role of icts in participatory development: an indian...

Role of ICTs in Participatory Development:An Indian Experience

Satish K. PuriDepartment of Informatics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1080, Blindern, 0316,Oslo, Norway. E-mail: puri [email protected]

Sundeep SahayDepartment of Informatics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1080, Blindern, 0316,Oslo, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Participation of local communities has been important at least in two domains: (a) rural developmentprocesses in developing countries and (b) information systems design. The issue of participationbecomes especially important in the contemporary contexts in which the use of information andcommunication technologies (ICTs) is being integrated within rural development initiatives in devel-oping countries, for example in e-governance. This article attempts to synthesize the issues aroundparticipation from both IS and development studies literature in order to identify four key problematicareas: viz., (a) who defines the participation agenda, (b) what capabilities do stakeholders have toparticipate and how can this be strengthened, (c) what is the role of institutional conditions in en-abling effective participation, and (d) how do local participatory processes experiences get integratedinto broader networks to become sustainable. These four themes provide a theoretical framework toanalyze how the use of ICTs is reconfiguring the dynamics between participation, rural development,and ICTs. This framework is applied in the context of an ICT initiative for rural development in India.Implications for both theory and practice are developed based on the need to judiciously integrateboth structural and behavioral approaches to participation. C© 2007Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: participation; IS; ICTs in rural development; community networks; India; Gyandoot

1. INTRODUCTION

Participation of people in development programs as well as the design and use of informa-tion systems (IS) have been emphasized both by development theorists (for example, Sen,1999) and IS researchers (for example, Fitzgerald, Russo, & Stolterman, 2002; Franz &Robey, 1986; Mumford & Weir, 1979) to enhance effectiveness of development programsand IS projects, respectively. The theme of participation becomes increasingly significantin the contemporary scenario where development projects in third world countries arebeing integrated with information and communication technologies (ICTs), for example,in the domain of e-governance (Krishna & Walsham, 2005; Bhatnagar & Schware, 2000;Warschauer, 2003a). The increasing use of ICTs in developmental contexts is driven by the

Erran Carmel is the accepting guest editor for this article.

Information Technology for Development, Vol. 13 (2) 133–160 (2007) C© 2007Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/itdj.20058

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objectives of improving and simplifying governance, inculcating transparency, and elimi-nating the historically existing legacy of inefficient and corrupt systems and bureaucraticcontrols (Goswami, 2002; Singh, 1999). However, there are several contextual differencesin implicating ICTs in development-related applications as compared to in organizationalsettings within Western countries. Some significant points of departures include the focuson marginalized rural communities as end-beneficiaries, the frequent involvement of publicsector bureaucracies, inadequate human resources capacity, and the existence of infrastruc-tural limitations including finances and technology. Despite these contextual differences,the theme of participation is significant in both domains although sometimes with differentunderlying motivations. While development projects may seek to encourage participationso as to empower communities, ICT projects may seek to do so to build more effectivesystems.

This article seeks to examine the relationship among participation, the use of ICTs, andrural development processes, with a view to analyze the potential role of ICTs in furtheringthe development agenda and how it can be achieved in practice. This question is analyzedbased on an examination of the literature around development theory as well as IS researchin order to identify what makes it problematic to achieve participation in practice and whatcan be done about it. The analysis is presented in the next section leading to the formulationof a conceptual framework to evaluate the role of ICTs in supporting participatory practicesin development-oriented projects. This framework is then applied to the analysis of a casestudy in India that concerns the establishment of a district-level Intranet to facilitate accessto relevant information by individuals and local communities. After discussing the researchapproach in the Research Approach section, the case study is presented in the The CaseStudy: Gyandoot Intranet section, and its analysis in the Analysis and Discussion section.Some more discussion and conclusions are included in the Conclusions section.

2. ANALYSIS OF LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Within the development domain, participation has been espoused to achieve various ob-jectives including socioeconomic development (Chambers & McBeth, 1992) or effectivenatural resource conservation (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999). Similarly in IS, participatorydesign has been emphasized to duly consider the social context in which the system isto be embedded (Avgerou, 2002; Floyd, 2002), potentially contributing to better designedsystems.

2.1 Themes of Participation Agenda

While the theme of participation has a central role in the discourses within the domainsof development theory and IS, it has evolved in quite different historical and geographicalcontexts. Through an analysis of relevant literature, four main themes around participationrecognized as problematic by researchers within these domains are identified and relatedto the context of the evolution of these debates. These themes are (a) who defines theparticipation agenda, (b) what capabilities do stakeholders have to participate and howcan this be strengthened, (c) what is role of institutional conditions in enabling effectiveparticipation, and (c) how do local participatory experiences get integrated into broadernetworks to become sustainable. Each of these four themes is now discussed.

2.1.1 Who defines the participation agenda? Notwithstanding the semantic nu-ances, the key issues in defining the agenda of rural development aimed at poverty

Information Technology for Development DOI: 10.1002/itdj

ICTs IN PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT 135

alleviation, and of IS design to achieve organizational efficiency and democratization of theworkplace, relate to who decides the participation agenda, its objectives, and approaches toimplementation. Literature in both these domains reflects a spectrum of agencies definingthis agenda from the earlier accent on external agencies without community/user involve-ment to the present trend towards users in quest of their empowerment. There are othershades of participatory approaches situated within these two extremes, representing a spec-trum of participation that is now discussed.

2.1.1.1 Externally driven agenda. Many developing countries, including India, aftergaining independence from their colonial “masters” adopted modernization as a key strat-egy to development. Within a socialist framework, India, like several other developingcountries, attempted to elicit capital inflow from external sources to kick-start its dormanteconomy and stimulate socioeconomic development processes. The broad assumption wasthat knowledge, technology, and capital accumulated at the top of the system, consequentupon modernization, would trickle down for the larger good of society (Eisenstadt, 1966;Haeuber, 1993). However, “exacerbation of poverty and inequality in the 1980s, revealeda profound failure in development planning” shaped by a “western and masculinist biasin orthodox development knowledge and practices” (Kothari, 2002, p. 35). The almosttotal exclusion of people and communities from the development processes envisioned,implemented, and monitored by international funding agencies or by the westernized na-tional bureaucracies during the 1950s–1970s is reflected in the following telling excerpts(Caufield, 1996, pp. 60–61):

The [World] Bank was founded on disdain—and even fear—of local knowledge and opinion. Itsfounder, John Maynard Keynes, had little faith in the acumen of the common man. Eugene Blackkept this attitude alive at the top, warning that most people in developing countries would not wantto abandon “old habits and attitudes and work in favor of new ones.

“We in the Bank had an extraordinary arrogance in those days,” Albert Waterston, aBank economist, recalled thirty years later. “We were coming from Washington, which wethought of as the centre of civilization, and we had money, and that made us brilliant! Whowanted to give up that kind of power? Of course, I did not know what I was talking abouthalf of the time, but it was a wonderful feeling.”

This externally driven agenda of agencies, such as the World Bank and IMF, paid littleheed to participation within the framework of techno-centric planning that dominatedrural development projects during the 1950s to 1970s. It could also be argued that theseagencies explicitly did not promote participation because of the lack of their trust in thecapacity of the beneficiaries or because of ulterior considerations of the planners (Escobar,1995). This neglect bears a striking parallel to approaches to IS design and developmentduring the similar period, described as the “premethodological” era (Hirschheim, Klein,& Lyytinen, 1995, p. 29), because of the dominant role played by computer scientistswith little regard for user inputs. Power was vested in the hands of technocrats due tothe technical nature of programming (initially at assembly or even machine code level)and its close correspondence to hardware. Users from functional departments were largelyexcluded from the design process because of the extremely technical nature of the prevailingdiscourses (Checkland, 1981). Software development was mainly oriented towards defenseand scientific applications, rather than to support business processes, and user practiceswere modeled along rational engineering techniques, such as in Operations Research, with


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limited inputs from them (Asaro, 2000). The requirements analysis of defense needs andmodeling of security scenarios by Rand Corporation in United States during 1950s to 1960stypified computer applications of this era (Hounshell, 2000). Like in development projects,many IS designs initiatives during the period were also characterized by “failures” (Green,2002; Fitzgerald et al., 2002).

