[Reader-list] Using the Internet to Extend Hegemony: A Study of Government Websites in India (Maya Ranganathan and NagaMallika.G)

[Frederick Noronha]

Global Media Journal
Indian Edition

Indian Flag
Vol 1,Issue 2,ISSN 1550-7521


Using the Internet to Extend Hegemony:

A Study of Government Websites in India

By Maya Ranganathan and NagaMallika.G

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which the Internet is employed by the
tech-savvy states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to
establish that despite the technical infrastructure and know how
available, these governments are largely indifferent to the potential
of the medium to further democracy. Instead, these governments employ
the medium much the same way as they employed and still employ the
earlier media of radio and television, totally oblivious to the
potential of the Internet to provide the essential public sphere
necessary for effective functioning of a democracy as envisaged by
Habermas (1989 a,b). This is highlighted through a qualitative
analysis of the official websites of these states, with specific
reference to the element of interactivity. While the paper takes into
account the argument that Internet penetration in India is negligible
and hence can not constitute a public sphere in the true sense of the
term, it also points out that well aware that it is still an elitist
medium, the governments are employing the Internet to extend their
ideologies to the elites both within and outside the country. This is
significant considering that while the All India Radio is perceived as
a rural media, Doordarshan despite its phenomenal coverage, is facing
competition from satellite channels in the cities and towns. In the
circumstances, the Internet is the only medium available to the
governments to disseminate their ideologies. The paper points out that
this is done in the process of conveying information on the states and
their activities.

ICTs and political communication

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
has given rise to varying projections, especially in the area of
political communication, more particularly in the process of
governance. The world wide web, 1 an important component of ICTs, has
sparked off utopian projections in the area of political
communication.  Looked at in isolation the Net indeed seems to have
the potential to liberate and free the world. In Virtual Reality ,
Howard Rheingold lists the way in which technology is poised to change
reality based purely on the attributes of the technology of the
Internet (1991). 2 In Web studies: Rewiring media studies for the
digital age , David Gauntlett (2000) focuses on the futuristic nature
of the Internet. In the political arena, the web is looked at as a
tool that can bring people together on common grounds, creating new
politics and social relations by its ability to incorporate a whole
range of texts, its ability to transgress physical distances
efficiently, the facility it extends to the user to assume anonymity
and indulge in identity play and the creation of a virtual public
sphere. Tharon W. Howard builds his discussion on electronic
communities on the fact that the technology of the Internet itself
shapes the message (1997). Extending McLuhan's famous maxim 'the
medium is the message', Howard argues that the Internet's attributes
contribute more to "differences in kind" rather than "differences in
degree of efficiency and speed" (1997).

Some of the attributes of the medium are important, especially the
geographical border-transgressing nature of the Net that enables the
bridging of "temporal and spatial 'gaps'" (Baker and Ward, 2002) and
the facility to mask identities, that have sparked utopian projections
in the political field (Kling, 1996; Negroponte, 1998; Rheingold,
1993). It is believed that the Internet would spur more people to
actively participate in the political affairs of the nation. The
Internet is expected to act as a 'public sphere', the absence of which
Jürgen Habermas discussed in The structural transformation of the
public sphere (1989a). Public sphere, as a concept, has been "cast ...
as a sociological concept as well as an inspirational vision of
something better yet to be attained" (Dahlgren, 1995). Although "the
public sphere per se is no guarantee for democracy", the perception of
the role of the Internet in democracy largely rests on its ability to
provide a public sphere (Dahlgren, 2005). Net-based technologies are
expected to create a sophisticated version of the Greek agora , where
citizens interact with one another and enable the state to arrive at a
political consensus on the issues affecting the nation. But what are
largely ignored in the discussion are the social, political and
economic factors that decide the question of access to the medium and
the extent of interactivity. On the other hand, the Net lends itself
to governments of nation-states as a tool of governance, particularly
in the extension of hegemony.

