From Connections to Confrontations, the success story of 12 million women
Some ten media journalists and social workers gathered to bring the technology accessibility to Purulia, an only-too-rural part of West Bengal. Situated on the border of Jharkhand and West Bengal, Purulia’s crowd is excited to find so many English-speaking elite groups in their place. You’d see a good number of children and women for who this gathering might just be the biggest event in their otherwise dull lives.
As the time passed, the journalists tried to mix up with this crudely Bengali crowd. Not the one you’d see in movies of Shoojit Sircar, or Aparna Sen, this flock is now seldom represented in mainstream narrative, be it media or cinema. When asked about her experiences, a rural woman explained how using internet and search engine has made her life better. From browsing through trees to Mamata Banerjee’s speeches, these rarely educated women have ultimately found a way to access knowledge. “Be it checking out the blouse design, GK questions, food recipe, train timings, internet works great” said an enthusiast Madhulika.
In a cut-throat competition in our digital ecosphere where every other day you’d see updates rolling up, it seems rural sector is verily neglected. Smartphones are designed for city-dwellers, applications are built keeping the urban markets in mind, and not very often does technological innovation help rural India. The case is even worrisome for women in countrysides. In a country with 1.324 billion population, only one out of ten rural women enjoyed the internet access. This digital divide is also pointed out by TRAI data which shows only 13.7 internet subscriptions per 100 people in rural India (compare it with urban India statistics which has 61.9 subscriptions per 100 people)
There we go! Making a really positive difference, Women like Sujata, Mahima, Sanjukta, and Neha are some of the 18000 women who partnered with Google to break the digital divide. Google helped not only to train themselves, but also provided resourceful planning to spread internet awareness among rural India. Through their Internet Sathi program, Google (in partnership with Tata Trust), Google is setting an unprecedented example of created digitally-enabled livelihood opportunities amongst women.
In contrast to 1 among the 10 internet using rural women, Internet Sathi has trained over 30000 people, who in turn have influenced more than 12 million Indian women. Now that’s the power of technology, one would say. But we also understand the role of this Internet sathi who have left their comfortable lifestyle to reach out to a more-needy user base, neglected both by the government and corporations.
From Purulia to Aligarh and Jaipur to Warangal, the progressive penetration of Internet Sathi Programme has generated economic and social opportunities around the country. Knowledge about simple applications like WhatsApp, google search and PayTm has broadened their awareness and connections to a larger world. In our times where romantic relationships are cultivated over social media sites, just as hate speeches are hurled, rural women understand the true potentials of internet connectivity more than us. Rupa, a class 8th student from Lohardagga, Jharkhand, says she no more needs extra help from her teachers as she can study using free resources available on the Internet.
In addition to this, Tata Trust is also setting the Foundation for Rural Entrepreneurship Development (FREND) so that enterprises and institutions can collaborate with Internet Sathis. That ways, the distribution cycle of digital information and services will positively increase in rural India.To be sure, this Tata-Google initiative is making women self-dependent and more driven towards their community. Which leads to question our role in supporting these programs by spreading a word about it and also sharing some ideas to improve the lifestyle of rural India with the help of technology.