2.1.1.2 Agenda shared with communities/IS users. Escobar (1995), a noted devel-opment theorist, questioned the ulterior motives of the first world to continue its dominanceover its erstwhile colonies though other means. Reflection on the failure of the externallydriven policy framework led to the evolution of alternative development doctrines and re-assessment of political agendas, driving the development approach away from dependencytheories towards people-centered approaches (Friedman, 1992). In this early phase of par-ticipatory development, while the agenda was still controlled by the external agency, theplans now started to be shared and discussed with target beneficiaries/users for commentsand to seek inputs for improvement. The final design decision was still vested with the ex-ternal agency. Such instrumental approaches to participation of the early 1980s are reflectedin Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) methodology (Chambers, 1983, 1994), which was usedextensively by funding agencies to design and implement development programs in thirdworld. In the recent years, however, the World Bank and IMF have become more sensitiveto the need to base their development initiatives in third world countries on stakeholderparticipation and with the involvement of the civil society (CIDSE-Caritas Internationalis,2004).

In the IS domain, the failure, wholly or partly, of many computerization efforts in the Westin the 1960s and 1970s has been a subject of extensive debate and research. Kling (2000)remarked that the design philosophy of computerization in 1960s and 1970 leaned towardstechnological determinism, and that “the analytical failure of technological determinism isone of the interesting and durable findings of social informatics research” (p. 218). Arisingfrom such debates, similar to the shift to the RRA approach in development planning,IS design started to show a discernible shift towards life cycle approaches like the linearwaterfall methodology. Here, the managers and computer scientists would seek inputs fromusers, but they, not the users, froze the final technical specifications (Boehm, 1998; Ramesh,2002). The development of the Joint Application Design (JAD) methodology by the IBM in1977 (Davidson, 1999; Asaro, 2000) is another example in this genre of user participationin IS design during this period, particularly in North America.

2.1.1.3 Community/user driven agenda. Phrases such as popular participation(Bhatnagar & Williams, 1992) began to increasingly feature in international developmentdiscourses. The World Bank’s Learning Group on Popular Participation (ibid.) initiallydefined “popular participation,” or participatory development, as a process by which dis-advantaged people influenced decisions that affected them, but subsequently used the term“stakeholders” in recognition of the multiplicity of direct and indirect beneficiaries, in-cluding themselves. Within this perspective, participation was where “the agenda is setjointly, and local views and indigenous knowledge are deliberately sought and respected.This implies a process of negotiation rather than the dominance of an externally set projectagenda. Thus, people become actors instead of simply being beneficiaries” (Schneider &Libercier, 1995, p. 30). This shift led to the formulation of Participatory Rural Appraisal(PRA) approach (Chambers, 1994) as a formal methodology to elicit user participation indevelopment projects used by agencies like the Bank to guide development projects. These



methodologies have been criticized for being “strictly conceived in a utilitarian fashionwhile denying the political character of participation” (Escobar, 1984, p. 391). Other cri-tiques of these methodologies arise from their “tool kit” approach applied by planners tostakeholder population to investigate the suitability of a particular preidentified interventionstrategy for a particular target group in a “market research role” (McGee, 2002, p. 99).

Another strand of criticism arose from the assumption that planners and field practitionersmade of the community being a homogenous, unproblematic entity, which ignored thereality that local institutions can sometimes even marginalize the poorer or weaker sectionsincluding women (Mosse, 1994; Guijt & Shah, 1998). To promote meaningful participation,it is crucial to understand the existence of discrete interest groups and how they influencethe utilization of local resources. There are implicit power structures such as those of class,caste, and gender that define and determine as well as circumscribe actions of variousunderlying divisions within communities. Participation is thus “socially determined . . .so public expression of community interests may disproportionately reflect the privateinterests of dominant group or individuals” (Mosse, 1995, p. 28). User participation in theIS domain has also been critiqued for like reasons (Heeks, 1999).

Arising within the context of a social-democratic political agenda, trends in the 1970sand 1980s towards participation in the IS domain are seen in Europe. Especially withinScandinavia, these developments owe their origin to the rise of the Industrial Democracyprogram in Norway during the mid-1960s following debates around the organization ofwork at the micro-level of the shop floor (Nygaard, 1979; Gustavsen, 1992).

Another important strand of participatory design in Europe concerns the sociotechnicalapproach (Floyd et al., 1989), such as ETHICS (Mumford, 1995) developed in Britain.It focused on achieving autonomy in workgroup organizations through power sharing,joint responsibility, and multiple leadership (Reeve & Petch, 1999, p. 99). This conceptualfoundation of its production paradigm is based on “organization choice and on the need toconsider interaction between the social and technical parts of any work system” (Mumford,1987, p. 70). Underlying assumptions of the sociotechnical approach were to emphasizewhat humans consider important in their work, and to seek consensus amongst managementand workers over a specific project’s aims and implementation. Floyd et al. (1989) termedthe sociotechnical approach as being premised on a harmony perspective (pg. 267, originalemphasis).

The project-based orientation of the sociotechnical approach confined to individualorganizations, “rather than building up a general strategy for democratization,” (ibid.,p. 268) attracted criticism from trade unions. These criticisms contributed to the growth ofthe collective resource approach (Ehn & Kyng, 1987) in Scandinavia with the emphasison union empowerment, not merely to oppose induction of new technologies (includingICTs), but also to develop innovative ways in which technology could be harnessed in theworkplace to further workers’ interests through democratic participation (ibid.). In recentyears, the collective resource thinking has increasingly been influenced by the sociotech-nical methodology; in particular, its design approach based on systems theory and theadoption of cooperative work practices in which computer is perceived as a communicationmedium, rather than as a tool for individuals’ use only (Floyd et al., 1989).

These developments in participation, both in theory and practice of IS design, had sig-nificant influences on the growth of participatory management in North America (Gregory,2003), adopted by way of “engineering codevelopment” (Asaro, 2000, p. 276), with aprimary focus on customer-centeredness. Another strand of participation evident in NorthAmerica was the shifting focus of organizations towards Business Process Reengineering


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(BPR), in which the various organizational tasks and business processes around them areanalyzed to eliminate redundancies to establish a tighter, functionally related process flow(ibid., p. 273). It is claimed that the employees tend to establish a closer and more directrelationship with the reengineered processes that they engage with. However, researchers,especially from Europe, argue that IS development in the United States is still dominatedby technocrats, their technical expertise continuing to be privileged over other forms ofknowledge (Gregory, 2003).

Bass and Shackleton (1979) distinguish between the industrial democratic aspirationsof the Scandinavian and European strands of participation in workplace settings and par-ticipative management approaches, for example, in the United States. They argue thatwhile industrial democracy movements constituted formal, structured, and often legallysupported mechanisms, described as “structural” in nature, the “behavioral” participativemanagement approaches in North America tended to be more informal, varying with indi-vidual managerial styles and corporate ethos. Notwithstanding these differences, structuraland behavioral approaches were not intrinsically mutually exclusive given their commonquest to enhance participation of workers in managerial decision-making processes.

2.1.1.4 Move towards empowerment: Agenda set by people. Within developmentstudies, a current thinking around participation is that the agenda should be decided byand for the community as per local needs and knowledge (Agrawal, 1995), and the roleof the external agency be redefined to that of facilitation, funding, monitoring/auditingphysical, and financial aspects of the action plan (Puri & Sahay, 2003a). This trend towardsempowerment has been greatly influenced by writers like Amartya Sen (1999) who hasemphasized a freedom-centered perspective on the ends and means of development. Senposits popular participation as the freedom of people to participate in development processesto influence the decisions that affect them. He proposes that social, political, and economicfreedoms are the primary ends as well as the principal means of development because oftheir constitutive as well as instrumental roles (pp. 36–37). The constitutive role comes aboutbecause development involves expansion of basic freedoms enjoyed by people, whereas theinstrumental role seeks to contribute to economic progress. Therefore, while participationof the people may be crucial as an instrument or strategy of development or management,“it must also be valued for its intrinsic value” (p. 53).

