Poor infrastructure hits internet growth in India
Given that India recently crossed the threshold of 100 million internet users, the Big Tent Activate Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, which brought together Indian and international leaders to discuss how the internet will impact the future of this country, could not have come at a better time. Organised by Google, the Guardian newspaper and the Delhi-based global consultancy firm, Media Guru, the summit examined how technology has been affecting politics in the world's largest democracy. Interestingly, the event comes only months after the country’s youth harnessed the potential of the internet in general and the social media in particular to connect with one another and put together a strong opposition against the December 16 Delhi gang rape incident last year. That movement has compelled law-makers to bring about a landmark legislation to contain crimes against women. Similarly, it was the countrywide, anti-graft protests of 2011, also spurred by modern communication technology, which forced Parliament to consider the popular demand for the establishment of an ombudsman. But while it’s true that Indians have embraced the internet and leveraged its potential to push for positive socio-political changes, many of our politicians see the internet as a nuisance and worthy of suppression when they are at the receiving end. Ample proof of this lies, for instance, in the manner in which the otherwise net savvy Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Omar Abdullah sought to justify the internet blackout in his State following the controversial execution of Afzal Guru. We must also not forget how easily technology can be abused in the wrong hands. A good example is the incident where thousands of North-Easterners fled home after they received malicious text messages in the aftermath of the Bodo-immigrant violence in Assam last year. Meanwhile, our public figures must learn a lesson or two from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who also spoke at the summit and illustrated how he had used information technology to provide transparent governance.
But while such discussions on technology and governance are welcome, they will essentially be meaningless unless the infrastructure needed to support the so-called ‘internet revolution' is put in place, and soon. For instance, even today, large parts of rural India have no internet connectivity; in many such places there is no electricity even. As Google chairman Eric Schmidt has pointed out, there is a real possibility that the ‘internet revolution' may bypass India entirely if things don't change quickly enough. Today, many people believe that by the end of the decade, this country could become the world's biggest open internet access market in the world, as an estimated 600 million Indians get online. Impressive as these numbers may be, they pale in comparison to the one billion plus internet users that India has the potential for.