ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a fresh perspective on the complicated liaison between new technologies and disadvantaged castes in India. It aims to deepen the understanding of the impact of digital communication technologies on the lives and livelihoods of socially and historically deprived castes in peri-urban south Bangalore. The chapter relies on oral accounts to uncover the engagement of Dalit castes in this region with new digital technologies, such as mobile phones, over the last decade and a half. The chapter demonstrates how the contemporary socio-technological condition among Dalit communities in peri-urban south Bangalore is a result of a convergence of three elements – (a) the durability of caste in peri-urban metropolitan India, (b) the social construction of the usage of ICTs, and (c) myopia in the conventional policy and popular understanding of the digital divide in India. Recognising this convergence helps build a new perspective on the relationship between caste, ICTs, and development policy. The chapter argues for a re-look at the idea of the ‘digital divide’, a concept regularly encountered in development policy, and for a deeper documentation of the experience of the subaltern in the history of technological change in metropolitan India.