Drawing upon Habermas’ theory of communicative action (1984), Hirschheim and Klein(1994) have argued for the empowerment of end users in IS development. Similar emphasisis also evident in the IS literature influenced by critical social theory (for example, Aitken& Michel, 1995). However, practical realization of “empancipatory principles” articulatedby Hirschheim and Klein (1994) remain rather scarce in the IS domain. The explicitshift in focus towards user empowerment noticed in the development arena is not clearlydiscernible in IS domain even in the current era of end-user computing (Doll & Torkzadeh,1989; Brancheau & Brown, 1993), Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Okamura,Fujimoto, Orlikowski, & Yates, 1995), and more recently in open source computing (Braa& Hedberg, 2002). An exception in this regard is the work of Braa and Hedberg whohave explicitly included the agenda of empowerment of health workers as a means andend of health information systems development in South Africa. Byrne and Sahay’s (2003)description of the human rights approach to participation in IS design goes even furtherbecause in certain contexts such as health rights for vulnerable children, participation isnot obligatory but a normatively required “human right.” They argue that “it is obligatory(and not a choice) for people to participate” (ibid., p. 244), and the existing systems of



governance have the responsibility to create suitable conditions for such participation.While such a human rights approach takes a universalist position, transcending social andpolitical contexts, Byrne and Sahay (2003) point out that the implementation of such aparticipatory approach is politically driven involving multiple competing interests and thuscomplex.

2.1.2 What capability do people have to participate? Within developmenttheory, Sen (1992) has forcefully argued that the functioning of individuals relate to theirachievement, while capability is the ability to achieve. Capabilities thus provide space toachieve different combinations of functionings within the freedom to choose the desiredways of life. Capability in the context of participation is thus seen to include five elements:(a) acceptance and internalization of responsibility to participate, (b) authority to carry outthe consequences of participatory action and take relevant decisions, (c) access to resourcesnecessary to participate, (d) ability to communicate effectively and freely in conditions es-tablished to elicit participation, and, (e) the knowledge participants have about the problemdomain. Capability cannot be seen as something exclusive to an individual, but shaped bythe sociopolitical conditions within which the individual functions.

According to Umali, “people’s participation is based on the democratic conviction thatthere are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people” (Umali quoted in ESCAP, 1986,p. 46). However, poor and marginalized individuals and communities are frequently notable to achieve the full potential of their capability because of constraints imposed bysocial/institutional structures of customs, control, and power. Limited domain knowledge(such as of computer-based IS) may also dilute the ability to participate, for example, dueto lack of formal education, language barriers, or limited prior exposure to technologicalsolutions. These constraints differ widely, for example, for rural poor in India participatingin community IS as compared to Scandinavian workers participating in IS design to furtherthe agenda of democracy in the workplace. Therefore, the “extraordinary possibilities” thatUmali hinted at can find expression only if right conditions exist.

In the context of IS design in organizations, various researchers have emphasized thelinkage between knowledge, participation, and work practices. Orr and Crowfoot (1996,p. 205) state, “Real expertise resides with those doing the work, although the commoncorporate assumption is that knowledge is located in the centre and needs to be deliveredto the periphery.” The aim of participation and how it should be achieved in practice isthus influenced by the politics of knowledge in organizations, involving pertinent ques-tions such as “what counts as knowledge, who is acknowledged as knowing ..., and howquestions of design deal with these issues of knowledge within the organization with ref-erence to the desired location of expertise” (ibid.). The importance of considering such“invisible” knowledge in technology design has also been emphasized by Suchman (1995)who critiques the “design from nowhere” approach to IS development in which designersand end-users have little interaction (Suchman, 1994, p. 27). She argues that the objectiveepistemology of scientific and technical knowledge needs to be rearticulated to “multiple,located and partial perspectives that find their objective character through ongoing pro-cesses of debate,” (Suchman, 2002, p. 92) to accommodate lived experience. IS designbased on such a critical perspective then takes a view on participation as being achievedthrough a process of negotiation that is inherently political in nature.

2.1.3 What is the role of institutional conditions in enabling participation?Participation in projects takes place in a context that is institutional, social, political,and cultural in nature. Donor funded projects, implemented through state and central


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governments, influence participatory processes through the power of money, the normsof hierarchy and control, and the colonial legacy, which are embedded in the structuresand routines of development efforts (Nelson & Wright, 1995). How institutions enable orconstrain participation is dependent upon (a) whose knowledge is included or excluded,(b) what technologies are employed, and (c) what efforts are made to initiate change.

Within development studies, analysts have attributed the frequent failure of developmentprojects during the 1950s to 1970s to the lack of local understanding on the part of thedesigners. A main critique has been the almost total exclusion of people and communitiesfrom the development processes envisioned, implemented, and monitored by internationalfunding agencies in conjunction with national bureaucracies (Green, 2002). A key insightemanating from development studies research is to fully take into account people’s needs,perceptions, and indigenous knowledge about the problem domain in the design of devel-opment models. In India, like many other developing countries, the belief in the superiorityof scientific and technical knowledge and methods over indigenous knowledge of commu-nities and traditional practices is embedded in the functioning of scientific institutions andcontinues to persist, which adversely influences the effective participation of users in ISdevelopment (Sahay & Walsham, 1997). This dogmatic philosophy reflects the assumptionthat technological interventions using western models that are based on the universality ofscientific knowledge could be replicated.

However, more recent research shows some evidence of certain loosening of the hier-archical and top down institutional structures to promote user participation. For example,earlier failures to meaningfully implicate geographical information systems (GIS) to de-velop models based on scientific criteria alone to address land degradation issues in Indiahave led to the adoption of different approaches with more promising results (Puri &Sahay, 2003b). This turnaround has come about due to scientists’ acknowledgment of theimportance of the indigenous knowledge of local communities, and efforts being made toinscribe it into GIS design process. This thinking is in itself a critical change, as it chal-lenges the existing and deep-rooted assumptions of the universal superiority of scientificknowledge.

The use of appropriate technologies in rural settings to achieve sustainable developmenthas been emphasized in development studies research (Tolba, 1982). Taking recourse tolocally relevant technologies enhances their acceptability and participatory use. In thecontext of appropriating ICTs in development related applications in the third world,technology induction is often dictated by the funding agencies, their consultants, and byother “market” forces. Often, there is a tendency of technology overkill while transferringhardware or software for development related applications in rural contexts (Hutchinson &Toledano, 1993). National-level scientific and technical institutions also contribute to thisprocess because of their proclivity to engage with the “latest” technologies rather than whatis appropriate on the ground (Walsham & Sahay, 1999).

Efforts to initiate changes in institutional conditions to promote participation are linkedto power asymmetries inherent in bureaucratic structures. While the rhetoric of indigenousknowledge and empowerment of marginalized groups is a recurrent theme in current debatesaround development thinking, its advocates rarely “emphasize that significant shifts inexisting power relations are crucial to development” (Agrawal, 1995, p. 416). Thoughresearchers have emphasized the importance of strengthening organizational and peopleconsiderations in system design (Pinto & Azad, 1994; Sahay & Walsham, 1996), they rarelysuggest strategies for dealing with the inherent asymmetries and politics, which makescommunication between the technical and user groups fundamentally problematic. In the



context of applying ICTs in rural development programs, the power that has historicallybeen applied by system professionals over users (Markus & Bjørn-Andersen, 1987) isenhanced because of the nature of the high expertise required and its exclusivity.

2.1.4 How can local participatory processes be sustained and scaled up?In both development theory and IS, the problems of scale and sustainability are crucial.While the question of scale relates to how participatory approaches can be harnessed inlarger development efforts and extended in scope and coverage, sustainability concerns thelong-term viability of projects, including the maintenance of assets created, after externalsupport is withdrawn. If the success of development is based on effective participation, thensustaining these projects over time requires a deeper institutionalization of participatoryprocesses. The above-mentioned dilemma has also been expressed by Friedman (1992,p. 7) in the following argument:

Although an alternative development must begin locally, it cannot end there. Like it or not, the statecontinues to be a major player . . . without the state’s collaboration, the lot of the poor cannot besignificantly improved.

