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Wiring up a knowledge revolution in rural India
CHENNAI: An ICT project in southern India is empowering low-caste village women, helping them net information on everything from grain prices and cataract operations to the Iraq war.
Among the villages in the former French colony of Pondicherry that are hotspots in the Information Village Project (IVP), started by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), is sleepy Embalam, 12 miles from Pondicherry.
In a small 10-ft by 10-ft room, four computers share space with back-up batteries and rudimentary furniture. A group of 15 women, some of them from the so-called untouchable castes or Dalits, operates the computers, collates and presents data. The women speak no English and have not studied beyond high school.
For the benefit of the odd visitor, they put up a Power Point presentation they have created. They man one of the twelve spokes - called Knowledge Centres - of an ICT-enabled rural development programme.
Says 37-year-old D. Usha Rani, who wraps up housework before reporting for voluntary work at the centre, "The Knowledge Centre has become a place everybody flocks to. Villagers get information on all kinds of situations and problems - weather, crops, livestock, health, everything. We have even mediated disputes."
Examples abound of women with only primary schooling operating computers with ease, engaging in HTML coding and editing in the local Tamil language.
The IVP's 12 Knowledge Centres cover 40 villages scattered around the Pondicherry region. Each centre caters to two-three villages in the surrounding area. All are interlinked via wired and wireless communications devices.
According to M.S. Swaminathan, one of the architects of India's Green Revolution and the founder of MSSRF, "If new ICTs could benefit rich countries, why shouldn't they be harnessed to help poor ones? The technologies of the industrial revolution have only exacerbated the divide between the rich and the poor. Technology has to be harnessed without increasing the existing divides."
According to an ongoing survey in five villages covered by the project, people benefit from securing information on employment, crops, fish markets, loans, dairy farming, real estate, veterinary services, weather and wave-height information, bus service and power outage schedules, exam results, and public address announcements.
One example of a valuable application has been the availability of the list of people below the poverty line (BPL), secured and uploaded by the nodal team at Villianur. Being featured in it provides access to government schemes for the poor.
"Till now, most villagers did not know about government programmes meant for them. Even if they did know of the schemes, they did not know if and how they were entitled to them," remarks senior scientist, K.G. Rajamohan.
"The BPL list was treated like a state secret despite the fact that it's in the public domain. But once they know they are in it, villagers walk up to bureaucrats and ministers and demand their due," he adds.
The Embalam women report the varying prices of grain in government and private markets. Farmers now get the best possible price.
Every household in Embalam now has an insurance policy - a national life insurance scheme subsidised by the Central government of which the villagers had no knowledge before.
The project, which began in 1998, selected Pondicherry because it had certain initial advantages. As per the 2001 census, 89 percent of men and 74 percent of women are literate in the Pondicherry region, which is spread over 492 sq kilometres and has population of nearly a million. The area already had a reasonable telecom infrastructure.
Embalam has a population of 7,000, with 600 of 1000 families living below the poverty line. It is verdant paddy and sugarcane territory, a typically agrarian economy.
The neighboring Kizhur village houses 800 families while Veerampattinam, among the largest villages in the area, is home to 2,500. Most villages here have segregated pockets for the low castes.
The poverty level is high here, with 21 percent of families earning less than US $1 per day. Over 50 percent of residents fall under BPL.
At Kizhur, village women established contact with a charitable eye hospital and conducted a survey that resulted in over 100 sight-restoring cataract operations. The centre in Kizhur village also locates suitable sources of quality seeds.
The identification of the villages is a selective process that can take up to six months. Says J. Gobu, scientist at the project HQ in Villianur, "We conduct surveys to see if the caste divisions in the village are not too deep."
Villagers are told that a computer centre is being set up. "That is accepted more easily. We have to see if the population is receptive," explains Gobu.
The rest is easy. "Rural women take to technology like fish take to water," says Gobu. "We have to make sure the information is dynamic and not only academic. It has to be user-driven and gender-friendly. The villagers decide what they wish to do."
Though the project is supported by the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian International Development Agency, financial viability is a limiting factor.
The project had to overcome initial teething problems such as abuse of infrastructure and political interference from local parties.
Says consultant Sara Ahmed, "More young people have to be involved. Also, networking with other women's groups can be encouraged. This will increase awareness about rights."
The project has won two major international awards - the Motorola Gold Award 1999 and the Stockholm Challenge Award 2001 under the "Global Village" category.
The project has also caused a major social shift.
Declares a volunteer in the Embalam center, T. Amirtham, 35, and a mother of four daughters, "The men in our community first looked at us with jealousy. Then it became envy. When we first started, we would automatically stand up when a man entered this room. Not anymore - we are more confident and respected. That's the way I want to raise my daughters."
The power of connectivity has also widened their horizon. The women of Embalam recently corresponded with the president of the US National Academy of Sciences, Brian Albert.
Says Amirtham, "When we saw the World Trade Towers fall on TV, we felt awful. We wrote to Brian and told him how bad we felt. He in turn wrote back. We also urged him not to go to war with Iraq."
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Facilitation or hindrance to Open Access to Scientific Information
should be included as one factor of appreciation and criteria within Internet Governance considerations and assessments.
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| The Global Media Award by the Population Institute (PI) was presented to BCCP in December, 2004 in Rabat, Morocco. |
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