Internet, public sphere and hegemony

The media have always functioned as a tool of extending hegemony, even
in democracies where they are, in principle, outside the control of
the governments. If, on the one hand, the external pressures on the
media and its production procedures 3 have led to the media having to
toe the line of the governments, on the other hand, media personnel,
themselves a product of hegemonisation, have often ended up as tools
of the government in further extending its hegemony. 4 While this has
been the case with media in general, the Internet presents a different
picture because of its unique features, which seem to make it ideally
suited for the propagation of dissension rather than integration.

The two attributes of the Net that lend credence to the above argument
are the ability of the technology to transgress geographical
boundaries with impunity, defying control of the respective
nation-states and the ability to facilitate instant feedback. It is
precisely these attributes that have led to the utopian projections of
the Net in the arena of political communication. The fact that the
technology, at present, can defy control and give voice to all, is
what has made the Net the preferred medium for civil society, minority
groups, and also groups promoting 'unofficial' nationalism in their
struggle to transform themselves into a nation-state. While new
technologies indeed pose a challenge to the power of the nation-state,
the nation-states are not totally powerless in the face of the
electronic communication technologies. Nation-states employ
Internet-based technologies as a tool of power. The fact that
nations-in-the-making seem to have stolen a march over nation-states
in the employment of these technologies to assert their identity
cannot be allowed to deter attention from the way in which the
nation-states are employing electronic communication in binding the
people together and creating a common national identity. However, what
is of interest is that national governments seem to be indifferent to,
if not completely oblivious to the ability of the Net to provide a
public sphere. A recent major study 5 on the employment of Internet
even by an 'informatized' nation as Singapore established that the Net
was perceived more as a tool to reinforce the ideology of the nation
rather than to provide the ideal public sphere (Singhal and Rogers,
2001). Most countries perceive the Net as yet another media tool to
extend hegemony, as an "apparatus of state coercive power" which aims
to secure the consent of those dissenting groups "in anticipation of
moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent"
does fail (Gramsci, 1996). It is this aspect that this paper draws
attention to in the context of the use of Internet by state
governments in India.

India and the Internet

In India the Internet is perceived as an elitist medium. India
currently has 25 million Internet users, which is expected to grow to
100 million by 2007-08. With such numbers, the reach as well as the
potential of India's Internet market seems huge. According to a
NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies) of
India survey conducted at e-biz India in 68 cities and towns in
June-July, 2000, these cities and towns constitute 92 per cent of the
total Internet users in India. Some of the findings of this survey
were as follows:

Table 1. Internet Growth in India (History)

Date


Internet Connections (millions)


Users (millions)

August 15,1995


0.002


0.01

March 31,1996


0.05


0.25

March 31,1997


0.09


0.45

March 31,1998


0.14


0.7

March 31,1999


0.28


1.4

March 31, 2000


0.77


2.8

June 30, 2000


1.04


3.70



(Source: NASSCOM Internet survey, 2000).

Note that 280,000 Internet connections translates to over 800,000
Internet users in India.

Table 2. Internet Growth in India (Projected)

Date


Internet Connections (millions)


Users (millions)

March 31, 2001


1.6


5

March 31, 2002


4


10

March 31, 2003


8


18

December 31, 2003


11


23



(Source: NASSCOM Internet survey, 2000)

These figures add support to the projection of 25 million Internet
users in 2005. However, this number, although huge, depicts a
lop-sided picture with access to Internet being limited to the urban
Indian predominantly. Even those privileged to this access are
hindered often by poor or slow connectivity or frequent breakdowns,
however coming with high and often prohibitive operational costs. The
exorbitant telephone bills that often accompany a dial-up Internet
connection make it a luxury only a few can afford, clearly making it
an elite medium. It is only now that broadband connectivity is being
promoted, promising a cheaper and quicker connectivity option.
However, being in a very nascent stage, its reach once again is in a
few metropolises and its efficacy still in question.