Often, it has been found that both development projects and IS initiatives are unableto be sustained, because the design process tends to be localized, short-term, and unableto link up with broader sociopolitical networks to “keep them going.” Pilot projects, evenwhen based on sound principles of participation, often tend to remain pilots because theydo not get integrated with institutional and political structures (Sahay & Walsham, 1997).A similar critique has also been voiced with regard to the Scandinavian participatory designapproach; for example, its micro-level focus on the participatory processes and not on howthe outcome of these processes is to be institutionalized. In the words of Clement and Vander Besselaar (1993, p. 36):

However, PD [Participative Design] is still characterized by projects with few signs that it leads toself-sustaining processes within work settings.

The above-mentioned discussion, thus, underscores the strategic importance of the localnetworks to be integrated into higher networks of power and politics to sustain participatoryprocesses in development.

2.2 Theoretical Framework

Through the previous discussion drawing upon literature in development studies and ISresearch, four problematic questions around participation have been raised. These questionshave been examined with respect to their evolution over time and the sociopolitical contextof this growth. This analysis helps to emphasize that participation is not an either/or binarycondition but a multilevel, complex, and dynamic process with an inherently politicalcharacter. This process is influenced by four sets of issues discussed in this section, and itis summarized in Table 1 below.

The previous summary provides us with the core criteria by which the participatoryaspects of ICT initiatives for development projects can be analyzed. The analysis is basedon the assumption that the use of ICTs reconfigures the dynamics around the above-mentioned four themes. For example, the networking capability of ICTs potentially allows


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TABLE 1. Summary of Literature Survey Around Participation in Development

Theme Emerging perspectives

Who defines theparticipationagenda?

1. Earlier; externally driven; people (end-beneficiaries) not involved indesign/implementation; not owned by people, development programsunsuccessful.

2. Importance of people’s participation comes into focus; increasinglypracticed; occupies center stage in development approaches.

3. Move from participation towards empowerment of people.

Critique: hidden agendas of governments; development agencies to usurppower while appearing to promote participation as power toallocate resources still embedded in these structures.

What is thecapability of thepeople toparticipate?

1. Shaped by sociopolitical context; constricted by limited domain knowl-edge; language barriers, illiteracy.

2. Latent capabilities can find expression through facilitation by sym-pathetic external agency; empowerment through democratization andrecognition of both instrumental and constitutive roles of participationalso enhance this capacity.

Critique: “community” assumed to be a monolith, unproblematic entity;public discussions may inhibit people from expressingopinions frankly; also “local” networks of relationship andpower, often invisible to outsiders, deeply modulate whatindividuals contribute during PRA-like meetings; “time-table”approach counter-productive; recourse to participatory actionresearch suggested.

What is the role ofinstitutional andsocial structures?

1. Change from central control to more decentralized systems of authorityand governance.

2. Human agency expressed as participation has the potential to modifypresent institutional/bureaucratic structures rooted in historical con-texts that hinder participation or to even create new structures.

Critique: Western “blueprint;” political technology.How to sustain andscale up participa-tory processes?

By integrating local efforts to larger networks of power and politics.Critique: Focus on process but not viability or wider acceptability ofthe end product.

the capacity of the individual to participate in more and distant efforts, while raising theneed to develop further capability in the use of ICTs. Induction of ICTs also requires newstructures to be created, for example, to provide technical support, without which thebenefits of participation cannot be fully realized. The proposed framework thus involvesan examination of the potential and achieved roles of ICT in reconfiguring (or not) therelationship between participation and development processes. This reasoning provides theanalytical lens to examine an empirical case of the use of ICTs in rural development inIndia. The research approach is now discussed.

3. RESEARCH APPROACH

The aim of the research was to understand the linkages between ICT, participatory processes,and the use of technology within the context of a rural development project in India. Aninterpretive approach was adopted for this study because our aim was to develop a richcontextualized understanding of the phenomenon.



In this section, the research method adopted for the present study is described includingbrief details of the research assumptions, setting, data collection, and data analysis.

3.1 Research Method

An interpretive case study method (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991) was adopted as it providesthe “opportunity to directly observe the unfolding events over time” (Walsham, 1993, p. 14)within its natural settings (Benbasat, Goldstein, & Mead, 1987). The study was based onthe ontological assumption that reality is socially constructed by human actors (Walsham,1995), developed and articulated through shared meaning (Klein & Myers, 1999). Our focuswas on understanding the nature of the social world at the level of subjective experience(Burrell & Morgan, 1979), how people assign meaning to them (Devine, 1995), and theprocesses through which intersubjectivity is constructed. In our case, the social worldexamined was a rural development situation in rural India in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

This social world consisted of (i) district-level government officials responsible formaintaining an electronically mediated application (Gyondoot) operated from kiosks (whichallowed villagers to transmit their grievances to the officials); (ii) the villagers who usedthe newly developed Gyandoot service; (iii) managers of Gyandoot kiosks; (iv) the mediaand the local press who critiqued or commented on the utility of this application; and, (v)the physical, technological and communication infrastructure that constituted the kiosks.Within this social world, our aim was to analyze the relationship between participation andthe use of ICTs in rural development. The interpretive orientation of the research inspiredus to examine alternative viewpoints around how people felt they had participated in thedevelopment and use of the application, and the benefits they felt it gave to their lives.

3.2 Data Collection

A field study was initiated in 2001 in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh state of centralIndia to explore the functioning of a project aptly called Gyandoot (meaning “messenger ofknowledge”). We were drawn to the project as it had been acclaimed as a pioneering successin the media (for example, The Indian Express, Mumbai, January 26, 2001), and it hadattracted widespread international attention. Another extended field visit was undertakenin 2003 to understand, first hand, how this experiment had fared in the intervening periodand to assess its current status, especially relating to issues around its sustainability. Thesetwo sets of field work conducted with a gap of over two years provided insights throughreflection as well as enabled triangulation of data by interviewing different actors overspace and time.

The analysis also drew upon secondary documentation available about the project(Rajora, 2002), in addition to the semistructured discussions and interviews conductedwith rural people, officials in the district administration, and NGOs during the two fieldvisits. The number of persons met at various sites during field visits is summarized inTable 2. The interviews were not tape-recorded because it is not an accepted practice in In-dia, particularly in the government departments. We also witnessed several demonstrationsof the system in Gyandoot villages and the district headquarters. Through these interviews,we specifically explored questions relating to (a) the motivation for introducing ICTs in apoor rural setting, (b) community involvement in its design and implementation—whetheror not the system had measured up to users’ expectations—, and (c) questions around itslong-term sustainability.


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TABLE 2. Summary of Field Work in Dhar District, 2001 and 2003

No. of persons interviewed

No. of villages/Gyandoot kiosks NIC computer staff + Villagers

Year visited kiosk manages Gov. officials and farmers NGOs Total

2001 7 3 + 7 (10) 4 15 2 382003 16 6 + 16 (22) 6 32 3 79

Total 23 32 10 47 5 117

A wide range of secondary data were also obtained from government documents thatdetailed the network capabilities of Gyandoot, services provided, and the instruction manualfor kiosk managers operating the client workstations. Much of this official literature was inthe local language of the region (Hindi). Being Hindi-speaking themselves, the researchersdid not find it difficult to interpret these documents. This material provided further insightsinto the efforts made by the district administration to create training and support structuresto implement and sustain the initiative. These were analyzed in relation to the views of thepeople gathered trough interviews. This cross-referencing gave us a sense of how thingswere working in practice.

3.3 Data Analysis

We, the two researchers, independently transcribed the notes taken during interviews andthen prepared summaries of these discussions. Thereafter, the individual understandingsof the case, developed on the basis of this material, were discussed between ourselves andsometimes with the respondents. We then tried to put together our impressions and findingsin a coherent set of themes with respect to the research questions underlying this study. Wepondered how questions around the four themes around participation, discussed previouslyin the Themes of Participation Agenda section, could be informed from analysis of theempirical data collected during field work described below.

