The mobile revolution has hit rural India,but with a new set of rules.
Pictures are supposed to say a thousand words,and the photo of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,in last week’s Sunday Express,sure did. The chief minister was clicking photos at a rally in Ghoswari with his mobile phone. An untrained eye would have thought he was using a BlackBerry,like most of his counterparts across India. But Nitish,the minimalist that he is,seems to prefer a Micromax Ezpad Q3 — the phone that does pretty much everything that the RIM device does,but at a fraction of the cost.
The Hindi heartland might be as sensitive to price as it is to caste but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t want the fruits of technology. They just want it at a lower price point. So while most cellphone users in the cities limit themselves to a handful of features on their expensive smart phones,in the moffusil towns and villages,the phone is slowly becoming the preferred mode of entertainment. The attitude being if you have paid for the features you might as well use it.
In our multiplex infused cities,far away from the heat,dust and uncontrolled powercuts of the hinterland,we might have scoffed at the new Amitabh Bachchan mobile phone ad. This time,the superstar turns to a cheap mobile phone to keep his clientele entertained when the projector of his travelling movie show conks off. Who can watch a full length movie on a 3-inch mobile screen you might have asked,dreading the thought of your eyes popping out at the exertion. But for thousands is rural India this is a show they relish,with even smaller screens will lesser pixels. Bhagalpur,Koderma and Ferozepur don’t shrug away from watching a music video on their tiny screens,in fact,they might just hang the phone from a nail so that the whole family can join in.
Everything from daily SMS horoscopes to news feeds are being lapped up even as WAP and GPRS find new takers every day. People logging on to YouTube for latest episodes of froth-filled soaps or comedy clips is no longer a Mumbai-Delhi phenomenon. In fact,while the Metros still wait for the actual launch of 3G services,rural India has been riding the high speed data wave for over a year.
How,you might wonder. Well,having a BSNL connection is still not a matter or choice in most of India. This lack of choice also means you subscribe to the only full-fledged 3G service in the country. So while Delhi waits for latest songs to buffer into screens,Dharbanga and Gorakhpur stream in Dabbang live. So don’t be surprised if you see a rickshaw-wallah playing Internet radio during you next trip to Bihar.
Since getting a mobile SIM is still much easier than getting hold of a landline,many rural districts now have more cellphone than wired connections. This is especially true if the area in question has a rugged terrain,like Malappuram and Wayanad in Kerala where one land line would need over a kilometre of cable from the last tower.
On the flip side,however,is that the ills of cheap technology are also corrupting the rural consumer. With small-time voyeurism assured of a big-time audience,there has been a sharp rise in the number of hot video clips making it to the national stage. What would once have ended under a peepal tree in front of the panchayat is now subject to prosecution under the IT Act. Rural India has sure dialled the mobile revolution.