The Government of India, when it first introduced Internet services in
1991, for use of public departments, universities, public and private
research bodies and for non-profit organizations along with commercial
internet services to individuals and organizations, was only following
aggressively the reformist agenda of the telecommunications policy.
This was picked up by a few states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu, among others, with the respective chief ministers who were
eager to usher in a new era of e-commerce and e-governance. However,
the hype associated with the Information and Technology (IT) services
suffered a big blow with the 'dot com boom' ending in huge losses for
many business entrepreneurs and fly-by-night operators who were in it
to make a few fast bucks. Over time, the Internet being offered as a
panacea for all ills in India proved to be a myth, with the promises
of making internet a tool for the development of the nation failing
and the political party leaders who led the governments that spoke the
IT language losing the subsequent elections.

Today, the 25 million Internet users are indeed a small minority in
the entire population of India, but clearly form the elites living in
metros, and comprise entrepreneurs, politicians and policy makers.
Another important section of the Internet users is the Non Resident
Indians (NRIs), who form one of the most influential blocks, both
politically and economically. The NRIs are those peculiar brand of
Indians who although reside outside India, are integrated culturally
and emotionally with everything Indian. Although not physically in
India, they are a powerful influence on the Indian Government in a
variety of ways due to their sheer economic strength. Representatives
of successive governments at the Centre have wooed this section by
meeting and addressing them specifically while on foreign tours, and
providing incentives for financial investments in India. 6 The
Government of India aims to draw the non-resident Indians into its
nation-building activities by attempting to use "coercive power"
across miles (Deutsch, 1953). State governments in India too have
employed the Internet for much the same purpose, to extend hegemony to
elites who have hitherto largely remained indifferent to the
Government media, although the purported aim behind adoption of
electronic governance was to provide a "one-stop, non-stop, efficient,
effective, responsive , and transparent citizen governance" (Katakam,
1999 Emphasis added ).

In principle, there is no media that acts as the official voice of the
Government in India. However, the state-government All India Radio and
Doordarshan are generally perceived as voices of the Government, the
constitution of Prasar Bharati notwithstanding. 7 Although both the
media enjoyed immense popularity at different stages of their
development in the country, today they have lost their position as
prime news sources, particularly in the urban areas, to private radio
and television channels that have proliferated since the opening up of
the skies in 1991. 8 If this is the state of affairs in the realm of
electronic communication, in the case of the print media, which is
also considered to be an elite medium due to the mere 40 per cent
literacy rate in the country, the Government has no official organ
(Singhal and Rogers, 2001). There are newspapers that have been
sympathetic to particular political parties, especially when they have
ascended to power, but seldom has a newspaper acted as the sole voice
of the Government. 9 Thus extending 'coercive power' over the elites,
those who often form an influential lobby in the country, has been
rendered difficult for the Government. It is in this context that the
employment of Internet in India by the Government is to be studied.
Denied of a means to address the elites, the Government has found in
the Internet a tool to take its message unquestioned and uninterrupted
across geographical boundaries. In the process, the Internet has been
stripped of its democratic functions of enabling a public sphere and
has been transformed into a mere tool of propagation of ideologies.
E-governance in India has stopped with 'informatization', provision of
information and networking of Government departments and has not
extended to employing ICTs to further the democratic process (Singhal
and Rogers, 2001). 10 The unique attributes of the Internet such as
reciprocity and instant feedback have been largely ignored and the
medium itself is treated in much the same way as the earlier media –
as a tool to extend hegemony. The following analysis establishes how
the governments of tech-savvy states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu perceive and employ the Internet.

Analyses and discussion

The choice of the three southern states of Andhra Pradesh (AP),
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (TN) has been made on account of the fact
that they have spearheaded the IT revolution in the country. During
the late 1990s AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu set the path on
informatization, i.e., the use of ICTs for socio-economic development
in the state. 11 Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka, has
now grown to be called the Indian Silicon valley. Since 1986 when
Texas Instruments established a computer-aided design centre in the
city, Bangalore has grown to play host to more than 500 high-tech
companies in the world (Singhal and Rogers, 2001). The Tamil Nadu
Government hopes to position the state as a gateway to South Asia on
the strength of its connectivity and infrastructure available to the
information technology industry (The Hindu – BusinessLine, 2005:
online). Based on the lead the three states have taken in the country
on embarking on the path of informatization, we study the websites of
these Governments in the context of public sphere. The focus on public
sphere is to highlight how effective these websites are in serving as
communicative links between citizens and the government. Where the
"representational dimension" is inadequate, it can be concluded that
the potential of the Net is not being tapped and that it is employed
much like the other media (Dahlgren, 2005). A lack of reciprocity and
top-down information dissemination can be taken to mean that the media
is employed to extend hegemony, rather than looked at as a means of
furthering democracy. The qualitative analyses of the three websites
follow "the three main analytical dimensions of the structural, the
representational and the interactional" laid down by Dahlgren (2005).

The structural:

The websites of the three state governments qualify, according to
Dahlgren to be termed versions of e-government. 12 The top-down
character is apparent. Although "information about governmental
administration and services is made available", these websites are not
sites "where the government representatives interact with citizens"
(Dahlgren, 2005). They are at best a compilation of the facts and
figures on various government departments which can be accessed in one
place. The common factor in all the websites is the plethora of
information on the welfare schemes of the respective state
governments. This sets the tone of the websites along with the
predominant images on the homepage of the websites. For instance, the
AP government website features on the left half of the homepage, three
people, two youngsters and one a middle aged person singing and
dancing indicate happiness . On the left of the Karnataka government
homepage is its official insignia, while to its right is a panel of
pictures in a panel depicting its rich history. Interestingly, one of
the pictures is that of Information and Technology (IT)-industry
associated building. The fluttering tricolour on the left in the TN
government website, the picture of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa
presiding over a meeting of foreign dignitaries, the picture of the
Mahabalipuram temples and the verse from saint-poet Tiruvalluvar all
speak of pride and achievements of the state. Thus all the three
websites at the outset clearly convey a pride in the past and present
of the nation leading to a hope for a prosperous future, a
reaffirmation of the nationhood of the people. In the context of the
states in India being divided linguistically, the three states of AP,
Karnataka and TN also refer to the Telugu, Karnataka and Tamil
nations. All these nations are constituents of the Indian
nation-state. However, this is singularly important in the case of TN,
as it was the first state to demand secession in 1962, under the
leadership of C.N.Annadurai and in the light of the fact that the
issue of 'thani tamizhnadu' (separate Tamil nation) has still not been
forsaken.

Hegemony is extended not merely by focussing extensively on the
administrative set-up, but also by dwelling sufficiently on the
history, events, and achievements of the state. This is particularly
clear in the case of the AP government website which has separate
sections titled history, events and achievements. These sections
contain selective information apparently aimed at promoting the image
of the state and government in tune with its current political
ideology. Thus, 'events' contain a list of the Chief Minister's tours
and travel itineraries. The information in 'achievements' revolves
around technological developments, particularly the extension of
Internet services to rural areas. This is particularly significant in
the light of the fact that the former government of Chandrababu Naidu
was overthrown as his policies were believed to be urban-centric. More
interesting is the information contained in the 'news' section. What
constitutes 'news' are the activities of the Chief Minister, for
example, his visit to the malaria hit areas of the state following the
monsoon; the issue of ration cards and a story on the "good"
governance at the Centre. While the former two go in line with the
pro-poor image which the Chief Minister is cultivating, the last story
is predictable considering that the Congress rules the state and at
the Centre. What is important is that the incorporation of these two
stories serves to suppress information on the failures of the
government that was highlighted in all other dailies in dealing with
the outbreak of malaria following the monsoons, thus clearly
indicating selectivity in the presentation of news.

Similarly, the Karnataka website talks of the ancient and the modern
in its welcome message, "welcome to the land of gold, silk, sandalwood
and Silicon". While there is a clear enunciation of the pride in the
nation, the website makes a departure in that it does not provide news
but carries links to dailies from the state, particularly Kannada
dailies. The list of media organisations given in the website is
interesting as one of the leading Kannada dailies, Vijay Karnataka is
missing while even obscure eveningers are mentioned. This could be
owing to the fact that Vijay Karnataka was started by a business man
who was initially in the BJP and who later left the BJP to form his
own regional party. The only other anti-Congress daily in the list is
the Kannada Prabha , a sister concern of The New Indian Express group
of publications which incidentally heads the list. Thus hyperlinks to
these publications provide only a notional objectivity. A rather
unexpected admission in the 'Welcome to Karnataka' section in the
website is that the account of IT development in the state,
particularly Bangalore described as the fastest growing city in Asia
ends with the sentence, "with all these changes one needs to see how
long it will remain the air conditioned city and the pensioner's
paradise". This can be construed as an indication of the government's
awareness of the ills of unbridled expansion in terms of setting up IT
industries. 13

The three departments that find a place in the top left of the TN
government website make a statement on the ideological pressures of
the government. The first is the link to the Tamil Nadu Public Service
Commission (TNPSC) website conveying the importance and desirability
of government services in this age of private enterprise and
globalisation. The second link leads one to the Election Department.
This is particularly significant as the government is currently
battling criticism of allowing malpractices in the inclusion of
electoral rolls for the 2006 elections. The third link is to the
website of the Tamil Virtual University, again important to the
government considering that elections in TN have always involved the
issue of which political party has furthered the interests of the
Tamil language. 14  Clearly then, the state government is employing
its website to answer criticisms and defend its political ideologies.
The only tool that the AIADMK government, known for its leader J.
Jayalalithaa's (also the current chief minister) anti-press sentiments
are Jaya TV , a private TV channel owned by Jayalalithaa's confidants
and Dr Namadhu MGR , a party press organ. Both are clearly perceived
as AIADMK's propaganda organs. The official website of the state thus
provides a means for the government to defend its ideologies without
employing a propaganda organ. It is in this context that the Net seems
to prove useful to state governments.

Representational:

Despite the potential of the Net to further democracy by providing a
public sphere as discussed earlier in the paper, "the mechanisms for
transforming opinion …are highly limited, to say the least" (Dahlgren,
2005). Governments have indeed managed to limit the potential of the
Net. In the process what they provide is a notional public sphere, a
mirage of civil society. Typically, the websites of the three state
governments under study point to the embryonic outlines of civil
society without leading to a full realization (Keane, 2003). By
dwelling on culture, language and geography, these websites help the
citizens of the state to "coalesce internally before they venture out
into the larger public sphere" (Dahlgren, 2005).   The focal point in
all the three websites is the welfare schemes launched by the
respective governments for the welfare of the people. A mirage of
addressing the common man is created by providing some information in
the vernacular. All the three websites incorporate a vernacular
version of the website. However, this must be assessed in the context
of the availability of infrastructure to access the Internet in the
rural areas and also the fact that forms and enquiries are available
only in English. 15  This clearly marks these websites as catering to
the English-knowing, computer savvy elite, who are generally those who
people the cities. Yet, all the websites seek to create an impression
of prosperity for all in the state. Of the three websites, those of AP
and TN are in green, an association with fertility. In the case of the
former, the colour generally associated with Islam, assumes
significance considering that AP has a sizeable section of Muslims and
the state government is currently engaged in wooing the minorities
with five per cent reservation in educational institutions. In the
case of TN, the colour green is known as the favourite colour of Chief
Minister Jayalilathaa. 16

One of the prominent sections in the AP government website is
'emergency' followed by 'citizen help'. The name 'citizen' is
basically a misnomer as it has nothing to do with civic or social
problems for the citizen. The right hand navigation bar contains the
head 'IT promotion'. Given the nature of AP government's interest in
promoting IT, it is very clear that the website targets the elite,
with e-related news. The right hand navigation bar once again contains
all that the government is doing through the use of IT, in relation to
civic and developmental issues. 'AP fact file' contains information on
its formation, and its culture and arts and its festivals. The
interesting part is that it promotes high culture by stating only
Kuchipudi as its main cultural art form, while it gives information on
Telangana festivals under local festivals. The latter has political
significance in that there is a movement to bifurcate the state to
create a separate Telangana state. 'History' talks of the ancient,
medieval and the modern period, up to the post independence period and
ends with the lists of chief ministers and governors who have served
the state. Starting from Megasthenes who visited India between
322-297BC the historical narrations ends with the police action during
the Nizam's time leading to Hyderabad becoming a part of India after
independence. The primary focus is only on the capital city Hyderabad,
while no history of the rest of the state can be seen, again
underscoring the fact that the information is designed for the
city-based elite. The pride of the Telugu language comes right
through. However, it caters only to the historic and sanscritised
Telugu while the local dialects and the border influences are ignored.
Although Urdu also has a very long history of being rich in language
and poetry, it is not really discussed in the website. It is cited as
the language spoken by the Muslims which is not truly doing justice to
Urdu literature and its rich poetry.  Thus despite the attempt to
include all the citizens in the discourse, the AP government website
remains oriented towards the elite.