4. THE CASE STUDY: GYANDOOT INTRANET

The innovative Gyandoot experiment was aimed at using ICTs to empower local commu-nities. It was initiated in 1999 in one of the most underdeveloped tribal areas of the country(Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh state) at the behest of the then District Collector (DCis the head of the district administration hierarchy). There was an active involvement ofcommunities, for example, to coordinate technical and financial matters (viz., the nature ofservices required by people, panchayats’1 role in fixing fees for each service) right throughthe process. The main objective of the Gyandoot project was to establish a distributedcomputer network in the district so as to provide online information to the local people onsubjects and problems that are part and parcel of everyday rural life, as well as to facilitatecommunication among communities/individuals and government departments. Some of the

1Panchayat is a political and administrative body at the level of village elected by people—institution ofself-governance recognized and empowered by the constitution of the country.



common problems that could be discussed and acted upon were, for example, facilitatingpeople to obtain various certificates (like of birth and death) frequently required from theadministration or copies of individuals’ land holdings for which, in the past, they had totravel long distances to the district headquarters.

The villages in the Dhar district, where Gyandoot was based, like in a majority ofrural settings in India, is characterized by extremely poor physical and communicationinfrastructure. Nearly 60% of the population subsisted below the poverty line,2 and theytypically had not ventured far from their villages in their lifetime. In such a setting, thevisualization of a computer network, for the people and by the people, would prima facieappear to be an irrational or even a mindless venture, as commented by a media personwhen the DC proposed his idea to other functionaries in the district and the local politicians:

Are you out of your mind? Who gave you this absurd idea? Do you want to have a departmentalinquiry instituted against you? Everybody would dissect you and your efforts (Rajora, 2002, p. 6).

However, in 1999, the DC largely following his instincts and decided to proceed forwardon this venture and to elicit public opinion through consultation with villagers duringvarious meetings held with rural communities in the physical location of the villages.The villagers were encouraged to participate along with representatives of panchayat.Effective participation has been extremely difficult to achieve in practice in a hierarchicalcontext of a district in India where the visit of a DC to a village is an infrequent anda “big” occasion, normally undertaken to make some public announcements about thegrand opening of a public scheme or to confer awards. These meetings are often welldoctored with the villagers being briefed in advance by junior officials about how to“behave” and the specific questions to ask during the brief and conducted tour of the DC.While the DC might briefly seek to answer questions posed to her or him or query thelocals about the difficulties they experienced, these attempts to elicit “participation” canbe described at best as being superficial, focusing more on form rather than on substantivecontent.

We were told that the meetings in Dhar villages were, however, conducted in sharp con-trast to this typical practice, and the DC made sincere efforts to establish a genuine rapportwith the local people and solicited their frank responses. The DC personally intervenedwhen his staff tried to modulate the meetings and ordered them to allow the locals to freelyexpress their real concerns and apprehensions. Through these interactions, the DC firstfocused upon finding out the difficulties and day-to-day irritants faced by the commoncitizen vis-a-vis the district administration. For example, he was told that the villagerswere forced to travel to the district headquarters (may be 40 km away) for mundane reasonssuch as lodging a complaint for a faulty tube-well or to obtain a caste certificate. Thepractice of physical visits to get such tasks done was also difficult to break because of thepoor communication infrastructure, and it was extremely time and money consuming fromthe perspective of a villager. A village might not even have access to a telephone, and itsavailability did not guarantee the connection being secured or the availability of the personcalled. The DC also saw for himself the strong dependence of the villagers on middlemento sell their agricultural and other products, thereby receiving very low returns in absenceof timely market information.

2Defined in 1998 as families with income below Rs. 10,000/- (US $215) per annum (Sahay & Madon, 2002).


146 PURI AND SAHAY

Once the DC was able to articulate to the villagers the advantages of access to timely andon-the-spot information and the ability to communicate with district offices directly fromthe village, the villagers were enthused about the possibilities, though initially skepticalabout how it would work in practice. Without directly discussing ICTs, the DC describeda machine that would make communication and information possible. While the villagerswere highly skeptical about paying for information, they were willing to wait to see thequality and utility of the same before finally making up their mind on the issue.

During our visit to some villages in 2001, we tried to historically reconstruct the processand utility of the participation initiative made by the DC. In one village, we witnessed afew villagers assembled in the local panchayat office. On being questioned about theparticipatory meetings conducted by DC before Gyandoot was established, they said:

Two meetings were held in this area (in 2000) lasting about four hours each. Initially, we wereskeptical, thinking that this was another government gimmick. But slowly we realized that there mightbe something purposeful this time. So, we gave our frank opinion about the prevailing difficulties andwhat kind of information and support was often needed. We did not commit to pay for the information,but agreed to keep an open mind depending on what we might actually receive in the future and howmuch was asked for it.

This was quite representative of the comments we received from three other villages wevisited in 2001.

Thus, as an outcome of these participatory planning exercises, a rough roadmap of futureplans around Gyandoot was prepared, despite strong reservations still being expressed bysome sections of the bureaucracy, the villagers’ lack of acceptance of the payment terms,and their inadequate financial capabilities. An underlying fear in the minds of some ofthe officials may also have been the potential loss of future “earnings,” resulting fromthe breakdown of the established though unofficial practice of their receiving a “fee” forservices rendered. Similar fears would also have been expressed by the middlemen whobenefited from the earlier system and typically had alliances with the officials to helpfacilitate their mutual interests.

Implementation of the first phase of the intranet for community empowerment wascommenced in 2000. The Gyandoot network was put to use in about 550 villages comprisinga total population of about 500,000. The network had client-server architecture, and theconnectivity was provided through dial-up modems via optical fiber cables from the hostand the existing telephone cables for tail links. Later, Wireless in Local Loop (WLL)technology was adopted in some areas to improve the reliability and bandwidth of data andspeech communication. The capital cost of establishing the network was met by the districtand village councils out of their quota of development funds allocated by the central andstate governments. The ownership of the network and all equipment rested with the localdistrict/village councils (panchayats) and with the private individual entrepreneurs in somelocations. The network was managed by an NGO called Gyandoot Samiti, chaired by the DC,and its other members were drawn amongst officials from local government departmentsand the district council. An operational team including the District Information Officer(from the National Informatics Center) was made responsible for day-to-day operationsand to provide technical support to the network.

The facilities were made available to the common citizen in a cluster of villages throughinformation kiosks established in 31 selected hub villages. In general, the strategy seemedto be effective, as a survey carried out by the administration in 2002 showed that 46%



of the users now needed to travel less than 1 km to access a kiosk, 31% less than 5 km,and 23% beyond 5 km (Rajora, 2002, p. 153). The kiosk managers were selected based ontheir technical suitability, and they were subsequently provided with in-depth training on therelevant software by the staff at the District National Informatics Centre in Dhar. The kioskswere run on commercial lines, with their managers not receiving any salary but generatingincome from the online and offline use of the intranet and computer facilities. Some of theprominent services provided were as follows: information on current prices of commoditiesprevailing in various markets in the district, matrimonial, public grievance redress system,e-education, and providing individual landholding certificates, etc. A summary of the onlineservices currently being provided via Gyandoot to villages in the Dhar district is availableat the Web site: http://Gyandoot.nic.in/.

We conceptualized the flow of information surrounding the interaction between the client(villager wishing to avail service) and the district administration including informationkiosks as follows:

1. The client conveyed her or his information/service need to the kiosk manager in thevicinity of her or his village.

2. As per the nature of service requested, the required information was either gatheredby the kiosk manager from the online database and provided on-the-spot to the client,or the request was forwarded online to the concerned district department through theSamiti.

3. When the response of the department was received, it was, in turn, communicated tothe client.

The flow of information is summarized in Figure 1 below.The two business models being used for Gyandoot were described to us as follows:

• Gram panchayat model: infrastructure, viz., hardware/software for the client PC,space, electricity, provided by the village level institution of self-governance; com-munication costs (viz., telephone bills) met by the soochak (kiosk manager) whoalso paid the panchayat 10% of his yearly earnings.

