Description

Contributors: Arun Kumar, Anurag Mehra, Rajendran Narayanan, Indira Chakravarthi, Manali Chakrabarti, Rahul Varman, Hussain Indorewala, and RUPE.

About the book

Bill Gates, Nandan Nilekani, the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum are all agreed: India’s digitalisation process is transformational. Digitalisation saves the Indian government money, ensures the poor get their payments, enables healthcare, spreads education, empowers the once-excluded, raises productivity and turbo-charges consumption. Indeed it sets a blueprint for other countries to follow.

The authors of this collection of essays eschew such magical thinking and look at the actual process of digitalisation in India: its effects on growth, employment, welfare, healthcare, education, urban planning, financial services and agriculture. They find that, while digitalisation fails on its promises of delivering greater prosperity, well-being, and inclusion, it succeeds abundantly in tightening the grip of corporations over various sectors of the economy, and the grip of global tech giants over India.

Praise for the book

Digitalisation is a veritable mania of the Indian elite, and by extension, of the Indian state. Projected as a public good, it often serves hidden agendas. This book is a rare attempt to understand these issues through the lens of political economy. A powerful critique of digi-mania.

—Jean Drèze.

This collection brings together some of the sharpest minds working on India’s political economy to examine the darker underside of digitalisation. While digital technologies are often hailed as a panacea by financial elites, the authors expose the magical thinking, structural inequalities, and self-serving ideologies that underpin such narratives. This is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper, more critical understanding of India’s digital turn.

—Namit Arora.

India’s digital infrastructure and the increasing number of mobile phones in people’s hands have led to a significant expansion of the digital economy. This book seeks to answer the simple question: Who has benefited from this expansion of the digital economy? The people? Or a handful of monopolies, including new digital ones?

—Prabir Purkayastha.

Cover image: Sudhir Patwardhan. ‘Delivery Boy’, 2023, Oil on canvas; 18×20 in