Exclusion of Scheduled Tribes in Access to Digital Services in India: Bottlenecks and the Way Forward

Abstract

The digital India initiative was launched in 2015 with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Digital India strives to bring inclusive growth and bridge the digital divide by leveraging technology solutions that are low cost, developmental, and transformative and designed to empower ordinary Indians. However, digital services are not being uniformly distributed and accessible to all segments of the society. Some communities, the Scheduled Tribes (STs) in particular-face considerable obstacles in accessing digital services and are either completely or partially excluded. ‘Exclusion’ in the socio-political context may be defined as the process through which individuals or groups are wholly or partially excluded from full participation in the society in which they live. The ST population represents one of the most economically backward and socially excluded groups in India. As per 2011 Census, ST population constitute 8.6% of the total population of the India. They generally live in remote areas mainly forests, hills and inaccessible areas and speak a different language. The tribes have been confined to low status and are often physically and socially isolated. The process of social exclusion in STs are closely associated with the factors like geographical isolation, high level of poverty, low level of education, economical exclusion, socio-cultural exclusion, socially least awareness, miss out government services and welfare programmes, less exposure in society, etc,. In this backdrop, the present paper is to analyse major issues and challenges faced by Indian tribal community in access to digital services and digital platforms.