By Subhashree Dutta and Gayathri Swahar
India’s recent 2024 Interim Budget highlighted a vision for economic and social progress towards Viksit Bharat 2047, by outlining investments in critical areas like infrastructure, education, and social welfare. But amidst the flurry of allocations, a crucial question remains: how can we ensure these initiatives truly enable marginalized communities to take advantage of these opportunities?
Financial and digital literacy programs are key interventions towards the empowerment of marginalized communities. Many of these however fail to address the key primary intervention required to actually bridge the digital and financial divide. Personal agency which equips individuals and communities with the power to make choices is the first step in bolstering the positioning of the marginalized. Personal agency is the capacity to act independently, make decisions, and have a sense of control over one’s own life. But for many marginalized groups, years of adversity and discrimination have eroded this life-altering agency. This lack of personal agency leads to low motivation and reduced resilience.
This is where technology can play a pivotal role. Technology has the power to be a great equalizer, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for all. However, to harness its transformative potential completely, it must be supplemented by active agency and capacity-building endeavours. Provision of the latest technology and gadgets to bridge the visible digital divide in the country will prove to be futile if the most vulnerable are not equipped to utilize it.
Effective agency-building interventions must be tailored to the unique needs and contexts of marginalized communities. This entails providing practical skills, mentorship, and exposure to positive role models. Intertwining technology in their growth will also help them match up to the digital times. India’s continued focus on building accessible and equitable Digital Public Infrastructure is witnessing the uptake of technology by the most vulnerable. Today, the presence of QR card scanning boards within rural areas and the large-scale acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine through the CoWIN platform are stark examples of the last-mile adoption of technology. These platforms have given the consumer the power to choose.
Digital India
India’s digital awakening is also reflected by the high smartphone usage in the country. Several non-profits and social enterprises are focused on improving the country’s digital accessibility. However, accessibility alone does not build agency. A true bridging of the digital divide can only be possible if we bridge not only the access divide but also the skills and opportunity divide. Do the underserved have access to digital technology? If they do, do they have the requisite skill sets to use the technology, and most importantly are they able to use the skills to unlock opportunities to better their lives?
In Bihar, where traditional gender roles have perpetuated a historical imbalance in social status, i-Saksham enables local young women to solve grassroot issues within communities. While smartphone provision and digital education through Moodle platforms are modes of learning, they also focus on experiential learning. Through their capacity-building sessions, they nudge women to collectively arrive at solutions by exercising their ‘Voice and Choice’. These group discussions help women realize the commonality of their daily issues. This drives them to collaborate on voicing their needs and solutions and choosing pathways to achieve them.
Also read: Rural India has more internet users than Urban, reveals IAMAI and KANTAR report
Marginalized communities are often viewed as passive recipients of technology. The Lighthouse Communities Foundation addresses this by offering a mandatory 100-hour foundational course on personal agency building for underprivileged urban youth. This empowers them to choose courses aligned with their passions, fostering success in their jobs. Additionally, they explore VR and AI to provide experiential awareness of job environments. Similarly, NavGurukul prepares young girls from disadvantaged backgrounds for the IT sector through coding skills, combining self-paced learning, physical and online education, and English and soft skills training.
Technology adoption
People with lived experience can contribute towards solutions and become active agents in shaping their own futures. The disabled, for instance, have looked at assistive technology as the foundation stone for their decision-making. Several members from the community are active participants in voicing their needs and work with technologists to craft assistance tools. Thinkerbell Labs’ self-learning Braille literary device ‘Annie’ has consistently worked with the visually impaired to improve their offerings.
Personal agency also has the potential to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Using participatory approaches to technology will not only strengthen the social mobility of communities but also deepen democratic development. Co-creation and collaboration give the community a sense of ownership which fuels affinity and commitment towards problem-solving. Training community members to identify local challenges, adopt technology, and provide insights into improving the tool based on their knowledge is the way forward for agency building. mKisan in Jharkhand is doing just that. Farmers receive real-time information on crops, pest management, and even weather through which they make informed decisions for their agricultural productivity. In turn, farmers can voice their learnings which the platform then also includes in their offerings.
Empowering marginalized communities with technology demands systemic change at the national level. Supporting the existing infrastructure and advocating for more will ensure that disadvantaged communities are not left behind in India’s Viksit Bharat vision and digital revolution.
(The authors: Subhashree Dutta is Managing Partner, Social Entrepreneurship & Gayathri Swahar is Senior Director, Social Entrepreneurship, The/Nudge Institute. Views expressed are the authors’ own and not necessarily those of financialexpress.com).
