Whose Technology is it Anyway? An exploratory essay on the political economy of India's digital revolution
The story of India's digital journey has become an oft-cited tale of economic success across the globe, inspiring similar experiments in other nations in the Global Majority world - most prominently across sub-Saharan Africa. At home, however, this tale has been used to rapidly normalise the deployment of digital technologies. In this process, these innovations have not just bolstered the state's control over individuals and their actions, but have also enabled the tech elite to extract more value from workers, small businesses, and even consumers.
In this exploratory essay, Abhineet reiterates that technology's presumed benefits are not, and have never quite been, an inevitable consequence of progress. By presenting a historical view of the industrial revolution and the green revolution, the piece instead shows that the outcomes of any innovation depend crucially on the choices made by the political and economic elite of the time. Consequently, to truly reflect the interests of the country's masses, the essay calls for India's digital revolution to also take this insight into account.
The central thesis of the essay is borrowed from Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson's 'Power and Progress', and its substantiation for the various historical moments is done through secondary material.
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