In his recent lecture at IIC, Robin Jeffrey discussed the social impact of mushrooming communication devices. By P Gupta
look at the world and think about a catastrophic disaster where the cell phone towers went dead. How would you ever be able to ‘text’ your next door neighbour to see if they were okay,” said Stanley Victor Paskavich in Return to Stantasyland.
With the technological innovation of mobile phones, the world has shrunk and people have become networking ghosts. There are things that humans carry with them all the time and they are on their priority list, one such is cell phone. There was a world that existed without this device and now there is a world that can’t survive without it.
Robin Jeffrey via his book Cell Phone Nation: How Mobile Phones Changed India discussed the impact of affordable mobile telephony services on India and how it made India ‘more democratic’ at India International Centre. Jeffrey first came to India when he was 22 in 1967 and has been a frequent visitor ever since. He has closely observed the changes that the Indian population went through from the time of introduction of cheap wireless phones.
He said, “My friend and co-author of the book, Doron, and I wrote this book because we were so taken aback in 2009 when we both started to notice that everyone has mobile phones here and we didn’t. An Australian friend of ours back then mocked us for not having a phone number. I had lived in India for long and I knew that in India one could never make a phone call with any degree of certainty. But in 2009 I realised how different the situation here was. So I went to a bazaar and was surprised to find that one could buy a phone at any nukkad shop and get a service plan. This made me wonder, what happened to the India that I knew in 1967 where telephones were just an object to flaunt at homes.” His thoughts led him to this book.
“I wanted to explain it to myself what led to the change in India in a short span of time,” said the author.
The book is an attempt to understand the kind of political economy that drove the spread of phones in India in the last 20 years and the consequences on the ground for the users, why phone became such an attraction and what is it doing to the Indian society.
The change is spell binding, said Jeffrey. “If I had to sum up the book in two words, first would be ‘disruptive’ — mobile phones are playing a role in changing social relationships. The other word is ‘autonomy’ — it’s not the mobility but the autonomy of this device that’s impacting people.”
The book is divided into three sections. First section is on “controlling” — the control by the political economy, the government and giant corporations.
The second is on “connecting” — an attempt to understand people who got involved in selling, maintaining and repairing phones, laying cables and setting up towers. And the last section is on “consuming” — how people are using phones for business, politics in their daily lives.
The focus has been on “network individualism.” Jeffrey explained the term, “Network individualism means that I can be in that corner, ignoring everyone in the room, but networking with some one in New York. So, I would know people at a distant place but not in my immediate surrounding.”
With the prominence of mobile phones the interaction among people has been different. A recent study found out that half of teenagers are more confident expressing themselves over text than face to face conversation.
Until 10 years ago, phones in India were not deemed important for “aam aadmi.” Affordable mobile phones have made conditions “faster and more efficient.”
Talking about the social (equality) effects of mobile phones, Jeffrey gave an interesting analogy. “If you want to limit someone’s mobility and take away their dignity, you deprive them of their shoes. Today you can deprive them of their cell phones. Owning a phone brings a strong sense of status, even dignity today.”
Jeffrey said, “The 2007 state elections in Uttar Pradesh were India’s first ‘mobile phone’ elections, when Mayawati managed a huge victory — thanks to her dedicated cadre armed with mobile phones to connect with voters. Current Parliamentary elections’ high turnout is surely linked with mobile phones.” In Jeffrey’s opinion, mobile telephony has been playing an important role in India’s lok Sabha elections providing candidates access to their supporters.