Although the website of the Karnataka government is in cool blue,
striving for a mix of the modern and the ancient, it follows the
typical order of arranging information on government services. The
left navigation bar contains the index with labels of all the
departments of various ministries. These include news, names of the
officers of the Secretariat, budget speeches, agriculture, village
statistics and general developmental information. The right hand bar
has in bands various government departments, telephone directory, the
state at a glance, tourism and rainfall data, bhoomi (computerisation
of land records) village statistics and e-governance strategy. One can
note a sense of pride in the language of the state as one can see it
has a prominent place on the centre of home page. Similarly, every
English section has a Kannada equivalent. This is of political
significance as, much like in TN, the vernacular assumes prime
importance in political discourse. Current debates in the state centre
on the need to introduce English in the primary schooling system and
the advisability of non-Kannada films to be filmed in the state. The
flagging of the Kannada identity becomes more apparent every time the
state is engaged in a wrangle with neighbouring states for water or
electricity. The state government website 'flags' this identity in a
routine, mundane way (Billig, 1995). The history of the state is
described in a very flowery language, with its mythological and
historical glory through the ages with pictures of temples and forts.
A mention of its traditional art forms also shows its pride in its
regional art forms like Yakshagana. The dance forms that are classical
in nature like Bharatanatyam (which is also the classical dance form
of TN) are mentioned after the sections of local theatre and poetry
perhaps to signify that it does not enjoy an importance equal to that
of local theatre, music or regional art forms.   The primacy of the
state's history and culture is emphasised in the section of culture
which predominantly uses red to indicate auspiciousness further
compounded by the section on Karnataka tourism which again showcases
the 'culture' and 'heritage' of the state with a Kannada poet's quote.

The attempt to juxtapose the antiquity of the nation with the more
recent achievements is apparent in the TN government website too. On
the left of the home page is a photograph of Jayalalithaa addressing a
few white men, obviously a testimony to her efforts to woo foreign
investment to the state, while the saint poet Thiruvalluvar occupies
the right side of the homepage. The incorporation of the Tamil
invocation song, the section on Tamil literature and temples of the
state all work towards underscoring the greatness of the nation. 17
The representational aspect extends to list of IAS officers in the
state with their e-mail IDs. However, the interesting fact is that not
only is it not an exhaustive list but most of them have provided their
private mail IDs. With no hyperlinks provided to these e-mail IDs,
they act merely as information that are made available through other
media.

Interaction

Conspicuous by its absence in these websites is the "paradigmatic
version of the public sphere" (Dahlgren, 2005). There are no diverse
civic forums that provide for the exchange of views among the
citizens. The top down approach of information dissemination followed
by the state governments stop with purveying shared perceptions,  and
goals that are non-negotiable and does not lead to even the emergence
of a "prepolitical or parapolitical domain which airs social and
cultural topics having to do with common interests and/ or collective
identities" (Dahlgren, 2005). Thus, what the websites create is a
notion of interactivity where the feedback link, where it is provided,
indicates a willingness to hear about the website and not about the
policies or its implementation by the governments. Thus, in the AP
government website, 'citizen's charter', which again is of the
government's endeavour for good governance, contains the government's
own view of what is good for the citizen with advice for other states
to follow a model for good governance in all sectors. But once again
it follows a top down approach, with no scope for interactivity.  The
section that contains details of government schemes list the people in
charge, including those who handle complaints, but no provision is
made to make an online complaint. The complaint has to be physically
handed over to the respective 'mandal' office. This reduces the Net to
a mere medium of information. Although information on how many days it
would take to register a complaint and how many to act on it have been
provided, there are no statistics on either the complaints received or
action taken. The whole section then is an electronic version of an
information booklet. Similarly, the discussion forum and a grievance
cell provided for those who register contain no information on how
many have registered and how many grievances have been attended to.
'Publications' include only information on census 2001 and Economic
Survey 2000-2001.   Thus, the purpose of the website is clearly to
provide information about the government that is perhaps ignored or
not dealt with in detail by other media. Although the Karnataka
government incorporates a 'feed back' provision which is connected to
Outlook Express, it again seems notional considering that responses
are not featured and there is no indication as to whether they are
taken into account in the formulation and implementation of government
policies at all. The only feedback that the TN government website
invites is comments and suggestions on the website itself. There is no
corresponding facility in the Tamil version of the website. Considered
in the light of the Habermas' conception of the ideal public sphere
(Jankowski, 2002) and Rafaeli and Sudweeks (1997: online) perception
of interactivity, the websites merely provide a notion of a public
sphere. 18

Conclusion

The analyses and discussion in the previous section leads us to
conclude that in India, even in the states that are actively promoting
IT industries, the perception of the Net does not extend beyond being
a tool of information. This is largely because in India the Net is yet
to grow into a tool of the masses and it currently remains a medium
for the elite. Well aware of this fact, the state governments employ
the medium as a tool to extend hegemony over the elites. In the
process the potential of the medium to provide a public sphere is
ignored. Thus, "the political life on the Net is mostly an extension
of the political life off the Net" (Margolis and Resnick, 2000).  The
way in which the medium is employed by state governments does not
alter the political landscape. Nor does it mobilize masses to
participate in nation-building or even change the ways in which
politics is done. 'E-democracy', at least in the context of India,
makes no effort to involve the people but persists in conveying
political ideologies from the top. The discourse in these websites is
closed. The governments speak from a position of power. Although the
term 'service' is used fairly frequently as in the case of the AP
government website, the concept of service does not include any
participation by the people. The people are perceived as passive
receivers of information. In the light of the fact that those who have
access to the websites are the elites, it can be concluded that state
governments in India perceive the Net as nothing more than a hegemonic
tool to influence the elites who have so far remained outside the area
of its persuasion. It remains to be seen if at least those state
governments who have aggressively latched on to IT as a tool of
development will ever be courageous enough to tap the potential of the
medium to solve the problems of democracy in India.

















About the authors

The authors are faculty members of the Manipal Institute of
Communication. Maya Ranganathan is also honorary research fellow of
the Monash Asia Institute, Australia. A virtual presentation of this
paper was made at the Second International Conference on Technology,
Knowledge and Society held in Hyderabad, India, in December 2005. The
authors thank the anonymous referees for their comments on the paper.

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1  Also referred to henceforth as the Net.

2  Rheingold also concedes in a sentence that the technology may
however, result in "dystopia or empowerment" depending "in part upon
how people react in different ways to the news that reality might be
an illusion, depending on their personal emotional attachment to their
brand of reality" (1991: 388).

3  We are referring to the concept of 'political economy', which has
emerged as a prominent area of study in the discipline of media
studies. See Golding and Murdoch (1991: 15-32).

4  A good example is the way in which Indian media has been
functioning in unison supporting and furthering the Indian
Government's stance in relation to the Kashmir issue (Singh, 1995:
xii).

5  The study on the use of the Internet in Singapore, which was part
of a PhD thesis submitted to Monash University, Australia, in Oct
2004, established that the Internet provided just a notional public
sphere (Ranganathan, 2004).

6  A typical example of the government initiative in this regard is
the Government of India's website launched in December 2000, with the
express aim of enabling, "non-resident Indians and people of Indian
origin to give their views on subjects ranging from nationality
issues, consular problems, education facilities in India, information
technology, trade and investment to the role played by overseas
Indians in local political matters, legal matters concerning privacy,
copyright and ethics and restructure man, machine and interaction" (
The New Indian Express , 2000, online).