• Entrepreneurship model: An individual (usually a local person) invested in the infras-tructure and operated the kiosk as a private enterprise, but paid Rupees 5000/- (aboutUS $ 110) annually to the Gyandoot Samiti.

In both the models, the charges for Gyandoot services were levied based on service andwere fixed by the Samiti. The kiosk manager was allowed to augment income through otheroffline work, such as word processing, desktop publishing, providing computer training tocustomers, etc. All services were available in the local language of the region (Hindi).

Several villagers we met with while visiting kiosks in 2001 appeared to be reasonablysatisfied with the services being provided as they were able to address some of their everydayproblems. One of them remarked:

Gyandoot has been a godsend for me! I had to run from pillar to post earlier to get my tube wellrepaired. Now, I send a message and someone comes along fairly quickly to look at it and fix it.

Villagers also described the grievance redressal system to have been effective, andcomplaints logged by the users with various departments were also made electronically


148 PURI AND SAHAY

Gyandootserver at

Dhar

VillageKiosk

(client node)

Citizens(villagers)

Response to originator (8)

Request forwarded to (2) Response (7)

GyandootSamiti

Response of Department (6)

Request sent to Samiti (3)

D1 D2 Dn

Feedback from Department (5)

9

Sent to department concerned (4)

………..

Information request (1)

Departments of district administration

Figure 1 Information flow in the Gyandoot network. (Line 9 shows that villagers may personallycollect documents etc., after receiving confirmation from the department concerned.)

available to the DC and other senior functionaries. These petitions were regularly reviewedby the DC who tried to ensure that action was taken. Most problems were attended to andsolved within days, something unimaginable earlier. As the various features of Gyandootwere increasingly used, people said they were reasonably happy to pay for the services.There was an increased, broader awareness developing among the villagers about thepotential benefits of ICTs. Gyandoot was seen to be a source of inspiration for studentsexamining alternative career choices. Thirty-five schools in the district had installed PCswith dial-up connectivity to the network. Access to market information was also describedto have improved local income levels much to the chagrin of unscrupulous middlemen.

During discussions, most villagers rated kiosk managers as helpful and cooperativealthough there were a few complaints regarding the latter’s irregular availability duringpublicized working hours. Generally, villagers felt that the managers were able to structureand articulate their problems more effectively, and they made efforts to get them satisfactoryservices from district departments.

Despite initial cynicism expressed by many quarters (such as the local media and depart-mental functionaries), the project was assessed to be successful by independent researchers(for example, see Cecchini & Raina, 2004); and the pioneering effort of the DC was ac-knowledged through the Stockholm Challenge Award, 2000, and a National Award for bestusage of IT in India sponsored by the Computer Society of India. The New York Times(May 28, 2000) summarized the experiment as, “the story of the cow and the computer isa parable showing that sometimes the simplest information is the most valuable.”



During a subsequent visit by us in 2003, attempts were made to evaluate the sustainabilityof the network. The number of kiosks had increased to 39. During discussions with kioskmanagers in different locations, it was found that that on an average of six persons perday availed of Gyandoot services. The kiosk managers attributed the low clientele to therelative lack of awareness still existing about Gyandoot’s features and services. Anothermajor impediment described was the low reliability of the telephone network and electricsupply (though each kiosk had backup power for six hours). The kiosks served by WLLtechnology had considerably improved communication reliability; but in the event of amalfunction, the repair took longer as a trained engineer had to travel from Chennai (about1000 km away) to attend to the problem. The Samiti representative said that they were tryingto deal with the issue and efforts were being made to locate a trained engineer in Dhar.Presently, the most sought out service was described as obtaining copies of land holdingsof individuals, which were earlier provided by the revenue department. This document isextremely important to the villagers as it is required for various purposes, such as makingloan applications to banks, obtaining an electricity connection, etc. Now, the entire landholding records were available on a CD with kiosk managers, and the hard copies of recordsauthenticated by them were accepted by different government departments, except in thecourts of law. Electronic availability of land records, it was told, had helped to eliminatemany a corrupt practice. An updated CD was provided by the Samiti to each Kiosk everythree months.

The public grievance redress system, which was initially more popular, had lost some ofits appeal due to delays experienced in receiving feedback from the district departments andpoor turnaround time for maintenance of faulty telephone lines and the computer network.The need for scrutiny and monitoring at senior levels of district administration (as was thecase when the network became operational in 2000) was also underscored. One of the kioskmanagers made the following comment:

When the network was launched, the DC used to visit kiosks almost every other day. There wasa lot of activity with the national and international media frequently descending on the scene. Theresponse from the administration on grievances was quick and action-oriented. These were personallymonitored by the DC and other senior officials. If no feedback was provided within specified period,usually within a week, erring officials were taken to task, and the administration was on its toes. Weheard the DC got big awards, after which he was transferred, and Gyandoot’s functioning has becomeroutine. Much depends on the DC and other senior officials.

It was, however, mentioned by the kiosk managers that commercial banks in the districthad now realized the financial potential of this project and were said to be willing to extendloans to individuals who might want to set up similar kiosks in other villages.

Two senior officers of the district administration told us that they were aware of the prob-lems affecting the network and had decided to expand the WLL mode of communication.The technology firm in question had also conducted a feasibility study, and a few additionalkiosks had switched over to WLL. Adding more kiosks to the network would make eco-nomic sense to further invest in WLL technology, and plans were afoot to encourage otherkiosks using this technology to be set up in the next few years (Ramadesikan & Philip,2002).

A senior official tried to explain to us the reasons for the diminishing level of popularityof the grievance redressal system:


150 PURI AND SAHAY

In the initial stage, all efforts were concentrated on making the experiment a success. The mediaattention that followed the initial success was a key factor in keeping the network going against allodds. Over time, this kind of experiment must become a part of the overall system. Its managementhas since been decentralized. We are trying to improve response to the public by motivating the juniorofficials who need to perform better. As I said, the network must be embedded in the routines ofadministration. We are very confident of achieving this objective even if the present progress appearsto be somewhat slow.

Another official stated that while PCs had been installed in most district departments,some with connectivity to the network, most work was still done manually, entailing delays.He also said that realigning the institutional work practices to the digital era was a difficultprocess of change, coming about only gradually. The younger staff, particularly at thejunior level, saw working on PCs as a social embellishment vis-a-vis those who were stillfunctioning within the “typewriter era.” Their heightened level of motivation augurs wellfor the future despite the operational problems still being experienced.

Notwithstanding the initial cynicism displayed by local journalists and other groupsof people, the success of Gyandoot, even if lukewarm and halting, provides evidenceof the empowering role of knowledge facilitated through the imaginative use of ICTs inpartnership with end-users. The project has created a demand for replication of such ventureselsewhere in the state as per local needs. The state government of Madhya Pradesh hadtherefore decided to develop such networks in phases, in all districts, in the coming yearsand in consultation with the people (as stated by the Chief Minister; Singh, 2002, p. xii),while acknowledging that such knowledge networks bridge the gap between micro-levelactivism and macro-level policy discourse (ibid., p. xi). The scaling up to other districtsmay help in due course of time to make Gyandoot an accepted institutionalized form ofgovernance.

5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The focus of our analysis is to examine if, how, and why ICT has (re) configured thedynamics of the relation between participation and processes of rural development. Thisexamination is presented around the four issues relating to participation elaborated upon inthe Theoretical Framework section.

