Geography is history

We’re not in Kanpur any more,it turns out. A joint study by Internet and Mobile Association of India and marketing research firm IMRB has revealed that India’s smaller towns,Thrissur and Bellary and Kolhapur ,are surging ahead of the bigger cities in terms of Internet use. Seventy-one million Indians are now familiar with the Internet,out of which the number of regular users has jumped to 52 million in September 2009 from 42 million in 2008,a year-on-year growth of 19 per cent. “Remote urban pockets (small metros and towns) and lower socio-economic classes” are responsible for this leap,says the survey.

These are not just demographic abstractions. Many of today’s “claimed users”,just about acquainted with the Web,will be tomorrow’s avid users who read,work and play online. Internet usage has also gone up by a stunning 70 per cent in terms of hours spent. Despite years of overheated and bipolar coverage of the Internet’s impact,we are often dulled to the unfolding marvel of it,that never in history have so many had the chance to know what so many others were thinking on so many subjects.

The Internet drastically undercuts the divide between the margin and the metropolis. What defines a small town? A social fishbowl,less diverse cultural stimuli,slenderness of opportunity,a sense of being just a bit behind the times? Not any more. The new Web can be a workplace,a library,a support group,a salon,an arcade,a romantic rendezvous,a heckling crowd. You can participate in all that a city offers,the news of the world comes to you,you can work and network. India needs much more affordable computing in local languages for this to be a truly tectonic shift,but that’s a matter of when,not if.