[kictanet] Technology has never been this political in India - MediaNama

[Mildred Achoch]

Fascinating piece! Portions that stood out for me:

"We’ve gone from technology giving people choice to technology robbing
people of choice: the way technology is being implemented by our government
today is an attack on freedom and choice."

 *“You can’t do anything about the Act. It will be passed before you know
it, and nobody will be able to do anything about it.” A couple of weeks
later, that’s what happened.* *They knew**."*


"What I’m worried about is that the direction being chosen doesn’t appear
to have been decided in a manner that is open and participatory, and
there’s a distinct attempt to ignore concerns of those who represent how it
impacts people."



"Lastly, I know that we, as journalists, aren’t doing a good enough job of
asking these questions (and more), and this is our failure as well; we’re
all jostling for space and struggling for survival too."


Yes, food for thought as we break for the holidays. Merry Christmas
everyone and a prosperous 2017.


Regards,

Mildred Achoch.

Check out the Rock 'n' roll film festival, Kenya TV Channel!
http://kenyarockfilmfestivaljournal.blogspot.com



On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Nanjira Sambuli via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Good read, and a cautionary tale.
> Happy Holidays!
>
> http://www.medianama.com/2016/12/223-year-end-rant-2016-
> technology-has-never-been-this-political-in-india/
>
> Year end rant 2016: Technology has never been this political in India
> Nikhil Pahwa <http://www.medianama.com/author/nikhil/>•December 23, 2016
>
> There’s something deeply worrying with where we’re going with digital,
> when the founder of India’s (self-proclaimed) largest fintech company
> stands up on a stage and, in a manner that resembles a rallying cry and all
> the passion that comes with it, calls it his company’s “pious mission” to
> make India cashless.
>
> The religiosity of that phrase – “pious” – invariably invokes thoughts of
> “white man’s burden”, imperialism and conversion that comes with it. Let’s
> call it “digital man’s burden”, for the lack of a better phrase. What we’ve
> seen over the last few of years is this concerted push to convert people to
> digital: the visible aspect of it has been incentives: cashbacks, cheaper
> products, cheaper cab rides, free calling. The growth in commerce leads to
> growth in content, leads to growth in usage of the Internet. It’s all good,
> because at least for the time being, it gives consumers choice. The growth
> that is now coming in, and is set to come in, is not through incentives but
> enforcement: people aren’t being given a choice.
>
> We’re seeing this “digital conversion” manifest itself in two ways, both
> related: firstly, the way Aadhaar is
> <http://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-jee-2017-cbse-makes-aadhaar-card-compulsory/>
> being <https://thewire.in/84719/indian-railways-puts-aadhaar-mandatory/>
> made
> <https://thewire.in/75359/right-to-food-how-aadhaar-in-pds-is-denying-rights/>
> mandatory
> <http://scroll.in/article/817366/despite-the-supreme-court-you-need-aadhaar-to-get-a-loan-from-microfinance-companies>
> despite how its execution
> <http://scroll.in/article/709399/why-poor-people-in-delhi-are-desperate-to-get-their-babies-uniquely-identified>
> is impacting the poor
> <http://scroll.in/article/813132/rajasthans-living-dead-thousands-of-pensioners-without-aadhaar-or-bank-accounts-struck-off-lists>,
> in violation of Supreme Court orders. Second, is the way delegitimisation
> of 86% of the currency in circulation is forcing people to switch to
> digital currency, despite it being more expensive for citizens, and our
> infrastructure being incapable of dealing with it
> <http://www.medianama.com/2016/11/223-cashless-india/>. There’s a
> remarkable lack of empathy – from both the state and the opportunistic
> founders of companies, or their religious leaders
> <https://twitter.com/NandanNilekani> seeding this “pious mission” – when
> the pain it causes people is being looked at as an “inconvenience”, a
> period of disruption. There is this bizarre, tech-startup mindset, that the
> government (or the RBI. Is there a difference?) is being *agile* with its
> notifications: that it’s put a plan out there, and based on quick feedback,
> is iterating. Unfortunately for them, economies aren’t software or
> products. People don’t starve when Facebook doesn’t upgrade its newsfeed.
