The recent history of public service telecommunications in India
In India access and affordability are the key words that define the proviso of ensuring a
‘‘phone in each village’’. However, even the ‘‘phone in each village’’ slogan is comparatively
new. Until the early 1990s, the telephone was considered a luxury item – and in the context
of a dirigiste economy with a distinctly socialist twist, the provision of such a luxury item was
not a priority. The focus up until the fifth five year plan (FYP) was ensuring a country-wide
postal service. This service began in pre-colonial India, and was established during the time
of the Mughal Emperors, in particular Akbar, who ruled in the fifteenth century. There is
evidence from Kerala state in South India, that an ‘‘anchal’’ (postal) system was in operation
from 1502 onwards based on a system of runners who delivered vegetables and flowers for
the palace and temple. By 1755 a proper postal system had been established in Kerala by
the then Maharaja and in fact it existed side by side with the postal system that was
established by the British government in 1866[1]. This undoubtedly served an important
public service function. The literate postman often read letters that had been sent to the
illiterate, wrote letters for them, communicated information on politics and social change,
and gossip, and often was a trusted member of the family and village[2]. It is for this reason
that the postal worker remains an iconic figure in Indian popular culture, immortalised in
novels such as The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R.K. Narayan and in Indian cinema, most
recently, in the Bollywood film Chingaari (2006). This role stands in contrast to that of the
telecommunications worker in modern India who basically was involved in extending an
‘‘elite’’ service that, until recently, was not even affordable to the middle-classes. In fact
postmen and women continue to play an important role in development. In the state of
Jharkhand, which is predominantly populated by ‘‘tribals’’, postmen are involved in the
delivery of healthcare, including anti-malarial medicines and in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest
state, they are involved in delivering condoms and family planning advice. 89 percent of the
155,000 post offices spread over India serve rural India where more than 70 percent of the
population live[3]. In other words, the postal worker continues to have the latitude to collapse
his/her private/public roles and extend public service in highly personalised ways, a very
different prospect from the public service typically extended through the mediation of
technology. This difference does suggest that there the quality of public service
communications is an important consideration. It is only during the 6th FYP (1980-85)[4]
that mention is made of telecommunications for rural services: