Hyderabad:
At a thought-provoking panel discussion hosted by IIIT Hyderabad, experts examined how digitalisation and technology are transforming lived experiences in Indian cities like Hyderabad and Bengaluru — often reinforcing existing social exclusions.
Held under the theme ‘Tales of Two Cities and ICTs’, the session was part of the 2025 Monsoon School on Digitalisation and Contested Modernities at the Human Sciences Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad.
Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director of Bengaluru-based non-profit IT for Change, highlighted that India’s growing digital public infrastructure (DPI) is replicating social inequalities at an unprecedented scale. She cautioned against uncritically celebrating digital interventions in sectors such as health, agriculture, finance, microfinance, and transport. “These are often framed as public innovation,” she said, “but whether they are truly innovative — and whether they are meaningfully public — is not examined enough.”
Anita, who leads work on data and AI governance at IT for Change, called for a deeper reflection on how digital democracies are imagined and enacted. She emphasized the need to reclaim digital spaces in ways that center citizens’ rights and public accountability. She also explored how digital platforms are reshaping relationships between the State, the citizen, and collective memory.
Ashhar Farhan, co-founder of the Lamakaan cultural centre, offered a local and grounded perspective. He spoke about how exclusion in urban physical spaces is mirrored in access to digital technologies. Farhan reflected on the steady erosion of inclusive public spaces in Hyderabad — areas once open for leisure, cultural exchange, and community bonding. Citing the example of Operation Chabutra, he described how both offline and online surveillance practices have criminalized everyday public gatherings, especially in low-income neighbourhoods.
Together, the panelists underscored the need for critical civic engagement in shaping urban digital futures — where inclusion, accountability, and democratic values are not afterthoughts, but foundational principles.
India’s rapidly expanding digital public infrastructure (DPI) is amplifying social exclusions in new and often invisible ways, observed Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director of Bengaluru-based non-profit IT for Change, during a panel discussion at IIIT Hyderabad. The discussion, titled ‘Tales of Two Cities and ICTs’, was part of the 2025 Monsoon School on Digitalisation and Contested Modernities hosted by the Human Sciences Research Centre at IIIT-H.
Gurumurthy noted that while digital solutions in areas such as healthcare, agriculture, microfinance, and transport — largely spearheaded by private entities — are widely celebrated as examples of ‘public innovation’, the publicness and true value of such innovation are rarely interrogated. “Whether there is innovation, and whether it’s adequately public isn’t scrutinised enough,” she pointed out.
A leading voice in data and AI governance, Gurumurthy emphasized the need to rethink how citizens engage with digital systems. “We must reimagine digital democracies and the ways in which we claim digital spaces,” she said, highlighting how platforms are increasingly reshaping the dynamics between the State, the individual, and collective memory.
Also speaking on the panel was Ashhar Farhan, co-founder of Hyderabad’s Lamakaan cultural centre, who drew attention to how social exclusion in urban physical spaces is mirrored in the digital realm. He spoke about the disappearance of inclusive public venues for leisure, cultural exchange, and social interaction — especially for youth from lower-income areas.
Citing Operation Chabutra, a controversial surveillance initiative targeting public gatherings in the city, Farhan described how both online and offline policing have curtailed access to shared spaces. “Public spaces are being systematically reduced, and that exclusion extends to digital technologies as well,” he remarked.
The panel offered a sobering reflection on how digitalisation, far from being a neutral force, often carries forward existing patterns of inequality — unless actively challenged through critical civic engagement and inclusive policymaking.
India’s expanding digital public infrastructure (DPI) is mirroring and magnifying existing social exclusions, warned Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director of Bengaluru-based think tank IT for Change, during a recent panel discussion at IIIT Hyderabad.
Speaking at ‘Tales of Two Cities and ICTs’, part of the 2025 Monsoon School on Digitalisation and Contested Modernities at IIIT-H’s Human Sciences Research Centre, Gurumurthy critiqued the framing of digital solutions in health, agriculture, finance, and transport as “public innovation” when largely led by powerful private players.
“Whether there is real innovation, and whether it is truly public, isn’t scrutinised enough,” she said. Drawing on her research in data and AI governance, Gurumurthy called for a radical reimagining of digital democracies, where citizens actively reclaim digital spaces and question how platforms shape relationships between the State, individual rights, and collective memory.
Ashhar Farhan, co-founder of Lamakaan, a cultural hub in Hyderabad, echoed concerns of exclusion — this time from the lens of physical and digital urban space. He noted that shrinking public spaces in the city — traditionally hubs for leisure, cultural engagement, and youth gathering — have come under increased surveillance.
Referring to Operation Chabutra, a controversial policing initiative targeting public gathering spots in low-income neighbourhoods, Farhan said such practices have not only criminalised informal urban life but have also found parallels in the digital world, where access and expression are increasingly monitored and restricted.
The panel shed light on the urgent need to question who benefits from digitisation and how technology must be shaped by democratic values, not just market logic.