> That entire move-fast-and-break-things philosophy cannot apply to the real
> world, when it’s people that can get hurt, and lives that get impacted. People
> have died
> <http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-demonetization-government-not-mourning-over-100-deaths-due-to-cash-crunch-says-opposition-2280902>
> .
>
> We’ve gone from technology giving people choice to technology robbing
> people of choice: the way technology is being implemented by our government
> today is an attack on freedom and choice.
>
> *
>
> Have you heard this phrase “digital colonisation”? The other side of this
> crusade is this demand for protection against competition for the same
> businesses, and it has come from the same sources: the fear of digital
> colonisation in case of Net Neutrality
> <http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/aadhaar-bill-lpg-subsidy-mgnrega-paperless-govt-basis-of-a-revolution/> (not
> a rationale I was comfortable with, by the way), digital colonisation in
> Ola versus Uber
> <http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53497351.cms>, and in
> case of Software Patents
> <http://pn.ispirt.in/patent-shift-hope-for-it-innovation-not-litigation/>.
> There aren’t many places where the phrase “digital colonisation” turns up
> online in the Indian context, but if you’re in conversation with an iSpirt
> executive, the phrase invariably does come up, and it goes something like
> this: In a few years, our authentication will be using fingerprints on
> Google (Android) and Apple, and to retain India’s sovereignty, we have to
> ensure that that authentication is ours.
>
> Colonisation is an emotional subject for us in this country, but when you
> point out that Google and Apple authentication *are choices (not
> mandatory) and the citizen has little protection against the might of the
> sovereign state* (as evidenced by demonetization, by the way), none
> against the theft or misuse of data, there isn’t a cogent response.
>
> The protectionist angle also came up when it was used to seek government
> support, as Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal said
> <http://qz.com/858002/flipkarts-sachin-bansal-and-olas-bhavish-aggarwal-want-india-to-become-like-protectionist-china/>:
> “I think what we need to do is what at some level China did: [tell foreign
> players that] we need your capital, but we don’t need your companies”.
> Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal followed it up by asking for protection against
> “capital dumping”. Both these companies benefited from having raised
> more capital than others, and did their own capital dumping, allowing their
> competition to bleed. Now that both are faced with competition which deeper
> pockets, they want protection. Lets not forget that Flipkart wanted FDI in
> inventory based ecommerce until they became a marketplace. Now they speak
> against it, in order to prevent Amazon from bringing its core business to
> India. There’s a reason why Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma can say
> that
> <https://yourstory.com/2016/11/unstoppable-vijay-shekhar-sharma-paytm/>
> “The Uber of India is Uber. The Google of India is Google. I can sign it on
> a wall that the PayPal of India will not be PayPal.” It’s because the
> company, which has a Payments Banks license, has a regulatory moat which
> not only protects it from Paypal, but also most of local competition.
> Payments Banks have another regulatory advantage: they can integrate UPI
> for payments while wallets are barred
> <http://www.medianama.com/2016/05/223-india-wallets-upi-banks-ncpi-hota/>.
> They can raise money while wallets (for the time being), can’t
> <http://www.medianama.com/2016/10/223-wallets-shareholding-rbi/>. Their
> regulatory future is certain, while that of wallets is not
> <http://www.medianama.com/2016/10/223-review-mobile-wallet-guidelines-payments-banks-norms/>.
> Of course, this is possibly not of their choosing, but they’re making the
> most of this opportunity.
>
> *
>
> Technology has never been this political in India before, and the
> dog-eat-dog competition in tech becomes a battle between a beast and a pup
> when politics enters it.
>
> In an interview a year ago, Nandan Nilekani said
> <http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/interview-with-nandan-nilekani-cofounder-infosys/article7747561.ece>,
> India is going through a period of disruption, and “it is up to individual
