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Bill Gates, Nandan Nilekani, the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum are all agreed: India’s digitalization process is transformational. Digitalization 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.
Digitalization in India refutes such magical thinking and looks at the actual process of digitalization in India: its effects on growth, employment, welfare, healthcare, education, urban planning, financial services, and agriculture. It finds that, while digitalization fails to deliver its promises of 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.
As a case study in what awaits the United States and other countries, Digitalization in India is a warning and wake up call for democracies everywhere.
— Ursula Huws
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. So who has benefited from this expansion of the digital economy? The people? Or a handful of monopolies, including new digital ones? Digitalization in India offer some answers to these crucial questions.
— Prabir Purkayastha
Reading these interesting articles from R.U.P.E. throws light on the real impact of the digitization process in India—and will help us to navigate us to the likely impact of the application of AI in India and the entire Global South
— Bernard D’Mello
Digitalization 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 digimania.
— Jean Drèze
Examines the darker underside of digitalization . . . the authors expose the magical thinking,
structural inequalities, and self-serving ideologies. This is essential reading for anyone seeking a
deeper, more critical understanding of India’s digital turn.
— Namit Arora