitate easier case transfers to the doctors, while telemedicine services and portals such as e-Sanjeevani have been successful in connecting doctors to patients in rural areas. Geographical isolation could be tackled via digitalization, but while developments in healthcare in urban areas include comprehensive measures like Big Data Analytics, AI, ML and advanced healthcare monitoring systems, digital solutions for rural India are very basic in nature, as the physical healthcare institutions themselves are not well-equipped. Several NGOs operated mobile pharmacy shops in the rural areas during the COVID period, but the patients with serious diseases still had to travel large distances to get proper treatment. Though there are a lot of speculations on how digitalization can improve healthcare in rural India, concrete results are yet to be seen.

Financial Inclusion

This is perhaps one of the areas where there has been significant progress due to digitalization. The penetration of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile trinity and resulting direct benefit transfer scheme has led to a stark increase in bank accounts in both urban as well as rural areas. According to the Global Financial Inclusion Index released by the World Bank in 2021, 80% of India’s population has bank accounts. Digital banking has reduced the costs of financial activities for rural populations as well. Government of India has announced 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs), which focus on easing the online banking services for rural population. The rural-urban bank account ownership gap is almost nil in India, which is appreciable.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, the hope that digitalization will bring institutional reforms and reduce inequalities has not died. But, a lot needs to be done on grassroots level for these initiatives to actually materialize on a substantial level, especially in the rural areas. The issues in patriarchy, caste, class, rural-urban differences etc. as structures that function through and in our daily lives cannot be left onto the mercy of digitalization. Neither can digitalization bring any substantial change in the lives of the people unless these structural inequalities themselves are not addressed.

The necessity is not to bring “hardware” changes in policies focussing on the idea of providing “access to resources” as equivalent to development. It is more about bringing the “software” changes in the mentalities, attitudes and approach of the people towards the use of digital means. The policies need to focus on providing “access to the awareness of exploring and exploiting the resources”, which require as much of a bottom-up approach as top-down.  Even today, a fair amount of the population lives in the villages. India will not be able to make full use of the digitization process till two Indias continue to exist.

The author has completed her Master’s in International Relations and Area Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is working as a Research Intern at the Institute of Chinese Studies focussing on the urban-rural divide in China.