https://www.wired.com/story/india-smartphones-cheap-data-giving-women-voice/ Skip to main content Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert WIRED In India, Smartphones and Cheap Data Are Giving Women a Voice * Backchannel * Business * Culture * Gear * Ideas * Science * Security More To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Sign In Search * Backchannel * Business * Culture * Gear * Ideas * Science * Security Yasaswini Sampathkumar Business 01.04.2021 07:00 AM In India, Smartphones and Cheap Data Are Giving Women a Voice About 200 million women in the country are illiterate. But voice memo and image-sharing apps make it easier to connect, communicate, and run businesses. * * * * To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories . Indian female farmer using mobile device in a rural environment Cheaper smartphones and data plans have helped millions of Indian women get online. Photograph: pixelfusion3d/Getty Images * * * * To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories . R. Mallika taps on the WhatsApp icon on her phone and selects the chat with S. Thanaraj. It's a long conversation, with messages back and forth about conserving her tribe's forest lands. It's like billions of messages sent each day on WhatsApp, with one important exception--there are no written words. "I never attended school," says Mallika, a member of an indigenous nomadic tribe in southern India. "I can sign my name, guess where a bus goes, or what a road sign says, but not much beyond that." (She believes she is 38 but doesn't have a proper birth record.) She never owned a feature phone because she couldn't read or write well enough to create a list of contacts. Mallika, like 200 million other women in India, is illiterate. In the past few years though, millions of Indian women have gone online thanks to cheaper smartphones and mobile data, and apps that let them communicate using sounds and images. Anecdotal evidence suggests the phones are empowering many women to access information, build networks, and participate in markets. For Mallika, the ability to use smartphones visually and orally has been a game changer. The internet is no longer sealed off with written words. She uses photographs and audio memos to communicate with friends and family, and voice commands to look for videos. Indian woman in rural environment R. Mallika uses a smartphone to chronicle deforestation in southern India. Photograph: S. Thanaraj "I can tap on the picture of Annan (what she calls Thanaraj) and send him an audio message," she says. Before getting the phone, she had to travel by foot over mountains to enter Madurai and interact with Thanaraj--her single point of contact with the outside world. "The phone connects her directly to the people who can help her," says Thanaraj. "I am no longer the only person she speaks to." Mallika is part of a WhatsApp group where she shares videos and photographs of the forest with local journalists. Illegal logging is a persistent problem. "Sometimes teak or sandalwood trees go missing," she says. "I take pictures and compare them to older photographs." She shares the photos with rangers and forest officials. In case of a confrontation, "my husband videotapes the skirmish to protect me. We send the video along with a voice message to the journalists' group." She also watches videos of activists in other parts of India. "The phone connects her directly to the people who can help her." S. Thanaraj, conservation activist Mallika is benefiting from two seismic changes that happened in 2016. China's Xiaomi and others began manufacturing smartphones in India and introduced entry-level models that cost less than $100. The same year, telecom company Reliance Jio launched a new service with free nationwide voice and data for one year. About 100 million people subscribed to the network in the first six months. In one year, the average cost for accessing 1 GB of data fell from $3.10 to $1.90. Since then, data costs have plunged further, to an average of 9 cents per GB. The phone and data plan still consume about 10 percent of Mallika's income. But suddenly, it wasn't only urban middle- and upper-class folk who were lit by a halo of blue light. Advertisement Ravi Agarwal, author of the 2018 book India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World's Largest Democracy says that for many Indians, the smartphone is their first private TV screen, personal music player, computer, and camera. Agarwal compares it to the experience of owning a car for the first time--autonomy, privacy, and mobility. This image may contain Electronics, Phone, Cell Phone, and Mobile Phone The WIRED Guide to the iPhone Its influence goes far beyond other phones--the infrastructure that made the iPhone also enabled drones, smart-home gadgets, wearables, and self-driving cars. By David Pierce and Lauren Goode This is particularly true for women, who are less likely to be literate or employed in the formal workforce. Even among the literate, many read and write in one of India's more than 30 official languages--another hurdle to accessing the internet on personal computers and laptops with English keyboards. In 2015, only 10 percent of internet users in India's rural areas were women. As smartphones and data plans have become more accessible, that figure has risen to roughly 30 percent, according to IAMAI, a trade group of internet and telecom companies. Companies including Google, Intel, and Facebook have worked with local organizations to make