5.1 Who Defines the Participation Agenda?

Before Gyandoot was established, villagers sought appropriate information most oftenthrough middlemen or personal networks to make everyday decisions such as how to pricetheir agricultural products in different markets. It was extremely difficult and a frustratingproposition to make direct contact with government institutions to seek remedial measuresto their difficulties. The DC’s efforts to consult with people during the Gyandoot designstage and encourage them to freely express opinions about their difficulties and possiblesolutions reflect shades of a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach. The kind ofonline services to be provided on the intranet were largely decided by the local people on thebasis of such a consultative process. The DC had realized that unless there was a demand forsuch services, the initiative would fail. After the network was implemented and the servicessought by people began to gradually yield the desired impact, particularly in the grievance



redressal system, traces of citizen empowerment (and middlemen disempowerment) couldbe discerned. Community members were now able to proactively articulate their demandsindependently for better and additional services and improved governance. The transferof the DC in 2001, however, provided some politicians and the lower level bureaucracyan opportunity to try to scuttle the program (Bhatnagar & Vyas, 2001) and regain powerlost through Gyandoot. However, the new administrative team was equally convinced ofthe utility of the network, and they were seen to make continued sincere efforts to sustainand even enhance the initiative. As people become used to a certain level and standardof service, they could be expected to potentially resist attempts to withdraw or dilute it.Gyandoot demonstrates an example of how ICTs can be effectively used by people to definethe agenda of participation in development, provided the institutional support is enabled.

The Gyandoot experiment emphasizes that these participatory opportunities can be fa-cilitated using the capability of ICTs through more effective information and knowledgesharing, and by establishing its linkage to the provision of easier access to basic amenitiesand services. In Dhar, this required a strong administrative will on part of the DC to createa decentralized structure in which the villagers could access more inexpensive servicesfrom the proximity of their villages and bypass some of the earlier power exercised by themiddlemen. Sharing of information and knowledge is to be reckoned as the most potentinstrument of power devolution and to support broader processes of social transformation.Increased power sharing will help to enhance accountability and emphasize a greater rolefor the community in decision making processes. Committed officials can facilitate theseprocesses through judicious use of ICTs.

However, the role of power in IS development and implementation need not alwaysbe negative; used judiciously, power can be exercised for more appropriate allocationof resources or establishing rules to frame the conduct of a project. For example, Silva(2002) demonstrated how through the judicious use of power, the outsourcing of theadministrative information systems of the two largest hospitals in a Latin American countrywas successfully implemented (see also, Silva & Backhouse, 2003). Similarly, in theGyandoot case, the DC, who has supreme administrative powers in the district, usedhis position power to facilitate participatory processes and understand user’s needs thatformed the basis for the system. Without this use of power, arguably, these processes couldnever have been initiated because of the historically existing gap (geographical and social)between villagers and the district administration.

5.2 What Capability Do People Have to Participate?

While the use of ICTs can potentially enhance the capabilities of people to participate, italso raises the urgent needs to upgrade the skills and capability of community members toeffectively use the technology, knowledgably engage in the process of development, andraise awareness in the community to further new opportunities. Without this technical andsocial capability, benefits would remain limited, and the dependence on the institutionalstructures may increase rather than decrease.

In the Gyandoot experiment, some of the above-mentioned constraints were overcomeby setting up kiosks whose managers acted as “gateways” between the common user andthe intranet, both for technical help and to inform the community about the availability ofservices. Potentially, kiosk managers can increasingly play advocacy as well as intermediaryroles vis-a-vis the local people and seek to function as effective change agents. They were


152 PURI AND SAHAY

able to effectively communicate with the communities and gain their trust because of beingperceived as “locals,” because they usually resided in the same area and had similar socialbackgrounds as the community users. Similar to this role of intermediary agents, Madonand Sahay (2002) also describe a case study about developing information strategies tosupport the empowerment of marginalized slum dwellers in the city of Bangalore, India.The limitations in capabilities, due to illiteracy of the slum dwellers, were sought to beenhanced by an NGO who played the role of an intermediary, for example, by developingsystems in audio (rather than written) forms as a means of communication. As a result,the NGO was able to strengthen the capabilities of the slum dwellers through increasedawareness about their rights, which enabled them to participate more effectively in thedefinition and implementation of projects by the municipal authorities aimed at improvingtheir living conditions (Beck, Madon, & Sahay, 2004; see also Edwards & Hulme, 1992).Similarly, the kiosk managers, served as intermediaries through strategies of providinginformation of the services to the community and technical support to access these services,so as to enable the villages to participate more effectively in the definition and use of theGyandoot services.

A positive sign for the future also is that local students had evinced a keen interest inICTs, and the availability of e-services in the local language enabled their more activeinvolvement. The creation of this cadre of local users could potentially generate morefavorably the capability of community members and open up work avenues that neverexisted before (for example, to avail bank loans to help set up kiosks).

The media’s role in enhancing capability is to be reckoned as preeminent in broadbasingthe changes by extending knowledge to influence opinions. Building such an informed per-spective helps to add a new dimension to the process of developmental strategy. The media,as the Gyandoot case demonstrates, can potentially be used to make visible, successful de-velopment efforts, and it can provide a channel for making the learnings gathered from suchexperiences more broadbased and subject to critical attention. It is through such “open”discourses that the real development needs of the people can be more effectively estab-lished, their participation fostered, and contribute to the creation of sustaining value-basedsystems (Sen, 1999).

5.3 What is the Role of Institutional Conditions in Enabling Participation?

It is important for agencies responsible for development planning to critically examinetheir capabilities to engage with ongoing changes in knowledge systems and to leverageits potentialities for development. However, this is difficult to achieve in practice; dueto historical reasons, the administrative systems in many developing countries represent astrong bureaucracy with compartmentalized and centralized ways of working. Despite manystrides having been made in the democratization of institutions, particularly at the grassrootslevel, “real” change is still limited as majority of poor people remain marginalized in theiropportunity to participate in decision making processes.

People suffer from deprivation of access to information, to basic amenities and thereforeare not able to be equal partners in development. This marginalization is magnified ascommunity members have to deal with a highly regimented and closed system of governancefor obtaining services that in principle should be available as a right, but for which theyare forced to pay “fees” to a corrupt bureaucracy. It is through the openness of the deliverysystem and accompanying service mechanisms that people perceive and enact their roles



in the governance structures. Streamlining delivery mechanisms helps citizens visualizechanges in the structure. For instance, by providing access to revenue records, ensuring thatthe basic needs of health, food, security, and water are within easy reach, and providingan enabling environment to acquire knowledge, the people can give expression to theirexpectations. ICTs provide an effective medium in technical terms to avail of and enhancethis access and dissemination of expression.

However, a major inhibiting factor in improving access to IT services in developingcountries, particularly India, is that of technical connectivity. The limitations of requisitebandwidth and Internet connectivity, especially in rural areas, are linked up with the tele-phony infrastructure. Although the situation has changed quite dramatically over the years,there is still no universal coverage through telephone or Internet, which serves to accentuatethe gaps in access, as has been emphasized by the World Development Report (1999).

The Gyandoot network demonstrates a successful experiment with WLL, which over timehas became an important element in the “Web of computing” (Kling & Scacchi, 1982). The“Web” is populated by other entities, such as “commitments, additional resources such astraining, skilled staff, and support services, and the development of organizational arrange-ments, policies, and incentives,” required to successfully utilize and apply the technologyin “some socioeconomic activity” (Orlikowski & Icono, 2001, p. 125). More recent criticalanalyses by researchers suggest that while participatory design may be necessary, it is notsufficient in itself to ensure success of the IS due to the predominant political nature of theworkplace (Howcroft & Wilson, 2003). In Gyandoot, while the technical network was anecessary precondition to provide remote access, the sufficiency was enhanced to a largebut not complete extent through the participatory processes, which, for example, helped toidentify the various relevant services that should be provided and establish relevant supportmechanisms.

5.4 How do Participatory Processes Become Sustainable, Scalable?

Mursu, Tiihonen, & Korpela (2005) suggest that sustainability and scalability of IS may beanalyzed around three factors: (a) assessing the actual demand for the technology, (b) howusable the ICT is in the everyday activity of users, and (c) the support services available.While the first two issues contribute to developing increased awareness about what servicesexist and how the technology supports access to these services, the third point concernsthe support required to operationally implement these services. Such local grounding ofawareness, support, and capabilities contributes to the development of systems that aremore sustainable as well as for their extension to other contexts.

The Gyandoot experiment demonstrates that the demand for information exists in ruralcommunities, even if it may lie latent for want of expression. Given the right leadership,support, and an environment for free expression, such demands can be structured andchanneled into financially and socially sustainable ventures. The Gyandoot experiment, incontrast to many other contemporary projects of telecenters, demonstrates that technicalconnectivity on its own is useless unless it is meaningfully integrated with the everydayinformational and social needs of people. Without this “connectivity” between local needsand the technological infrastructure, the sustainability and scalability of such efforts willalways remain vulnerable.