7  The Prasar Bharati Act came into force on September 15, 1997 when a
three-person selection committee  began the task of choosing the
15-member Prasar Bharati Board that "will transform Doordarshan and
All India Radio (AIR) into constituents of an autonomous Broadcasting
Corporation, by liberating it from restrictive government control and
censorship." For more details on Prasar Bharati, see Swami, 1997.

8 According to Singhal and Rogers (2001: 121) although Doordarshan
still has 500 million viewers, compared to 150 million for private
broadcasters, "the private television networks, however, skim off the
urban elite audience…"

9  Certain national English dailies are perceived as supportive of
certain political parties. For instance, the Times of India , the
largest selling multi-edition English newspaper in India is perceived
as pro-Congress, while the Indian Express  is seen as pro-BJP. The
Hindu , yet another major English language daily in the South, despite
its avowed neutral stand has been criticized for being pro-government
at times. The situation is no different in the case of magazines with
a majority of them perceived as holding political party affiliations.

10  Here we make a distinction between information and communication.
The term 'information' is taken to refer to a one-way means of passing
on information, while 'communication' is taken to refer to a
reciprocal exchange.

11  Despite the tremendous success he claimed he had achieved in the
'informatization' of the state, Chandrababu Naidu lost the state
assembly elections in 2004 on the grounds that his policies were
elitist and Hyderabad-centric and did not benefit the rural masses.
This again is a reflection of the general understanding that computers
are an elitist medium in India.

12  The URLs of the three websites are:

AP – http://www.aponline.gov.in/aportal/index.asp   accessed on August 8, 2005

   Karnataka – http://Karnataka.gov.in/index.asp  accessed on August 8, 2005 and

    TN – http://www.tn.gov.in  accessed on August 30, 2005.

The above websites were also regularly accessed thereafter.

13  At the time of writing this paper, Bangalore, the Silicon city is
battling a breakdown of infrastructure following heavy monsoons. It is
seen as a consequence of the city's unbridled growth following it
becoming the favourite destination of IT industries. However, this
finds no special mention in the Karnataka government website.

14  This is also significant looked at in the light of the fact that
the DMK which currently forms the opposition in the TN Assembly but
participates significantly in the coalition government in the Centre
has managed to secure the status of classical language for Tamil in
2004. The present government is forced to make clear that it shares
the DMK's interest in protecting and furthering the Tamil language.

15  For instance, the TN website provides for making Electricity Bill
enquiries online. This provision is in English and there is no such
facility provided in the corresponding link in Tamil, despite general
claims that the language is ideally suited to Internet communication.

16  To a western reader this might seem petty and inconsequential but
Indian political leaders, even those who denounce superstitions and
traditions, are a sentimental lot. They have favourite colours,
numerals, vehicles and venues which they use for all the important
political events. It is commonplace knowledge in TN that Chief
Minister Jayalalithaa prefers green, number nine and uses one
particular vehicle for election campaigns. Opposition DMK leader
M.Karunanidhi, a proclaimed atheist and follower of social reformist
Periyar, dons a yellow shawl and uses the Valluvar Kottam, in Chennai,
which incidentally was built during his reign, for important political
events.

17  The celebration of the 5th century poet's works and life has
become a political expediency in TN. His couplets occupy pride of
place in the TN Assembly, government offices and buses. The DMK while
in power built a 133-ft statue in Kanyakumari, the southern most tip
of the state, a little away from the famed Vivekananda rock. In a
state more remembered for its anti-Hindi agitation in the 60s,
successive governments have been constrained to invoke these images to
appeal to the identity of the people.  It must also be noted that the
ideology of the Dravidian political parties emphasizes an almost
chauvinistic pride in the language.

18  The four dimensions considered by Habermas to define the notion of
public sphere are: equality of success, diversity of opinion,
reciprocity and contribution to the debate (Jankowski, 2002: 43).
Rafaeli and Sudweeks (1997: online) defined interactivity as "the
extent to which messages relate to one another, and especially the
extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier
messages."

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