State, civil society and development E-topia: Information and communication technologies and the making of a rural network society in India

This thesis is an attempt to a study the nature and consequences of the growing presence of ICTs in developmental projects leading to the emergence of a proto form of ruyral network society in initiated by the State as well as Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in India. It draws upon the experience of a range of projects in E-governance and ICT oriented development programmes initiated by CSOs. It discusses issues of networked governance, social enterprises, participation and innovation for the rural poor in the realms of the State and civil society. It is argued that there is a wide chasm between the expectations and actual benefits of CSO initiatives in rural India. The incremental values created by these experiments are important in the contexts of relative deprivation and social degeneration. Nevertheless, they do not constitute a case for adopting techno determinist models of social development. The State-led projects have tacitly followed a model of limiting the role of civil society while the social enterprise models of CSOs have varying degrees of failures in making State respond to their signals. ICT innovations for the rural poor have led to the incorporation of the civil society into the framework of the national innovation system. But the integration is marred with tensions, ironies and contradictions. On the basis of this empirical analysis, this study poses the question whether it is appropriate to consider civil society as an independent realm of social action separated from State and Market. We argue that just as we can discern the implications State and market failures, the ramifications of the failures of CSOs also offer important lessons for conceptualizing developmental and social action in rural areas.