Why you shouldn't criticise Digital India
The response to the Digital India initiative is mostly positive and only occasionally dissonant, mostly from a section that has a genetic disposition to dislike ideas that come from the NDA stable, such as have come in a flurry over the last year. And then there is also the boredom with good news, a syndrome that the curious mind experiences when it is served anything of similar nature more than a few times, even if it’s good for you.
Be that as it may, it is necessary to see the launch of the Digital India initiative, as every packaged launch must be, as the start of a campaign to focus energies. It is a whistle blown to bring attention, consolidate ideas, entrepreneurship and a public commitment to follow through on a course, charted as much by need, as by the desire to lead. In that, this government is not only setting the agenda and asking to be judged on its performance on the projects it unleashes, it is also signalling to the world that it intends to lead in a sector which, many would grant, reflects aspects of India’s particular forte, if not domain.
Digital India is both, a culmination of the series of sporadic bursts of energy that governments of India have exhibited on disruptive technologies such as IT and mobile telephony, and a beginning towards a more sustained approach to the potential of digitisation, its impact on our lives within the country and across the globe. Digital India provides this government the context for a deep engagement with technology in real time and in preparation for the next waves of technological shifts. Digital India is, in other words, internet technology and mobile telephony married to grand design.
Sceptics have immediately pointed out the challenges of achieving some of the key outcomes envisaged in Digital India due to infrastructural bottlenecks or trade barriers. Quite on the contrary, by declaring its intent so forcefully, this initiative has en passant committed to fixing the anomalies and the obstructions that may impinge on it success. Now we can expect that spectrum limitations, technology infrastructure shortcomings, trade barriers or duty imbalances in electronic manufacturing are addressed post haste. This is a government challenging itself, not a rudderless ship seeking tail winds of favour.
The quibbling over the numbers this initiative could draw whether as investment or outcomes is immaterial at this point of time and we must allow the doubting Thomas’ their day for now. More important is the signal to the business community, to entrepreneurs, to technocrats, to the global audience of the intent of this government. We can trust their instincts to decode the message and take the call and once that happens, be sure that the money will be found, the technology will come, the jobs will follow.
Digital India is a transformational leap as we prepare ourselves to reset our interface with the future of things – in communication, banking, education, governance, health, social security and almost every aspect of life, as we know it today. In one fell stroke, it has the potential of transcending barriers of distance, speed, time and costs. It is the catalyst that could significantly shorten the country’s development curve on various indices and bring succour to the last man in the line, faster than anyone predicted. Digital India, curious as it may look to the untrained eye, is the antidote to poverty.
PM Modi’s emphatic underlining of this project is not without significant political and socio-economic import. He knows the foibles of administrative lethargy and the corrosion of our delivery systems. He knows that man is resistant to change but he also knows that incentive to change is a better master than executive order. By unleashing the power of the Internet he is building a new administrative architecture that is more efficient, more transparent, monitored easily, one that absorbs feedback more readily and responds faster. He is using our genetic predisposition for progress to thaw out the lethargy of the system and recasting governance. By institutionalising Digital India, he is making us more demanding citizens. Implicit in that is also a demand for Indians to lead the world in this space.