it easier for women to access the internet. Google and Tata Trusts, for example, run the Internet Saathi, or Internet Friend, program, which trains rural women to be digital pioneers. They are taught to use smartphones in sessions where they are provided with phones and power banks. By December 2019, the program had trained more than 83,300 women to be Saathis. In turn, they had introduced over 34 million women to the internet. Raman Kalyanakrishnan, the head of strategy at Tata Trusts, says the Saathis can decide what and how they want to teach, though the four-day training period emphasizes using voice commands in local languages. "We don't assume we know what interests women all over the country," he says. Pinky Katariya, 36, is a Saathi from Jind, northwest of New Delhi, who joined the program in May 2018. She married young and lived with her in-laws when her husband took work in another city. "I always wanted to run a small shop," she says. "But I wasn't allowed to have money of my own, I didn't have the resources to be an entrepreneur." In 2016, women represented less than 5 percent of the formal workforce in Jind's state of Haryana. "If anyone who doesn't have a phone needs to look something up, they come to me." Pinky Katariya Today, her life looks different. "I look for high-quality cloth in the market. I look up new trends on YouTube and learn to stitch different designs," she says. Her clothes sell at a premium. "In the village, I would earn about 200 rupees (less than $3) per dress. In the market, my designs sell for 450 to 750 rupees ($6 to $10)," she says. In April, during the pandemic-induced lockdown, Katariya created a WhatsApp group of friends and acquaintances. "If I saw an interesting video, I would share it with the group and take preorders," she said. Katariya created a visual catalogue and built inventory in anticipation of a future uptick in demand, especially towards the end of the year. "Now, with the festival season, my business is picking up again," she says. Being internet savvy has given her both credibility and a larger social network in Jind. "If anyone who doesn't have a phone needs to look something up, they come to me," she says. Service can be spotty, as India's 700 million cell phone users compete for limited bandwidth. Katariya often must wait for videos to buffer. Mallika has to go to specific spots in the forest to use her phone. The Indian government is working to upgrade the networks, which will also make it easier for millions of women to learn, earn, shop, argue, resist, and talk in a society that often micromanages their lives. --------------------------------------------------------------------- More Great WIRED Stories * Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters! * The best pop culture that got us through 2020 * A race car crash from hell--and how the driver walked away * These 7 pots and pans are all you need in the kitchen * Hacker Lexicon: What is the Signal encryption protocol? * The free-market approach to this pandemic isn't working * WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more * Optimize your home life with our Gear team's best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Yasaswini Sampathkumar is a Guwahati, India-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, BBC Travel, Ensia and Sapiens. Contributor Featured Video Former CIA Chief of Disguise Breaks Down Cold War Spy Photography During the Cold War, surveillance in Moscow was the most difficult kind of surveillance that the US had encountered around the globe. There are lots of was to collect intelligence, and cameras were former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez's favorite. Jonna talks about all the different photography methods US spies used during the Cold War, from carrier pigeons holding tiny cameras to a variety of different spy cameras that could be hidden in pens, ties and pocketbooks. Check out Jonna Mendez's most recent book The Moscow Rules or find more information about her on her website on https:// www.themasterofdisguise.com/ Moscow Rules: https://www.amazon.com/gp/ product/1541762185/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p1_i0 Archival images courtesy of the International Spy Museum (SPY) in Washington, DC, a Guinness World Record recognized nonprofit with the largest collection of spy artifacts in the world. At the Museum, you can see firsthand some of these spy gadgets: http://www.spymuseum.org/ Additional Archival Images Courtesy of: Images of Tolkachev are courtesy of a family friend, from The Billion Dollar Spy. You can find out more about the book here: https://www.davidehoffman.com/ Image of Matchbox Camera courtesy of the CIA, who does not endorse the contents of this production Interspectral: https:// www.youtube.com/channel/UCoG3unoSTVcR64o8vGb1SEQ Getty Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division TopicsindiasmartphonesAppsWhatsApp WIRED WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives--from culture to business, science to design. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. * * * * * More From WIRED * Subscribe * Newsletters * FAQ * Wired Staff * Press Center Contact * Advertise * Contact Us * Customer Care * Send a tip securely to WIRED * Jobs * RSS * Site Map * Accessibility Help * Conde Nast Store * Conde Nast Spotlight * Do Not Sell My Personal Info (c) 2021 Conde Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. Wired may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Conde Nast. Ad Choices