> players to take advantage”. There is a window of a digital opportunity in
> India right now, to make multi-billion dollar businesses. When that
> opportunity goes to a chosen few who appear on stage on “Startup India,
> Standup India”, it’s reminiscent of when Russia privatised its factories,
> and the oligarchs took ownership of key industries
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Cl8lSv9Is> to and built multi-billion
> dollar businesses out of it.
>
> At a private meeting in Bangalore in earlier this year, a key member of a
> think tank shouted me down when I raised the issues of lack of privacy
> protection in the (then draft) Aadhaar Bill: *“You can’t do anything
> about the Act. It will be passed before you know it, and nobody will be
> able to do anything about it.” A couple of weeks later, that’s what
> happened. They knew.*
>
> It’s discomfiting how close the technology industry and government have
> gotten this year. Lets take iSpirt as an example: unlike most
> organisations, iSpirt benefits from proximity to TRAI Chairman RS Sharma –
> the Chairman served along with many iSpirt volunteers in Aadhaar, including
> Nandan Nilekani. They got early access to Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was
> pitched to for support for Indian product startup shortly after he became
> IT Minister in 2014
> <http://pn.ispirt.in/how-we-got-the-it-minister-excited-about-indian-product-startups-made-him-our-spokesperson-unleashtheenergy/>,
> and Jayant Sinha, current Minister of State for Civil Aviation (previously,
> Finance), appears to be
> <http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/jayant-sinha-we-need-a-strong-venture-capital-industry/article8656451.ece> a
> regular <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nqv6DjTKKs> at iSpirt events.
> They get meetings at the PMO
> <http://pn.ispirt.in/ispirt-meeting-at-pmo-stay-in-india-checklist/>. Flipkart’s
> payments application was the first
> <https://twitter.com/binnybansal/status/801449459544506368?lang=en> to
> use IndiaStack, which has been set up by iSpirt
> <http://indiastack.org/about/>, and is being used by the National
> Payments Council of India for enabling UPI payments, but in a manner that
> is closed to others. As a think tank, iSpirt is doing an exceptional job of
> pitching to the government and non-government bodies such as the NPCI,
> which impacts payments.
>
> *
>
> It was something to celebrate when this government came into power,
> because it promised support for growth and “Digital India”. What I’m
> worried about is that the direction being chosen doesn’t appear to have
> been decided in a manner that is open and participatory, and there’s a
> distinct attempt to ignore concerns of those who represent how it impacts
> people. That the government speaks against a right as fundamental as
> privacy, to protect a project that is a privacy nightmare, is worrying.
> That people are dying in queues, or are being deprived of their pensions
> because of authentication failure, is distressing. These are not
> inconveniences. *We’re heading down the wrong path if we’re compromising
> on rights in exchange for the growth.*
>
> This is a country low on resources, high on demand, always jostling for
> space. Life here is often like trying to get into a train at Mumbai’s Dadar
> Station at peak times: you get sucked in and have no control over whether
> you’ll get in. Unfortunately, I’m idealistic, and I want there to be
> openness in the way that technology gets deployed; not in a manner that it
> is an attack on choice. There are questions to be asked about how policy is
> being made, and who knows that it is going the way it is? Who’s defining
> the standards, the protocols, and under what circumstances are these
> choices being made? How does it impact citizens and why are civil society
> concerns being ignored? We need more openness and transparency, especially
> because – to invoke another religious metaphor – this push to become
> digital – has become a crusade.
>
> Lastly, I know that we, as journalists, aren’t doing a good enough job of
> asking these questions (and more), and this is our failure as well; we’re
> all jostling for space and struggling for survival too.
>
> *
>
> This is the last post on MediaNama this year. Here’s to more freedom in
> 2017.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Nanjira.
>
> Sent on the move.
>
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