An interesting aspect of the Gyandoot initiative is reflected in the funding arrangementswhereby the startup costs were either born by the panchayats or the entrepreneurs, whilethe operational costs were met from the income accruing from the transaction fees paid


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by the kiosk clientele. This is contrary to typical projects that are dependent on subsidiesand government support over their life period (Cecchini, 2002) and become unsustainablewhen external funding support is withdrawn. The second aspect, which provides hope forfuture sustainability and enhancement of the network, is the keenness of local entrepreneursto come forward to manage new kiosks and the willingness of the commercial banks tofinance these ventures. Colle (2000, p. 442) notes that “telecenters need to be demanddriven, and demand should be reflected in community’s willingness to pay for some ser-vices.” Because the design of Gyandoot tends to be embedded in the information needsnecessary for the functioning of the everyday lives of the people, such as their need to geta grievance addressed or a birth certificate collected, it is hoped this inscribed need canhelp to provide the “sustainability glue” in the future. Schuler (1994, p. 41) reminds us thatartifacts are constructed as per conscious and subconscious decisions of designers, inscrib-ing “politics” in the artifacts to promote certain attitudes and values, while discouraging orsuppressing others. Once these choices are strongly inscribed, it is difficult to implementchanges subsequently. Schuler (ibid.) goes on to say that, “community networks are noexception [to this logic]. In fact, the issue of attitudes and values—the politics of commu-nity networks—makes participation in community network development important.” Thedesign of Gyandoot arguably was based to an extent on these sound principles of involvingcommunity knowledge and participation (Doll & Torkzadeh, 1989).

While analyzing Gyandoot’s future sustainability, Warschauer (2003b, p. 38) observed:

While the number of users is a small percentage of the population, but the benefits of this project, suchas improved government services, eventually ripple outwards to friends, families and co-workers.The underlying approach—a combination of well-planned and low-cost infusions of technology withcontent development and educational campaigns targeted to social development—is surely a healthyalternative to projects that rely on planting computers and waiting for something to grow.

The number of kiosks going up only marginally from 31 to 39 between 2001 and 2003 isan indicator that a sustainable clientele is yet to build up. The system was initially used toperform the “old” work using the new technology within a new institutional setting; and aspeople became more familiar with them, new ways of performing the same functions weredeveloped, reflecting a process of evolution of use. This evolution may require the need todevelop new approaches and functionalities to meet redefined information needs of people(Aronoff, 1993). While such changes can pose potential challenges to sustainability, it is byactively engaging in such a process of critical self-reflection and change that a structure forlong term sustainability can be created because “what does not change will die,” implyingthat systems need to be flexibly sustainable.

As noted, the design of Gyandoot was based on a participatory assessment of the na-ture of services required and valued by the local communities and by drawing upon theirlocal knowledge. The then District Collector (the project champion) concentrated muchof his personal and the district administration’s energies to make Gyandoot a success,as well as to make this success visible to draw the media’s and state government’s at-tention to the potential benefits of using ICTs in rural settings. Some initial structuresto enable mechanisms of sustainability were established, such as the formal acceptanceby the authorities of redressal of complaints received through the medium of Gyandoot.Such acceptance helped to inscribe the outputs from the system into the everyday workingof the district administration. However, in order for such mechanisms to be further sus-tained they also need to be scaled. For example, district administration should then start



to get complaints through Gyandoot from the whole district, not just the villages wherethe kiosks are located, for them to have uniform and stable ways of working. This level ofscale had not been achieved during the period of our research, the progress and spread ofthe Gyandoot also being impeded to an extent by the transfer of the high profile projectchampion.

6. CONCLUSIONS

The research objective of this article was to analyze the relationship among participation,the use of ICTs, and rural development processes. Bass and Shackleton’s (1979) distinctionbetween structural and behavioral forms of participation helps us to further abstract fromour analysis. Our analysis of development literature had pointed out to the importance ofstructural changes being made to facilitate and sustain participation and with it the outcomeof the development project. For example, critiques of the externally defined agenda ofdevelopment contributed to the decentralization of structures and the evolution of RRAand PRA kinds of participatory techniques, and the later trend towards empowerment ofcitizens.

The behavioral form of participation has been emphasized in IS literature, with an excep-tion of some of the Scandinavian experiments that advocated a more structural approach toparticipation. For example, the critical tradition, in which the organization was consideredas a framework of conflicts, emphasized that a behavioral form of participation alone wasinadequate while seeking structural changes (Bansler, 1989). The behavioral focus hasbroadly led to the articulation of techniques, for example, prototyping, to more effectivelyincorporate user needs into the design and development processes and with it create moreeffective systems. An example in this regard is the work of Checkland (1981), and Check-land and Schole (1990) in the articulation of the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), whichbases systems design on collective thinking and shared perspectives among stakeholders.

Critiques of behavioral approaches have come in the form of systems not being scaleableor sustainable to desired levels. This criticism points us to the need for structural changesto complement the behavioral focus. The Gyandoot case illustrates the manner in whichthis is trying to be achieved in practice. The comparatively easy access to governmentdepartments by the common people, the establishment of new norms dictating responsiveaction by the former, the acceptance of certificates generated through Gyandoot as officialdocuments, exemplify the emergence of some new structures of governance. Behavioralaspects are also evident in the consultative process adopted by the DC to base system designon a shared perspective and to offer services that were relevant to local people through thekiosks.

A theoretical contribution of this article is to point to learnings both from the developmenttheory and IS literature, and how these together can better inform IS design processes, par-ticularly in developing country settings. In such settings, structural changes are necessarygiven the deep-rooted conditions of bureaucratic functioning, colonial legacies, and infras-tructural constraints. In spite of these contextual conditions, the combination of these twoapproaches can potentially contribute to the development of systems that are more effectiveand more scalable and sustainable in the long run. The need to judiciously integrate thestructural and behavioral approaches provides some future directions, especially relevant toaddressing the problem of scaling and sustainability. For example, as the number of kiosksincrease, the need to create structural mechanisms to deal with the crucial problem of


156 PURI AND SAHAY

technical support becomes key. Ongoing behavioral approaches are also required to un-derstand how the services are being taken up by the community and what additionalapplications would be welcome.

Initiatives like Gyandoot demonstrate that ICT-based innovation can thrive amongpoverty and lack of formal education, countering arguments made by some commentatorswho have raised questions about the validity and long-term viability of adopting such“hi-tech” approaches by poor countries, like India (Bhatnagar & Vyas, 2001). While theexploitation of poverty tends to institutionalize ignorance, participatory development opensup possibilities of instilling new forms of knowledge in societies. ICTs can catalyze changeprocesses, and initiatives such as Gyandoot provide us with some practical approaches to doso. This initiative illustrates that ICTs, if effectively designed, implemented, and supportedcan further the instrumental and constitutive roles of peoples’ freedoms and help create astronger democratic framework to support people’s empowerment (Sen, 1999).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Associate Editor, Prof. Eric Monteiro, and the anonymous reviewers formaking very useful suggestions for improving the earlier version. We are obliged toDr. Ajai Kumar of the Indian Forest Service who went through an initial draft and gaveus incisive and thought-provoking feedback. We are grateful to Dr. H. K. Jain, Director,Institute for Resources Conservation, Indore, for providing assistance during the secondphase of our fieldwork.

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Satish K. Puri is currently Guest Researcher in the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo,Norway, based at New Delhi (India). He has an M. Tech. degree in computer science from theIndian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University ofOslo, Norway. His current research interests include ICT-based initiatives in support of communitydevelopment and the role of user participation in IS applications.

Sundeep Sahay is Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo, Norway.Professor Sahay has been actively involved in researching social, organizational, and managerialimplications of IS/GIS systems in both developed and developing countries. His current researchactivities include health information systems and issues relating to global software organizations. Hehas published extensively both in IS and organization studies.


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